United States

Stadiums Get Sustainable

Many sport agencies are realizing the benefits of going green. John McHale Jr., executive vice president at M.L.B. said “just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you can’t do something.” Many others are doing their part to help as well.

October 27, 2011 - The New York Times

Facebook Building Server Farm in Sweden for Passive Cooling

Internet server farms suck up enormous amounts of energy keeping all those mainframes cool. So Facebook has announced it will build in Northern Sweden and use only the natural air to chill their facility.

October 27, 2011 - The Telegraph

Seniors Equate Mobility with Life

"Carjacked" author Anne Lutz Fernandez says Time's tearful coverage of the traffic deaths of a 72-year-married Iowa couple fails to recognize the true problem: that Americans are persuaded that driving = living.

October 26, 2011 - Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Bane of the Middle Class: Rising Gas Prices

In this Washington Post blog, Brad Plumer writes on a New American Foundation report on rising gas prices and their disproportionate impact on the poor and middle class. Public policies intended to reduce fuel consumption, however, benefit the rich.

October 25, 2011 - The Washington Post - Blogs

Subway Vent Benches Kill Two Birds With One Stone

Hurricane Irene brought flooding to the M and R subway lines in Queens, prompting the MTA to seek innovative ways to prevent it from happening again. Rogers Marvel Architects developed an innovative solution that also creates a bench above.

October 25, 2011 - The Architect's Newspaper

Despair and Hope in Occupied Rust Belt Cities

As part of an "Occupy America" tour, Arun Gupta visits Occupy protests in three rust belt cities, and finds that the economic forces that unleashed the global recession long ago stripped these cities of their economic and social fabric.

October 25, 2011 - Salon.com

How to Build a Better Park

New Urbanist Peter Katz presents his guidelines for creating a popular urban park. First published in 1995, Katz's ideas still hold up.

October 24, 2011 - New Urban Network

The Growing Food Truck Industrial Complex

The food truck phenomenon is here to stay and stimulating tangential industries that include truck outfitters, permit expediters, lawyers lobbyists, website designers, and marketing professionals.

October 24, 2011 - The Atlantic

Homelessness and the Occupy Wall Street Movement

The logistics involved in maintaining the Occupy Wall Street protests turn out to be some of the very activities that homeless people have been banned from doing in most cities for years.

October 24, 2011 - Salon.com

Diesel Cars and Trucks Will Flood U.S. Market in 2014

Eric Loveday of AutoBlogGreen explains why we'll be seeing a lot more diesels in the U.S.: increased federal emission standards will only be met by increasing the number of diesel cars on the market.

October 24, 2011 - AutoBlogGreen

Touring the Suburban Environment

Jason Griffiths and Alex Gino set out in 2002 to document the unremarkable character of the American suburbs. 22,382 miles and 2,593 photographs later, they concluded that suburbia "is difficult to define."

October 24, 2011 - Design Observer

No Excuses For Not Charging For Parking

Transportation consultant Jeff Tumlin admits that it's no easy job to convince people (let alone political leaders) that it's in their best interest, and that of their community, that parking should not be free. New technology may be the ticket.

October 24, 2011 - the Atlantic Cities: Place matters

Increasingly, Infrastructure Offloaded to Private Sector

Unable to pay for transportation infrastructure and unlikely to get help at the federal level, cities and states are looking to private entities to build and invest in their infrastructure projects.

October 23, 2011 - The Washington Post

The Second Coming of Marked-Down Detroit

The 2010 Census reveals that Detroit's population is approaching the 1910's level. Of the City's 714,000 residents, 83% are black and nearly 40% live in poverty. With virtually every statistic going against its favor, can Motown make a comeback?

October 23, 2011 - The Economist

Housing Crisis Making Americans Ill

A new survey from the American Journal of Public Health found that people who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments are more likely to be suffering from depression.

October 21, 2011 - The Wall St. Journal

Does Affordable Housing Have to Look Bad?

Allison Arieff explodes the unspoken myth that public housing must look cheap and unattractive, citing some stellar examples of affordable design.

October 21, 2011 - The Atlantic Cities

Could Gentrification Sometimes Be A Good Thing?

Kaid Benfield bravely tackles the topic of gentrification, suggesting that while all attempts should be made to avoid displacing current residents, revitalizing neighborhoods is still a good thing.

October 21, 2011 - NRDC Blog

Will There Be More Electric Charging Stations Than Cars To Plug-In?

Charging stations for electric cars are multiplying much faster than the plug-in vehicles that can use them for many reasons. While the federal subsidies help, some in the business community believe that the chargers will attract new customers.

October 20, 2011 - The Wall Street Journal - Technology

Mad U.S.: Top 10 Angriest Cities

Denver was the angriest city in the nation with 12,018 protesters per million, 5000 attending the April 15,2009 Tea Party Protest, and 2000 for the the October 15 Occupy Wall Street protest.

October 20, 2011 - The Daily Beast

Public Space Ordinances Used to Target Occupy Wall Street

Across the country, local authorities are turning to existing public space ordinances -- many of them oriented to criminalizing homelessness -- to clamp down on the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

October 20, 2011 - AlterNet

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.