The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Claire Thompson reports on new findings presented in the Alliance for Biking and Walking's 2012 Benchmarking Report demonstrating the rise in biking and walking, and the incongruity with recent attempts to defund bipedal infrastructure.

February 21 - Grist

As single women buy homes in unprecedented quantities, and much more frequently than men, Kate Bolick asks if female homeownership is liberating or limiting.

February 21 - The Wall Street Journal

As boomers retire at a rate of 10,000 per day, can they be discouraged from sprawling into suburbs and rural areas, where caring for them as they age can be more challenging?

February 20 - Salon.com

The proposed "Park 101" freeway cap in Downtown Los Angeles could change the face of the city. But it faces huge obstacles.

February 20 - California Planning & Development Report

Apparently the payroll tax agreement reached on Friday in congress did not extend all tax provisions being considered. The deal allowed a number of tax breaks, including those for wind and solar energy producers, to expire, reports Brad Plumer.

February 20 - The Washington Post

After a yearlong investigation into a fire at an $11-million mansion in the Hollywood Hills, Gerhard Albert Becker, the architect who designed the home, has been charged in the death of a firefighter fighting the blaze.

February 20 - Los Angeles Times

Recent liberalization of the country's property ownership rules by President Raul Castro have unleashed decades of pent-up demand for real estate and construction in Cuba, reports Victoria Burnett.

February 20 - The New York Times

In London last week, a good-natured debate took place between Boris Johnson, mayor of London, and New York City deputy mayors Howard Wolfson and Robert K. Steel for ultimate mega-city bragging rights.

February 19 - The Atlantic Cities

As a new basketball arena takes shape at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn, Neil deMause investigates what is next for the controversial, and much changed, Atlantic Yards project.

February 19 - The Brooklyn Bureau

This past Wednesday, Amtrak debuted the newest high-speed rail service in the country, and the first outside of the northeast corridor. Where you ask? California? Florida? Nope, it's is Kalamazoo, Michigan.

February 19 - Chicago Sun-Times

Kaid Benfield brings attention to HUD's new Sustainable Communities Resource Center website, which provides best practices case studies and other information resources.

February 19 - Switchboard

Scott James reports on the ironic application of rent control laws in San Francisco, which results in people of relatively modest means subsidizing the housing of the extraordinarily wealthy.

February 19 - The Bay Citizen

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> If you run a google.com search for “The Death of Suburbia” you will find about 24,000 ‘hits.’   Some of the gloating over suburbia’s alleged demise is based on the facts that (some) suburbs have been hit hard by the current economic downturn, and that (some) city neighborhoods have become more expensive per square foot than than suburbs. (1)  But suburbia as a whole continues to gain population. </p>

February 18 - Michael Lewyn

In response to recent emphasis by President Obama on strengthening the country's manufacturing sector as a key to economic recovery, Richard Florida sees knowledge-based jobs and new skills as the foundation for a new economic blueprint.

February 18 - The Atlantic Cities

Jonathan Massey pens an essay in the journal <em>Places</em>, in which he probes the implications of homeownership as the vehicle by which the microeconomics of household finance and the macroeconomics of a globalized economy are mediated.

February 18 - Places

The CA High Speed Rail Authority hopes to work with Caltrain in the Bay Area and Metrolink in the South Coast by allowing them to use state HSR Bond funds provided they match the amount. Electrification and grade crossing separations are eligible.

February 18 - San Francisco Chronicle

Over the past two years, German funding and Israeli philanthropy led to the construction of solar installations for Palestinians living in "Area C" in the West Bank. Now Israel says the panels are illegal and wants them demolished.

February 18 - Spiegel Online

Zak Stone reports on a campaign in Chattanooga, Tennessee to distill the city's artistic and entrepreneurial spirit into a font, and asks the question - can a font help a city make a comeback?

February 18 - Good

Pat Doyle reports on a new effort to reduce nuisances at a Minneapolis area light-rail station by using offensive music -- classical music in this case -- as a deterrent.

February 17 - Star Tribune

Seemingly as hard to find as the mythic Sasquatch or a Unicorn, we've searched high and low for a conservative who supports transit (or at least who will say so in public) and have found one, in the region around Charlotte, North Carolina.

February 17 - The Herald Weekly