The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

A versatile building material with a long pedigree, concrete also has associations with ugliness and totalitarianism. Its reinforced variety, widely used today, can conceal a costly flaw.

September 9 - CityLab

Around the world, people continue to move toward urbanized areas in search of opportunity. Developing megacities and megaregions must plan ahead for the continued growth, according to Bloomberg.

September 9 - Bloomberg BusinessWeek

The Guardian's former environmental editor asks if urban sprawl is as much to blame as climate change for the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey in Houston.

September 9 - Guardian

In participatory planning, there is no planning without several events known as charrettes, which you probably already knew. Less likely to be common knowledge, however, is how charrettes can live up to their promise in the planning process.

September 9 - Next City

As Irma leaves the Caribbean and heads for Florida, with landfall expected this weekend, there is a lot to worry about: New building codes will be put to test, fuel to evacuate is in short supply, and cranes have not been dismantled.

September 8 - The New York Times

All yesterday's hurricanes.

September 8 - CityLab

The United Nations' ambitious set of goals have proven unwieldy, with some commentators saying they represent "all things to all people." Reorganizing and prioritizing them could help.

September 8 - Pacific Standard

The community's hard work has helped Flint planners take an inventory of its building stock, as well as secure needed funding from the federal government.

September 8 - Center for Community Progress

Faced with an uptick in roadway fatalities, Oregon is looking at how to increase safety. But it's concentrating on highways while arterials actually account for the region's most severe crashes.

September 8 - City Observatory

The city of Spokane is piling large boulders where homeless people used to sleep. Critics are calling the city's actions inhumane.

September 8 - KUOW

For every Pittsburgh or Cleveland success story, there's a story waiting to be told in smaller cities like Gary and Lowell.

September 8 - At Lincoln House

How do we disrupt the cycle of rebuilding things exactly as they were before—if slightly hardened—after increasingly powerful weather events?

September 8 - PlaceShakers

Columbus has spent the first year since its selection as the $50 million Smart Cities Challenge grant recipient devoted to planning and research. The grant has also proven a very enticing fundraising tool.

September 8 - Columbus Business First

Building Design (BD) a British architecture publication, has announced the "winner" of the competition to decide the ugliest new building of the year.

September 8 - Building Design

The Ford Motor Company picks a side in the traffic safety debate.

September 7 - Ford

The city of Walnut Creek, located in the East San Francisco Bay Area, will soon gain 600 new, transit-adjacent apartments and a whole lot of parking.

September 7 - The Mercury News

A Better Block installation took over the streets of Kenmoore in Akron, Ohio last weekend.

September 7 - Akron Beacon Journal

Since the beginning of September, 400 employees have left the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The reduced staffing levels are by design.

September 7 - The Scientist

Good fire news from Oregon offers some relief from several weeks of scary environmental news from around the country.

September 7 - Willamette Week

The strange world projects exempted from the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act got a little stranger this week.

September 7 - Los Angeles Times