U.S. Military bases in Iraq are being consolidated, but their footprint is hard to ignore. Many operate much like small cities, housing as many as 20,000 people and all the services and infrastructure they require.
"At the Subway, workers from India and Bangladesh make sandwiches for American soldiers looking for a taste of home. When the sandwich makers' shifts end, the journey home takes them past a power plant, an ice-making plant, a sewage treatment center, a hospital and dozens of other facilities one would expect to find in a small city.
And in more than six years, that is what Americans have created here: cities in the sand."
Each of the big bases in Iraq has its own wastewater treatment facilities, power generators, retail shops and even bus routes.
Read the full story: Big U.S. Bases Are Part of Iraq, but a World Apart
Plans for Immigrant 'Detention Centers' Revealed at Military Sites Around the U.S.
Plans for temporary facilities designed to house between 25,000 to 45,000 people have been revealed by Time Magazine. Sites in Alabama, Arizona, California,
San Francisco's Presidio Celebrated for Bridging Nature and Culture
The Presidio is, and will remain, a source of San Francisco's most contentious planning and design proposals. But the reason for the controversy isn't all bad, according to John King: "everyone sees their own potential paradise."
Iraq's Maxi Malls Marginalize Public Sector
The nation of Iraq is building itself anew after the last of the US troops evacuated six months ago, but experts are saying that their wealth, which has created an invasion of shopping malls around the country, is subsidizing the public agenda.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
California plans to bury El Niño’s downpour
If the state plays its cards right, it may be able to store a billion acre-feet of El Niño’s water in aquifers.
Desperate measures: Advocates weigh draining Lake Powell to fill Colorado River
Draining the reservoir could reduce evaporation losses by a couple hundred thousand acre-feet.
US buildings threatened, destroyed by fires set to triple by 2060
Researchers found a high fire risk for socioeconomically vulnerable neighborhoods in the American West.
LA residents may be allowed to paint their own crosswalks
Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky put out a motion instructing the Los Angeles Department of Public Transportation to study the feasibility of allowing volunteers to paint crosswalks.
Dallas moves to overhaul its zoning code
The city's zoning reform will allow more multi-family and mixed-use developments.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority