United States
The Best Sentences of the Week (Volume 4)
By no means authoritative or comprehensive, here's a collection of noteworthy phrases, paragraphs, commentaries, observations, and more from the recent week in the planning and urbanism discussion.
Are Single Family Teardowns a Sign of Suburban Gentrification?
Luxury condos are often identified as the culprit in urban gentrification, but could it be that teardowns of single family homes that give way to much larger single family homes is a driver of suburban gentrification?
Campaign 2014: Rolling Back Gas Tax Indexing
Massachusetts voters will decide on Question 1 on Tuesday—an initiative petition to eliminate the automatic, annual indexing of its 26.5-cent gasoline excise tax to inflation, implemented with a three-cent gas tax increase last year.
Comparing Taxi, Transportation Network Company Fares Reveals the 'Cost of Loyalty'
An app that compares fares across transportation network company platforms reveals several lessons about the state of competition in this new transportation frontier.
Scientists Pick up Seismic Vibrations from Human Transportation
For the first time, researchers were able to detect the vibrations created by human transportation systems.
Report Predicts Early End to Shale Boom
The current shale boom can't last forever. A new report says it will end much sooner that the federal government realizes.
Campaign 2014: Louisiana, Maryland, and Wisconsin Transportation Measures
Maryland and Wisconsin will not ask voters to raise taxes for transportation, but will ask them to adopt constitutional restrictions to ensure gas tax funds are not diverted for other purposes. Louisiana hopes to create an infrastructure bank.
Mapping the New Deal
The Living New Deal Project Map from the University of California, Berkeley was released earlier this month, pinpointing all of the New Deal projects around the United States.
MapStory Traces the Development of the United States
Interested in tracing the development of everything from urban bike lanes to national parks to rocket test sites?
The Environmental Downside of Falling Oil Prices
Ben Adler of Grist writes how falling oil prices will affect climate change. Cheaper gas prices may encourage more driving and more truck sales at the expense of hybrid, electric, and fuel efficient cars, but the news may not be all bad.
The Federal Housing Administration's Ongoing, Systematic Obstruction of Density
Scott Beyer writes that despite changes to policies allowing insured mortgages by the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA), the federal government continues to obstruct density by limiting support for condo owners.
For Playable Cities: Make the City a Playground
The "Using Behavioral Economics to Create Playable Cities" report suggests that so much time spent in front of screens, and the continued need to counter the obesity epidemic, requires new thinking about play for children living in cities.
Racial Inequalities Withholding $2.1 Trillion from U.S. GDP
A new study by PolicyLink and the University of Southern California's Program for Environmental and Regional Equity showed that U.S. GDP would expand by $2.1 trillion if racial minorities had equal access to opportunities within the job market.
Generation X Leads the Decline of Homeownership
A snarky post written for The Atlantic identifies a forgotten culprit in the country's dropping homeownership rates: Generation X.
Congestion Pricing on Legacy Roadways
What happens when there is no room to widen a congested roadway? One solution is to build above the roadway. Another, suggests an HNTB expert, would be to convert an existing lane into a managed toll lane and fund transit with the revenue.
Dispute Over Bike Fatality Report
The Governors Highway Safety Association released a report titled Bicyclist Safety showing a surge in bike fatalities since 2010. The report provoked widespread media coverage and, also, strongly critical reactions.
Marshaling a Grab for Public Land in the Western United States
Faced with the prospect of states seizing control of federal lands to potentially sell to private owners, a resident of New Mexico argues against "the land grab out west."
Housing Affordability Follows Partisan Divide
Recent analysis by Trulia found that the current housing market shows trends that follow along conservative and liberal lines—specifically, that the country's "blue" states are much more expensive than the "red" states.
The ULI Urban Open Space Award Goes to Klyde Warren Park in Dallas
The ULI has granted its annual award for the best new open space to Klyde Warren Park, a freeway cap park in Dallas.
Is there a Right Way to Measure Bad Driving?
There isn't one way to measure how badly groups of people (like, say, residents of New Jersey) drive, but there is plenty of data available about how driving often goes terribly wrong.
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.
One Hundred Miles
County of Mendocino
planning NEXT
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
Montrose County
Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA)
The Pocatello Development Authority
