The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

LA's planning department plans to hire 20 staffers to push through a backlog of new housing projects and help advance revitalization efforts for the Los Angeles River.

January 7 - Los Angeles Downtown News

PPS offers striking images of great places (and a few not-so-great) from around the world. [Includes photos.]

January 6 - Project For Public Spaces

Imagine bicycles traveling at speeds up to 50 miles per hour in enclosed tubes hanging above the streets.

January 6 - Smart City Radio

Why is Canada's largest city also its most insecure?

January 6 - Maisonneuve

State and federal highway officials agree on a final plan to build a $2.4 billion highway through Washington's suburbs.

January 6 - The Baltimore Sun

The relatively unknown State Representative Richard H. Baker (R) of Baton Rouge has outlined a massive government plan to help Katrina battered Louisiana rebuild.

January 6 - The New York Times

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose adding special toll lanes -- some exclusively for trucks -- to the state's most congested freeways and easing environmental reviews to speed construction.

January 6 - The Los Angeles Times

Charles Carroll descendants' may allow development of their Doughoregan estate. (Carroll is the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.)

January 6 - The Baltimore Sun

Despite public opposition, Stockholm is pushing ahead with implementation of congestion charging for a trial period.

January 6 - Reuters

Homeowners who gambled on risky mortgage products could find themselves paying hundreds of dollars more per month in the coming year as these products are reset to real-world interest rates.

January 6 - Herald-Tribune

Idaho's Treasure Valley single-family home sales and dollar value break records.

January 6 - The Idaho Statesman

Planning Magazine examines how cities are encouraging multifamily projects and higher densities.

January 5 - Planning Magazine

Prefabricated housing used to be a dirty word in the housing business. Today, many designer prefab houses are an affordable and elegant solution -- maybe even the "holy grail of modernism".

January 5 - Wired Magazine

Federally-sanctioned distortions in the housing market are leading the American economy over a cliff, writes Bob Chapman.

January 5 - From the Wilderness

School officials in Oregon are learning a thing or two from a prototype uber-green classroom near Salem, which uses a large skylight and other technologies to enhance and regulate the natural light coming into the space.

January 5 - The Oregonian

Willie Nelson's concern for family farmers and disdain for the Iraq war led him to market a new brand of biodesil fuel, BioWillie, now sold at 13 gas stations in the Southwest.

January 5 - The New York Times

So much garbage was left behind by Katrina that if stacked in 1-yard cubes, the waste would wrap around the Earth more than once.

January 5 - The Chicago Tribune

Planners are not the only ones figuring out how to respond to the challenge of 'the Biggest Box Ever Built.'

January 5 - Fast Company

Cities are spending millions on land to protect water supplies.

January 5 - The Wall Street Journal

Energy and economic crises are going to lead to global instability in the coming year, warns James Howard Kunstler.

January 5 - James Howard Kunstler's Blog