The Daily Source of Urban Planning News
Missouri Town Approves Form-Based Code
<p>The town of Blue Springs, Missouri, has turned to a form-based code to help revitalize its downtown and improve predictability for residents and developers alike.</p>
Island's Water Supply And Land Threatened By Warming
<p>Global warming is causing significant long- and short-term problems for the highly populated Mediterranean island of Malta, many parts of which would be submerged by rising sea levels, and whose water supply would be contaminated by sea water.</p>
Should Gas Taxes Be Raised To Fund Public Transit?
<p>While public transit trips have been increasing, funding the systems remains a chronic problem, illustrated by the woes facing the Chicago El. This editorial urges Congress to increase the gas tax to provide all transit systems more revenue.</p>
Dirty School Bus? Plug It In
<p>Diesel school buses are typically high polluters. But production has begun on environmentally-friendlier electric-diesel hybrid buses, and school districts in 11 states have made orders.</p>
New TGV Train Sets New Speed Record
<p>A new high-speed rail line exceeded 357 miles per hour in a recent test, nearly matching a record set by magnetic levitation technology.</p>
An Ode To Red Tile Roofs and Stucco
<p>Nostalgia for the red tile roofs and stucco exteriors of 1980's SoCal suburbia.</p>
What Changing Demographics Mean For Cities And The Housing Market
<p>The nation's population trends can give planners insight into the demand for housing in the coming decades.</p>
Two Abandoned Railroads, Two Different Results
<p>Debate over the future of an elevated railway in Philadelphia is missing a key ingredient that has helped pushed New York's High Line project forward -- leadership and vision.</p>
Public Libraries Cope With America's Homeless Problem
<p>What library schools don't cover: The fact that public libraries are now de-facto homeless shelters, and librarians are having to act not only as social workers but also as frontline medical staff.</p>
New York City's Latest Infill Strategy
<p>With developable land all but gone in Manhattan, developers are now setting their sights on the open space many modernist housing towers reserved for basketball courts, plazas, and parks.</p>
Linking Parking Fees To Emissions
<p>One London borough has taken to charging higher parking fees to the owners of high-emission vehicles.</p>
BLOG POST
Schizophrenic Policy Makers Pursue Buying Economic Development
<font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">My local community recently got into political spat as the city, county and state negotiated the terms of a deal to attract a major corporation to bring a facility to the community. In the interest of high-quality growth, tens of millions in dollars and various perks were offered to attract a very well-heeled corporate player. In the meantime, Floridians frustrated with the inability of government to be willing or able to keep up with growth in terms of providing the requisite infrastructure; sewer, water, transportation, etc., increased the pressure on governments to have new development pay for growth rather than having it increase the tax burden on existing residents. Let's see:
Seattle's Workforce Grappling With Housing Shortage
<p>The city is revisiting its affordable housing programs, which currently do little to help moderate-income residents who are increasingly priced out of homeownership.</p>
Town's Smart Growth Vision Remains Unrealized
<p>Residents of one Upstate New York town have spent 4 years trying to transform a former hospital site into an mixed-use town center, without success.</p>
The Not-So-Evergreen State
<p>Widespread development in Washington has changed the landscape of the state from forests to houses. Experts are predicting a further loss of more than 300,000 acres of forests within the next several years.</p>
Do We Need To Rethink Gentrification?
<p>A growing number of scholars argue that traditional ideas about the causes of gentrification, as well as the winners and losers, may be unfit to describe the complex processes happening in modern day cities.</p>
BLOG POST
A Glimpse of California's Past
<p>Travel a few miles outside of Santa Barbara and you’ll encounter a truly rare scene – rare for coastal California in the year 2007, that is.
BLOG POST
So Many Cities, So Much Mediocrity
<p>Here's an item that should be more than enough to make you spew your morning latte all over the Starbucks: </p><p> In a <a href="http://www.mercerhr.com/summary.jhtml?idContent=1173105" target="_blank">survey</a>, conducted last year and released yesterday by Mercer Consulting, ranking the top 50 global cities by quality of life, not a single American city cracks the top half. Zero. </p>
Mayor Releases 'Realistic' Plan For New Orleans
<p>The newly released blueprint by Mayor Ray Nagin and Recovery Chief Ed Blakely may be the type of practical redevelopment plan New Orleans has been waiting for all along.</p>
The World's Cleanest City
<p>A new survey has named Calgary the cleanest and most sanitary city in the world.</p>
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
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