Not all ideas are worth attention. What does the fact that ideas like Elon Musk's The Boring Company get so much attention say about the quality of civic discourse, or the potential for planning to improve the built environment?

Joel Silverman has written a scathing critique of Elon Musk's idea to create a company, The Boring Company, to build a massive network of tunnels that solves traffic congestion forever. More than a critique of the idea itself, Silverman addresses the implications of Musk's thinking on the subject of transportation and infrastructure development, as well as media and public's response to it.
Given that Musk himself admitted that he's devoting 2 to 3 percent of his time to The Boring Company, while interns and others work part-time on the idea, Silverman wonders why we should take the idea seriously. Silverman's interest in the subject has more to do with unpacking the threats inherent in Musks's impression of how cities should work and whom cities should serve:
Nowhere in his excited homilies to ultrafast underground travel do we hear anything about the role of mass transit in city life or the need to serve a public that includes poor people. Who decides where the tunnels go? Who pays to integrate the car elevators with existing road systems? Is building out a vast new infrastructure really the answer to traffic, especially when experience shows that adding more roads and highways tends to lead to more driving, exacerbating traffic?
The warning inherent in the argument throughout the article directs itself at planners in the conclusion. At a time when transit use is suffering, transportation network companies have burst onto the scene with little consideration of the consequences, and the oceans are rising as transportation modes continue to spew carbon into the atmosphere, should ideas like this really take time and energy away from planners?
See also: The Hyperloop.
FULL STORY: The Musk of Success, Choking Our Cities

Rethinking Redlining
For decades we have blamed 100-year-old maps for the patterns of spatial racial inequity that persist in American cities today. An esteemed researcher says: we’ve got it all wrong.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

Montreal Mall to Become 6,000 Housing Units
Place Versailles will be transformed into a mixed-use complex over the next 25 years.

Santa Clara County Dedicates Over $28M to Affordable Housing
The county is funding over 600 new affordable housing units via revenue from a 2016 bond measure.

Why a Failed ‘Smart City’ Is Still Relevant
A Google-backed proposal to turn an underused section of Toronto waterfront into a tech hub holds relevant lessons about privacy and data.

When Sears Pioneered Modular Housing
Kit homes sold in catalogs like Sears and Montgomery Ward made homeownership affordable for midcentury Americans.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions