The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The New York Times editorial board has published on op-ed in support of Mayor Bill de Blasio's ambitious targets for affordable housing in New York City over the next ten years.

August 31 - New York Times

Michael Anderson reports on a proposed road diet and bike lane proposed for Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh, along a historic and cultural corridor in one of the country's oldest downtowns.

August 31 - Streetsblog USA

Architecture Critic Mark Lamster emerged from the "Architect and Architectress" at the Dallas Center for Architecture with a call to action to overturn the old paradigms that contribute to dominance of males in the architecture profession.

August 31 - Dallas Morning News

The California government passed a new resolution this summer promoting green schoolyards statewide. It builds on previous state policies and unites a wide array of green city planning and education efforts under a single "Living Schoolyard" theme.

August 30 - Children & Nature Network

In which parking minimums figure heavily in a polemic regarding the nature of cool.

August 30 - Guardian Cities

Chicago's Metra commuter rail service has a big problem on its hands: Distressed people are resorting to using train tracks to end their lives at a higher rate than in other major cities. Would partnering with a suicide-hotline agency stem the tide?

August 30 - Governing

A new study published in the journal Nature maps out a plan for the development of roads around the world—where roads should be avoided due to their environmental costs, and where they can be built to maximize their potential benefit to humanity.

August 30 - Science Daily

In the midst of a building boom and expecting another 1.4 million residents to live in the city by 2031, London is embroiled in a debate about how it should meet housing demands.

August 30 - New York Times

Here's a comeback story for the ages: The Elwha River in Washington, dammed for the production of hydroelectric power for almost a century, runs wild again.

August 29 - National Geographic

Scott Beyer provides four reasons why federal money is the wrong policy mechanism for delivering the best possible transportation outcomes in the United States.

August 29 - Next City

While the share of Americans living in rural communities is decreasing relative to the overall population, some rural areas, such as the Willmar lakes area in Minnesota, have managed to attract young residents.

August 29 - West Central Tribune

Broadway in Los Angeles is the historic lifeline of Downtown and a key corridor in the ongoing renaissance of the neighborhood. Yesterday the city opened a brightly colored, pedestrian-friendly, vehicle-lane-reducing makeover of the street.

August 29 - Trending City

With so many eyes trained obsessively on mobile phones, the outdoor industry is supporting a campaign to place famous art on billboards around the country. Will people notice? Should they?

August 29 - Pacific Standard

Will California gas station see queues at their pumps on Dec. 31 as motorists seek their last fill-up before gas prices soar 15 cents per gallon, as AB 69 supporters warned? The bill died in the state legislature on August 22.

August 29 - Los Angele Times

Yonah Freemark writes of the value of infill stations—new transit stations built on existing lines—for increasing transit ridership. Somerville, outside of Boston, will provide the latest example when it opens a station on the Orange Line next week.

August 29 - the transport politic

A plan to shut down streets around Cleveland's Public Square and make it a pedestrian friendly civic space has prompted many commenters to call for revisions to the plan, especially with regard to the square's heavy bus transit capacity.

August 29 - The Plain Dealer

St. Petersburg is one of those lucky few cities granted the benefits of a downtown waterfront setting in a warm climate. But what will that waterfront look like in the future?

August 29 - Tampa Bay Times

Angie Schmitt follows up on an earlier report by the Citizen's Budget Commission that made an argument for the affordability of cities like New York City, with its large network of cheap transportation.

August 29 - Streetsblog USA

Buildings constructed of unreinforced masonry get much if not most of the media's attention on seismic safety, but so-called 'soft story' wood buildings, often with garages on the ground floor, compose the greatest numbers of vulnerable buildings.

August 28 - San Francisco Chronicle

A Guardian Cities article examines bus rapid transit—especially of the variety delivered by the likes Jaime Lerner and Enrique Peñalosa—on its merits as an "urban panacea."

August 28 - Guardian Cities