The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

In the face of skyrocketing house prices, some lenders are offering unprecedented 50-year mortgages.

May 11 - CNN Money

How a $10 gallon of gas would revolutionize life in America.

May 11 - The San Francisco Chronicle

An interview with Mike Davis, best-selling author of "City of Quartz" and his latest book, "Planet of Slums".

May 10 - Mother Jones

Latino population growth accounted for nearly half of the nation's population increase last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released today. But growth is is led by births, not immigration.

May 10 - The Los Angeles Times

Leah Shahum, 34, is executive director of the politically powerful San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. She was just appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom to fill a vacancy on the city's Municipal Transportation Agency's board of directors.

May 10 - The San Francisco Chronicle

Jane Jacobs brilliantly dissected the destruction of "inner areas" of "great cities," but she passed over the city districts that needed attention the most: less dense working and middle class neighborhoods, the ones that emptied out for the suburbs.

May 10 - The Santa Monica Lookout

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson tells a minority real estate forum that prospective contractors should keep their political views to themselves.

May 10 - Dallas Business Journal

Writing about nature in L.A. reflects the California dream and nightmare, and urban nature across the United States.

May 10 - The Believer

A developer wants to raze the old Buckingham Village apartments in Arlington County, to replace them with pricey new townhomes. Should "neighborhood guardian" Lillian Veney and her dog, who have lived in the complex for 12 years, be forced out?

May 10 - The Washington Post

How a Montreal university has embraced the city around it.

May 10 - Maisonneuve

Hot new 'old style' neighborhoods protect northwestern Michigan's beauty and prosperity.

May 10 - Michigan Land Use Institute

With millions of tons of smashed homes and other debris to dispose of, Louisiana State officials are turning to a new landfill site -- across a canal from the largest urban wildlife refuge in the country.

May 10 - The New York Times

Editorial argues that wind energy is viable and a necessary part of the nation's energy strategy.

May 9 - Austin American-Statesman

Billing itself as the world's largest airport and logistics center, "Dubai World Central" would be twice the size of Hong Kong Island, with an airport, office and residential zones and a golf resort. A light rail system would link the city's zones.

May 9 - Travel Daily News

Bucking a decades-old trend of steering the elderly toward nursing homes to live out their sunset years, many communities are developing programs to assist older residents who want to remain in their own houses.

May 9 - The Wall Street Journal

When each interstate exit sign passed can mean saving ten thousand dollars in home prices, more and more people are "driving till they qualify". Welcome to the world of "extreme commuting".

May 9 - Newsweek

While our understanding of cities and urbanism has changed in recent years, our thinking about the suburbs hasn't caught up to what is actually happening there: as Doug Saunder writes, that's almost everything.

May 9 - The Globe and Mail

California wins the dubious distinction of being home to 11 of the least affordable locales. Why has the state trumped other hotspots like New York and Florida?

May 9 - The New York Times

According to IRS records, many of the highest growth counties are located far from cities.

May 9 - The New York Times

Because of the methods used to build them, modern suburbs will not have tall trees anytime soon, as described in this article focusing on Toronto.

May 9 - The Toronto Star