The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>In a rerun of a failed 1999 plan to build a high-rise near the city's Town Lake, officials in Austin, Texas, are looking to increase downtown density. The City is hoping this try works, but the original plan's opponents are still opposed.</p>

January 21 - The Austin Chronicle

<p>In the face of an "inaccurate claim" that city neighbors are less friendly than their suburban counterpart, Robert Steuteville of <em>New Urban News</em> provides comments on the University of California study "Social Interaction and Urban Sprawl".</p>

January 21 - New Urban News

<p>The City of Santa Cruz and its University of California campus are struggling to come to terms with the university’s ambitious plans for growth and its impact on the city.</p>

January 21 - The New York Times

<p>According to Census data and growth projections, Texas appears to be on track to gain between two and four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives when the seats are reallocated in 2010. The rise in population will also increase federal funding.</p>

January 21 - The Houston Chronicle

<p>Growth, education and jobs/wages/employment are the top concerns identified in public policy survey conducted recently by Boise State University's social science research center.</p>

January 20 - BSU Social Science Research Center

<p>An unlikely group of Republicans and Democrats, the Union Sportsman's Alliance, will be formed on Jan. 23 to protect lands in the Rocky Mountain West for hunting and fishing that are largely threatened because of energy exploration.</p>

January 20 - The Washington Post

<p>Residents of Picher, Oklahoma, must leave the town contaminated by lead and zinc mines. Although contaminated since the 1970s, only recent threats of cave-ins have convinced hold-outs to leave.</p>

January 20 - The Washington Post

<p>The design of schools should account for advances in technology and consider how those changes will affect the way students learn, according to learning advocates who discuss the future of school design in this article from the <em>BBC</em>.</p>

January 20 - BBC

<p>Fast-food chicken baron Albert Okura purchased Route 66 town of Amboy, home to a well known landmark of roadside architecture.</p>

January 20 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>The Pittsburg, California, City Council has unanimously approved an extension of the city's urban growth boundary to include 1,600 more acres of foothills. This extension was approved by voters in 2005, but some argue the initiative was deceptive.</p>

January 19 - The Contra Costa Times

<p>The Planning Director for Maui, Hawaii, Jeff Hunt, prepares to take on a new general plan process. He was formerly the director of community development in the Rocky Mountain resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado.</p>

January 19 - The Maui News

<p>The only way to meet the challenges of the 21st Century is to address poverty, pollution and environmental sustainability in the world's cities, writes Worldwatch Institute president Christopher Flavin.</p>

January 19 - Tom Paine

<p>The town of Ogden, Utah, hopes to beef up its economy by promoting itself as an outdoor recreation capital. But some in the community fear that the tourism campaign may further encourage exploitation of the area's decreasingly pristine environment.</p>

January 19 - E, The Environmental Magazine

<p>Natural drainage techniques reduced engineering costs in one South Carolina case study by 31 percent over conventional methods. New Urbanists are searching for ways to make this the norm.</p>

January 19 - New Urban News

<p>Controversy over the lack of female faculty at Harvard's Graduate School of Design has erupted after a adjunct professor of landscape architecture submitted her resignation in protest of the school's gender imbalance.</p>

January 19 - Inside Higher Ed

<p>By implementing practical market reforms that discourage car trips, cities can solve traffic problems and improve air quality.</p>

January 19 - Victoria Transport Policy Institute

<p>The old San Francisco Armory, which has sat empty for more than three decades in city's Mission district, has found a new use, but local residents aren't exactly excited about this latest chapter of the neighborhood's gentrification.</p>

January 19 - Archinect

<p>A New York architect takes on the challenge of redesigning a 1920's era building in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.</p>

January 19 - The New York Times

<p>Gentrification and redevelopment threaten the historic homes and buildings in the former foreign settlement area of China's largest city.</p>

January 19 - The San Francisco Chronicle

<p>One urban dweller calls on nature writers to take a look at Los Angeles, and other cities, in order to regain relevance in today's world.</p>

January 19 - Grist