The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

A church in Phoenix has been ordered to stop giving out free food to the homeless, which the city says is out of compliance with the church's zoning.

July 26 - KPHO

Commentator Andrei Codrescu speculates that with the economy in dire straits, California may experience a population loss as people move back to the states they left in the Great Depression.

July 26 - National Public Radio

This piece from <em>Forbes</em> looks at which cities will recover fastest from the recession -- and which ones won't.

July 26 - Forbes

Architect Edward Mazria looks at the climate bill heading to the Senate for approval and argues that its most important part is the section on building energy codes, which he calls "more powerful than 100 nuclear plants".

July 25 - Grist

The federal transportation bill seems unlikely to pass any time soon, according to legislators. They have yet to reach any consensus about the mechanisms for funding the bill.

July 25 - The Wall Street Journal

Google Maps now feature visual displays of homes and properties that are listed for sale.

July 25 - San Francisco Chronicle

Moscow's architectural heritage is in danger, according to a new report on preservation in the city.

July 25 - Metropolis

The Obama administration has been touting its dedication of $48.1 billion in stimulus money to roads and transit projects. But it's all going towards new projects, not day-to-day operational needs.

July 25 - The Nation

Jersey City senior planning aide Guy Catrillo has been charged with attempted extortion by the FBI as part of a broad corruption sting in the state.

July 24 - Jersey City Independent

Shelley Poticha, President and CEO of Reconnecting America and past executive director of the Congress for New Urbanism, has been appointed Senior Advisor for Sustainable Housing and Communities at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

July 24 - Reconnecting America

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July 24 - Ian Sacs

James Surowiecki argues that state governments are sabotaging the economic recovery, and simultaneously sinking the creation of a smart energy grid.

July 24 - The New Yorker

LA's Metro board is getting on board with high-speed rail, announcing Thursday that a Los Angeles-to-Anaheim (home of Disneyland) train could be a reality in less than 10 years.

July 24 - LAist

It's going to cost Brazil more than $42 billion in infrastructure costs to host the 2014 soccer World Cup, according to a recent report.

July 24 - Associated Press

A recent report from <em>The Brookings Institution</em> examines unemployment trends in the urban and suburban areas of the top 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S., mainly by looking at the demand for "safety net" services.

July 24 - The Brookings Institution

The drama over water between Florida, Alabama and Georgia is heating up, as a U.S. District Court ruled recently that Georgia's withdrawals from Lake Lanier are illegal. It's going to have to find a new source of water -- and inter-state cooperation.

July 24 - Associated Press

Witold Rybczynski provides an illustrated history of airport architecture on Slate [Slideshow].

July 24 - Slate.com

These two posts from Richard Florida look at how housing is faring during the economic recession. He looks at home prices in 300 metro areas, and how things have changed between the peak in 2006 to today.

July 24 - Creative Class Exchange

Preservationists and developers are deep in a dispute over the Century Plaza hotel in L.A. On the drawing board are two high rise towers, but defenders of the site argue the hotel's historic value trumps the benefit the new project would bring.

July 24 - The New York Times

As the U.K. experiments with building environmentally-friendly "eco-towns", Peter Hetherington of The Guardian argues that they should also be greening up Britain's vast suburbs.

July 23 - The Guardian U.K.