The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Southern California cities are using technology and other innovative techniques to promote economic development and attract local companies.

May 27 - The Los Angeles Times

Impact of a huge university dormitory's bulk and residents raise locals' ire.

May 27 - Beacon Hill Times

"Cruz’s inspiration...came from a critical approach to the trends in new urbanism, which he says 'only address aesthetics, creating a fake facade of difference without considering the lifestyle of the community.' He says the downtown redevelopment of San Diego is an example of this kind of 'suburban planning,' meaning that he feels it is dressed up in high-end urban aesthetics without addressin

May 26 - Architectural Record

The APA has created 11 model smart growth codes, which are available for download.

May 26 - American Planning Association

One of the world's largest lakes, shrinking for half a century, is making a dramatic comeback.

May 26 - The Los Angeles Times

Memphis's 4500-acre Shelby Farms Park has languished for years. Now, local leaders are bringing in Yale professor Alex Garvin to try to bring the park up to its potential.

May 26 - Memphis Daily News

Essayist and programmer Paul Graham writes about how cities can create great hi-tech communities that attract dynamic startups.

May 26 - Paul Graham

When fundraising fails to save farm formerly leased to the Los Angeles Food Bank, Joan Baez sings in a tree and Darryl Hannah plays guitar in a tent.

May 26 - The Los Angeles Times

Federal agencies will approve thousands of miles of new corridors for power lines and pipelies across public lands in the West including national parks and forests. Scientists warns of ecological devastation.

May 26 - The Los Angeles Times

Ozone pollution has worsened at some national parks posing health risks to visitors but also leading to improved visibility.

May 26 - The Los Angeles Times

Al Gore's new documentary "An Inconvennient Truth" uses a personal narrative to drive home the urgency of the global warming problem.

May 26 - Grist

Hercules, CA, threatens to use eminent domain to keep out retail giant Wal-Mart.

May 26 - The San Francisco Chronicle

Los Angeles' leaders have an opportunity to show some courage and extend the "current brainless configuration" of the area's subway system.

May 25 - The Los Angeles Times

Smaller cities across Southern California, like Santa Clarita, have discovered that being friendly to small businesses yields big rewards, especially when the mammoth City of Los Angeles is too big to care.

May 25 - The Los Angeles Times

With the Canadian government under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper backing away from Kyoto in favor of a "made-in-Canada" solution, Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail asks, "If not Kyoto, then what?"

May 25 - The Globe and Mail

The "man architecture critics love to hate", New Urbanism co-founder Duany, has been shaping the debate over how to revitalize the Gulf Coast.

May 25 - The New York Times

A New Yorker columnist compares today's sky-high energy prices with those during the Carter administration, and the scare of the terrorism of September 11 to that of December 7, 1941. She suggests that increasing the gas tax should be considered.

May 25 - The New Yorker

The success of Atlantic Station, a large scale mixed-use urban development, proves the need for a more pedestrian friendly environment in auto-dominated Atlanta.

May 25 - The New York Times

The city council of Hercules, CA, votes unanimously to use eminent domain to take Wal-Mart's land and stop it from building a store.

May 25 - The San Francisco Chronicle

An open space preservation coalition led a visioning exercise for the future of Seattle, to "design Seattle's green network for the next century".

May 25 - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer