The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The publicly held and managed wealth generated by Norway’s taxation of oil and gas extraction now equates to one million Crowns (about $162,000 USD) per capita. Norwegian law only allows the government to draw minimally from this fund every year.

January 15 - Reuters

From Republican congressman from Ill. to President Obama's first Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood now takes on a new role as a co-chair of the bipartisan coalition, Building America's Future, to advocate for increased infrastructure investment.

January 15 - AASHTO Journal

It's not just melting ice that threatens to submerge communities along the East Coast of the U.S. Several other factor are conspiring to raise sea levels. Scientists are racing against time to predict how bad things are going to get, and how fast.

January 15 - The New York Times

A new study out of Oxford’s Saïd Business School provides evidence of the influence of external factors, such as foreign wars and environmental crises, on the London housing market.

January 15 - Quartz

Adding 1,100 people every month, Washington D.C. is in the midst of one of the nation’s most powerful examples of population growth. A recently developed heat map shows where supply is being built to meet the new demand.

January 15 - Greater Greater Washington

A new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology finds that moving to a more-green area can have a long-lasting positive effect on mental health, unlike the short-term jolt from pay rises, promotions or winning the lottery.

January 15 - BBC News

For the first time since 2011, Congressional negotiators have agreed on a $1.012 trillion omnibus budget bill to fund the federal government. Tanya Snyder examines the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development winners and losers.

January 15 - DC.Streetsblog

An interview with Thomas Balsley, landscape architect and designer of hundreds of parks and plazas in New York, reveals inside baseball about the evolution of park design, planning, and approvals in the Big Apple.

January 14 - Metropolis

Facing a shortfall of more than $1 million to maintain its roads, the Chicago suburb of Long Grove is looking to privatize nearly half of them by asking residents to pick up the tab. Residents are unhappy about the plan, but see few alternatives.

January 14 - Chicago Tribune

It's already conquered phones and the Internet, and is moving rapidly into the automotive world, but Google's $3.2 billion purchase of smart device maker Nest provides the company with entree into the "connected home" market.

January 14 - PCWorld

The Northern California marijuana industry is booming, but issues with water consumption and downstream pollution produced by the large-scale cultivation of marijuana are threatening populations of salmon already on the brink of extinction.

January 14 - NPR The Salt

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, half of the UK's coalition government, accuses the Conservatives of withholding a report that identifies sites for two new towns in 'safe' Conservative regions.

January 14 - BBC News

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio enters office with strong progressive credentials, similar to those of Los Angeles’ recently-termed-out Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Can New York find lessons from the Los Angeles political experience?

January 14 - The Nation

After years of declining carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S., and growing hope in the country's ability to meet President Obama's emission reduction targets, preliminary data indicates emissions from energy sources increased 2% last year

January 14 - The Washington Post

A new Senate bill aims to give drivers more control over the growing trove of data being collected by sensors and computers embedded in our cars. Most drivers are unaware of how much personal information is being recorded.

January 14 - The New York Times

Call it the Lac-Mégantic effect - the July 6 conflagration that leveled the downtown, killing 47 people, has implications for all jurisdictions where oil and freight trains run. Cities must recognize that rail insurance policies are woefully lacking.

January 14 - The Wall Street Journal

An inordinate amount of traffic fatalities occur in developing parts of the world. In some countries, road deaths have surpassed diseases like AIDS and Tuberculosis as a public health threat.

January 14 - The Washington Post

Construction and permitting for large solar facilities like those located in the desert at the border of California and Nevada is nearly non-existent. Uncertainty over expiring tax credits is only partly to blame.

January 13 - Los Angeles Times

As a leading cause of death in the U.S., car collisions are one of the country's foremost public health problems. But a review of the last century of medical literature reveals increasing reluctance by the profession to weigh in on the subject.

January 13 - DC.Streetsblog

In Valencia, workers will begin removing the sparkling mosaic facade that adorns the Queen Sofía Palace of the Arts today. The opera house's crumbling facade is the latest episode to tarnish architect Santiago Calatrava's professional reputation.

January 13 - The New York Times