The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

A recent tour through housing developments in Hong Kong shows that the large spaces Americans treasure in homes are not necessarily the best method for urbanizing areas, according to this post.

May 14 - Sustainable Cities Collective

Last month, the planning department of the City of San Diego was folded into the Development Services Department. Locals worry the shift in perspective will endanger plans being developed in a dozen different neighborhoods.

May 13 - OB Rag

The Brookings Institution recently analyzed the top 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S. to see how easy it is to use transit. <em>Time</em> presents the best and worst from the list, which includes some surprises.

May 13 - Time

Community groups in Philadelphia are trying to remake blighted vacant properties into community gardens and neighborhood amenities.

May 13 - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Mary Newsom comes away from a conference on cities concerned that the gains of the past decades in cities - improved transit, downtown revitalization - could be destroyed by budget cuts.

May 13 - Citiwire.net

An extensive profile of the recovering Iceland paints a picture of a place that is overthrowing its boom-time banker's persona and rebuilding on the unique strengths of its culture.

May 13 - The New York Times

A plan approved to build a $7 billion dam in Chile has some worried about the loss of land, but others excited about looming economic opportunities.

May 13 - The Washington Post

A new study looking at neighborhood satisfaction finds that people living in the suburbs are less satisfied than urban dwellers.

May 13 - Men's Health

After 22 years in office, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is leaving office. This piece looks back on his mixed impact on the urban design of the city.

May 13 - Chicago Tribune

Climatic shifts and periodic weather patterns are bringing sea levels up along the Pacific coast, which is causing many scientists concern about how coastal regions will be able to react.

May 13 - The New York Times

Access to healthy food is a major issue in public health. But just because there's a grocery store nearby doesn't mean health will improve. One entrepreneur looking at supermarket design says the way stores are laid out negatively affects health.

May 13 - The Atlantic

Witold Rybczynski writes the epitaph for the McMansion. With the housing market in the toilet, Rybczynski says new homebuyers are going to be seeking something smaller, more affordable and possibly not a single-family home.

May 12 - Slate

This op-ed from <em>Al Jazeera</em> looks at some of the negative ways preparations for the World Cup and Olympics are affecting the poor in Brazil.

May 12 - Al Jazeera

25 years after the publication of Cadillac Desert, scientists have scrutinized the predictions of the hallmark history of water in the Western U.S. and find that its dire warnings are not far off.

May 12 - Miller-McCune

An independent group is seeking to "ignite essential discussions about art in Los Angeles" by getting locals to put APPROVE or DISAPPROVE stickers on public art around the city.

May 12 - MOCA-latte

FEATURE

Architect Charles Moore was an intellect and practitioner that loved Los Angeles, pushing the envelope of the city's nostalgia and utopianism while simultaneously embracing them, says urban designer Vinayak Bharne.

May 12 - Vinayak Bharne

Buffalo, New York is restoring portions of its historic waterfront into a 2-acre, walkable, mixed-use neighborhood.

May 12 - The Architect's Newspaper

...particularly if you live in Nevada, where Google is pressing hard to convince lawmakers to allow their autonomous vehicles on public roads.

May 12 - The New York Times

Koen Olthuis is an architect of floating structures, from floating condominiums in the Netherlands to a floating mosque in the United Arab Emirates. Inhabitat dates to ask, why? What is the relevance of aquatecture?

May 12 - Inhabitat

Governing Magazine identifies a trend: States consolidating their various environmental agencies (parks, wildlife, energy, etc.) to less than stellar effect.

May 12 - Governing Magazine