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.
The state-sanctioned urbicide of Austin
People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
US to reduce Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
A new Colorado Treaty amendment reduces Mexico’s Colorado River water allocation by 250,000 acre feet.
Brightline West’s future may rely on $6 billion federal loan
The company has until Nov. 2 to make a $400 million equity investment into its proposed high-speed rail line.
LA Metro’s ultimatum: no extra buses for LA28 if federal funding isn’t imminently secured
If Metro does not provide additional buses, LA28 organizers will have to find a new way to manage Olympic traffic. LA28’s budget does not include a line item for transit.
Colorado’s Largest Data Center Could Rise Next to Homes — Without a Public Hearing
The proposed campus would consume 11 times the power of Denver International Airport; as it has across the country, opposition mounts.
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.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association