The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>Plans to build a dam on the Nile River have incited protests, outrage, and even violence as Sudanese villagers demonstrate their opposition to a project that would flood them out of their ancient homeland.</p>

June 21 - National Geographic

<p>A number of studies have detailed the decreasing amount of time children spend outdoors -- a revelation that is prompting policy makers to look for ways to pull kids away from indoor activities such as video games and the Internet.</p>

June 21 - The Washington Post

<p>In a move to address poverty in the city, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has started a program that will pay low-income residents for doing things perceived to break the cycle of poverty, such as visiting a doctor and attending school regularly.</p>

June 21 - ABC News

<p>Author Robert Bruegmann and activist Gloria Ohland debate over urban sprawl.</p>

June 20 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>A Brazilian tribe is in talks with Google to use its satellite imaging program to monitor and prevent illegal logging in the tribal reservation of more than 600,000 acres in the Amazon rainforest.</p>

June 20 - International Herald Tribune

BLOG POST

<p>Local officials are rightfully leery of someone who shows up at their doorstep and proclaims, &quot;I&#39;m from the U.S. Government ... and I&#39;m here to help you.&quot; That probably goes double for the Environmental Protection Agency. But when a team arrives from the EPA’s Smart Growth office, rather than scrambling to bar the door, local officials greet them with open arms — because they really do provide essential assistance.</p>

June 20 - Anonymous

<p>By 2030, an estimated 2 billion of the 5 billion people who will be living in cities will live in slums, primarily in Africa and Asia.</p>

June 20 - Forbes

<p>Industrialists in Africa are pushing for the creation of a giant dam on the Congo River that would generate enough energy for the half-billion people on the continent without electricity. The huge project has been called "a Marshall Plan for Africa."</p>

June 20 - International Herald Tribune

<p>Many cities are following the lead of various municipalities up and down California that are using any and all possible powers to prevent Wal-Marts from moving in. But despite the growing opposition, business is booming.</p>

June 20 - The Christian Science Monitor

<p>Commuters in Boston are the most likely city dwellers to walk to work, but are second-to-last among commuters in 50 American cities to carpool, according to Census data.</p>

June 20 - The Boston Globe

<p>New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg views citizens as customers and city workers as assets. How does this translate into a new city hall transparency and vastly improved city services?</p>

June 20 - Business Week

<p>"The Unforeseen," a new documentary, takes a thoughtful look at the various interests at stake in the development of sprawling real estate in Austin.</p>

June 20 - NOW

<p>With many developers touting their various projects as "smart growth", the term is losing much of it meaning.</p>

June 20 - The Hartford Courant

<p>A rash of illegal tree cutting in Seattle has prompted local officials to act on the city's decreasing amount of trees and canopy cover. Tree-planting efforts hope to build the canopy back from less than its current city coverage of less than 20%.</p>

June 20 - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

<p>Hong Kong's unique system of escalators, moving walkways, and pedestrian bridges has transformed the neighborhoods it connects.</p>

June 19 - Pruned

<p>LA Times architectural critic Christopher Hawthorne examines the depressing-looking new and massive 104-acre U.S. embassy compound being constructed in Iraq within the 'Green Zone'.</p>

June 19 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>China is establishing a living wall of vegetation to hold back the Gobi desert that is heading southeast to Beijing.</p>

June 19 - Seed

<p>Amidst Miami's highrise condo boom, the Design District offers buildings and plazas with innovative design at a more human scale.</p>

June 19 - The Miami Herald

<p>Despite big plans to make the city a national example for environmental friendliness, some say Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's measures have failed to produce the intended results.</p>

June 19 - The Chicago Tribune

<p>Sandy Springs, Georgia, with 80,000 residents, has apparently successfully outsourced all government functions, except for police and fire services.</p>

June 19 - The Tampa Tribune