The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>An 18 million square-foot hotel and commercial resort in Las Vegas is set to become the largest LEED-certified project in the U.S. when it opens in 2009. Other builders are expected to follow the green path in Nevada, where tax breaks are generous.</p>

January 25 - Las Vegas Sun

<p>The city's Port Authority has proposed cutting 25 percent of its bus and rail service and hiking fares by 75 cents to plug an $80 million budget deficit.</p>

January 25 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

<p>Cheap rents draw many young people into less fashionable neighborhoods -- sparking gentrification -- though sometimes the trade-offs can be more than bargained for.</p>

January 25 - The Wall Street Journal

<p>Wendell Cox discusses the "faulty predictions" of a recent report on the prevalence of asthma in 100 U.S. metropolitan areas.</p>

January 25 - From the Heartland

<p>Equity refuges from the Golden State are driving up home prices, increasing traffic, liberalizing politics and bringing crime to cities in the Interior West.</p>

January 25 - The Economist

<p>The City of Youngstown, Ohio has decided to give up on reviving its industrial era population, and set about the process of shrinking the city down to a size more in line with its economy.</p>

January 24 - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

<p>Amid a flurry of subsidies in other states offered to companies like Microsoft and Yahoo!, Google plans to open a $600 million data center in Lenoir, North Carolina, population 17,000. The city will offer a generous tax break and a state grant.</p>

January 24 - San Jose Mercury News

<p>A wave of gentrification is threatening Manhattan's Puerto Rican enclave.</p>

January 24 - The New York Times

<p>A former New York corporate lawyer turned developer is pouring his love for historic and human scaled urbanism into the city's neglected core.</p>

January 24 - The Boston Globe

<p>This report from <em>National Public Radio</em> discusses ideas for placing control of federally-funded Amtrak into the hands of a federal-state partnership. Many feel funding for rail should be de-nationalized and governed by regional bodies.</p>

January 24 - NPR

<p>The planning and placement of schools is making students 'auto-dependent', according to an urban planning academic in Canada. Others also bemoan the architectural design of schools and the potentially harmful building materials used to build them.</p>

January 24 - The Globe and Mail

<p>Commissioners in Ada County, Idaho declare planner's private contract with adjacent county violated county ethics statute.</p>

January 24 - The Idaho Statesman

<p>Though they serve over half of all U.S. college undergrads, two-year institutions have typically focused more on getting students to enroll rather than helping them reach their career goals. But that attitude is changing.</p>

January 24 - The Christian Science Monitor

<p>As more seniors and empty nesters seek to reclaim the downtown lifestyle of their youth, small towns across America are experiencing a second chance at economic vitality.</p>

January 24 - The New York Times

<p>Planning officials in Fayette County, Kentucky, have approved a plan that will not expand its boundary of growth. The planning commission also unanimously rejected the establishment of an 'urban reserve', in case minds changed about expansion.</p>

January 24 - Lexington Herald-Leader

<p>Planning and land use regulations are being blamed for Australia's high home prices, and also for the fact that four of its major cities are in a list of the 25 most unaffordable cities. Some feel planners are not planning with the people in mind.</p>

January 23 - The Age

<p>The national association of engineers sponsors a "Future City Competition' in which junior high school students design a city, based on the premise that toxic chemicals have rendered the planet uninhabitable.</p>

January 23 - The Arizona Republic

<p>After a $1.3 million campaign, residents of Pacifica, California rejected a developer's proposal for a new hotel, shopping center, and residential community master planned by Duany Plater-Zyberk. But the developer's not giving up yet.</p>

January 23 - Las Vegas Business Press

<p>A suburban Salt Lake City mayor has expressed interest in adding light rail to a list of desires for his city's long-term planning process. High costs and a low estimated demand are cited by opponents.</p>

January 23 - Deseret Morning News

<p>Architects and dictators have had a long and uneasy relationship throughout history.</p>

January 23 - Signandsight.com