The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

BLOG POST

<p> <em>&quot;Buyers value the dollar per square foot, and the builder responds by delivering as many square feet of conditioned space as possible for $X. If he can deliver 100 more square feet than the competition, most buyers think it&#39;s a better value.&quot;</em> </p> <p> <em>-Ron Jones, Green Builder Magazine, in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040600934.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>.</em> </p>

June 9 - Tim Halbur

A roundtable discussion on the projected growth in the Bay Area of California, and the planning tools being unveiled that will help mitigate the projected increase of an additional 2 million inhabitants to the region by 2035.

June 9 - KQED.org

American artist Mike Bouchet constructed a full-sized replica of a standard American suburban home to float outside the Venice Biennale art exhibition. Instead, the house sank, suggesting new meanings for the artwork.

June 9 - AFP

A new growth management law in Florida is both good news and bad news, says Jane Healy of the Orlando Sentinel.

June 9 - Orlando Sentinel

BLOG POST

<p> The growth in hybrid car sales is a welcome sign that a major change in the automobile industry is afoot.  The shift to transport infrastructure that is not based on the archaic complexity of an internal combustion engine, with its hundreds of moving parts and compressed fuel explosions, has been long put off by an automobile industry, happy with status quo, partnered with oil cartels with the power to price their product as if it were in endless supply.  But with smack-in-the-face-reality fuel prices last summer, the collapse of the so-called “Big Three” over the winter, and the simultaneous heralding assertion of alternative energy technologies (Daimler AG <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/19/news/companies/tesla_daimler_electric/index.htm?postversion=2009051915">bought a 10% stake in Tesla Motors</a> last month!), the fallout of western economic near-collapse has changed everything we’ve known to be sacrosanct; Leonard Lopate even waxed nostalgic about the “<a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2009/06/08">Death of the Car Song</a>” yesterday on National Public Radio’s local station, WNYC.

June 9 - Ian Sacs

The Morris County Planning Board indicates that no new residential subdivisions of 20 or more lots were received in 2008, which signals the end of large-tract developments.

June 9 - Daily Record

Hayward, which is an East Bay suburb of San Francisco, has laid the groundwork for a nearly car-free housing development for environmentally conscious living.

June 9 - San Francisco Chronicle

The City of Santee is using Twitter and Facebook to protest a planned prison expansion on nearby county land.

June 9 - San Diego Union-Tribune

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt">One important planning approach for sustainable living is how to locate and integrate the natural and man-made attributes of the land to configure a low-carbon site for large scale development.

June 8 - Rick Abelson

The Chicago Architecture Foundation is showing a scale model of the Loop and nearby areas on Michigan Avenue.

June 8 - Chicago Tribune

BLOG POST

<p> Thanks to the <a href="http://www.vacantproperties.org/index.html">National Vacant Properties Campaign</a> for another important conference on vacant properties - this time in Louisville.  I was duly <a href="/node/27856">impressed with the first conference</a> on the subject a year and a half ago but what struck me this time was the growing diversity of voices concerned with the issue. </p> <p> At the last conference, I (and I assume many others) had the feeling that it was a therapy session of sorts for like-minded spirits.  &quot;Older industrial&quot; cities were sharing information and ideas because, while all cities are unique, we share a lot of the same challenges.   </p>

June 8 - Scott Page

Fort Lauderdale joins a national program which will provide $3.7 million to change foreclosed homes into affordable housing.

June 8 - Sun-Sentinel

Caltrain officials are planning to cut midday service by half, raise parking fees by 50 percent, and charge more for the monthly Go Pass.

June 8 - The San Francisco Chronicle

The act of running and building our homes is responsible for almost half of the U.S.'s carbon footprint. GOOD Magazine asks, so why are we so obsessed with making cars sustainable instead of homes?

June 8 - GOOD Magazine

It was hailed as the solution to America's infrastructure spending deficit, but the influx of private funds has come to halt along with the failure of banks and the huge investment from the Recovery Act. Plus, many schemes aroused taxpayers wrath.

June 8 - The New York Times - Economy

The transportation reauthorization bill will be hotly debated this fall on at least two fronts - finding a sustainable funding source and apportioning the revenues. The 18.4 cent gas tax, its funding source, declined 33% due to inflation since 1993.

June 8 - The New York Times - U.S.

The Metro's Rail Management Committee of East Valley is considering trading the naming rights of light rail stations for revenue.

June 8 - East Valley Tribune

Officials of Bridgeport admitted that the city's Master Plan of Conservation and Development was improperly adopted last year.

June 8 - Connecticut Post

Schadenfreude is a German concept that means "taking pleasure in the suffering of others." Columnist Meghan Daum is experiencing 'debtenfreude'; the pleasure in watching house flippers and McMansion builders fall to the economic downturn.

June 8 - Los Angeles Times

FEATURE

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy spent two years looking at smart growth policies in a number of states to see how well they've achieved their goals. Gregory K. Ingram, President of the Institute, explains the results.

June 8 - Gregory K. Ingram