Google

Shipping Container Housing

Google to Buy 300 Modular Apartments for Employees

Mountain View is an expensive place to find housing, in part because of Google itself. The tech giant plans to do something about the housing crunch, for its employees at least.

June 20, 2017 - The Wall Street Journal

San Jose, California

Google Planning Massive Expansion in San Jose

The city of San Jose is working with tech giant Google to plan a massive expansion into the Diridon Station district. Millions of feet of development and thousands of new jobs are at stake.

June 7, 2017 - The Mercury News

Magnolia Gardens

Google's South Carolina Groundwater Battle a Sign of Things to Come

A political battle over a large withdrawal of water for use by a Google server farm has one reporter deploying words like "war" and "free-for-all" to tell the story.

April 25, 2017 - The Post and Courier

East Palo Alto

Can Silicon Valley Work for Bikes?

America's tech capital might be great at innovation, but innovation in bike transportation hasn't been a priority. Perhaps that's starting to change.

April 3, 2017 - Next City

San Antonians Angry About Huts, Google Fiber's Fast Internet Plan Hits a Speedbump

Some in Texas are worried about the structures that house Google's Fiberoptic Cables, complaining that the huts are ugly and take up too much park space.

January 23, 2017 - San Antonio Business Journal

Google Timelapse

Friday Eye Candy: A 30-Year Timelapse Reveals Humanity's Expanding Footprint

The Google Timelapse feature has been updated. The only thing that stays the same is that everything changes.

December 9, 2016 - The Verge

Cement

Google Fiber Halts Expansion Plans

Alphabet will likely pursue other ways to deliver high-speed fiber-optic internet service.

October 31, 2016 - New York Times

Google Maps

Google Maps' 'Interesting' New Feature

Google's new maps redesign calls out areas of interest, but is "interesting" just a euphemism for rich?

October 20, 2016 - City Observatory

Office Park

How Office Parks and Corporate Campuses Evolved

The office park has become a suburban given, disliked by some, but once it represented a utopian vision of work away from the city. Here's a look at how the Silicon Valley model developed, and where it might be going.

October 8, 2016 - SPUR

Google Headquarters

Is the Company Town Back? Sort Of.

Unlike the earlier iteration, today's full-amenity tech campuses provide their well-paid engineers with Millennial-friendly upper middle class comforts. But is that enough?

September 30, 2016 - Architecture Boston

Parking Gate

Just Arrived: The First Federal Safety Guidelines for Automated Vehicles

It's a big day for the future of automated vehicles. Federal safety regulators gave first indication, not yet regulations, of how they expect automated vehicles to behave when they hit the road en masse.

September 20, 2016 - The New York Times

Tech Shuttle

Tech Shuttles: The Bay Area's Seventh Largest Transportation Provider

A new survey has found that every day more than 800 tech buses are traveling on the region's roadways, carrying around 34,000 passengers daily

September 20, 2016 - San Francisco Business Times

Traffic

Google to Launch Rideshare in Bay Area

The service would operate through Waze, and take a different approach than Uber or Lyft.

September 7, 2016 - Ars Technica

Faroe Islands

Friday Funny: Sheep View Goes Where Google Street View Can't

Some local residents of the Faroe Islands created Sheep View 360 to document the 18 rocky islands that make up their home—and now Google is lending a hand.

September 2, 2016 - The San Jose Mercury News

Google Headquarters

Google, LinkedIn Complete 'Blockbuster' Land Swap

Big development news for two of the biggest names in the Silicon Valley.

July 12, 2016 - Silicon Valley Business Journal

Parking

Playing 'Telephone' with Transportation Data

The transportation policy debate regularly falls victim to incorrect or incomplete "facts" getting passed around like the game of telephone.

July 11, 2016 - Steven Polzin

Self-Driving Car

Will First Fatality Affect the Development of Self-Driving Cars?

A May 7 crash of a Model S Tesla in Florida may have outsized implications for the future of driverless technology. The details of the single-fatality crash were made public in a June 30 blog by Tesla though they were reported immediately to NHTSA.

July 9, 2016 - Planetizen

Self-Driving Car

Michigan Bill Would Be First to Allow Cars to Drive Without Humans

A state legislation package is aiming to clear hurdles obstructing the development of autonomous vehicles.

June 3, 2016 - GOV TECH - FUTURE STRUCTURE

Self-Driving Car

Self-Driving Cars Have Their Own Lobby Now

A coalition of the automated, if you will, as Ford, Volvo, Google, Uber, and Lyft have formed the new Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets to lobby for the causes of the nascent self-driving car industry.

April 27, 2016 - Automotive News

Office Park

High Tech Embraces Suburban-Style Office Park Thinking

Critics claim tech companies such as Apple and Google are guilty of repeating past mistakes of urban development by creating suburban campuses that isolate themselves from the surrounding community.

April 26, 2016 - Collectors Weekly

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.

Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

Top Schools

The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

100 Most Influential Urbanists

The who's who of urbanism, according to Planetizen readers.

Urban Planning Creators You Should Know

A short list of voices on social, video, and podcasting platforms.