The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The question is no longer how to improve the suburbs, says Allison Arieff, but what we're going to do with all the leftover buildings and unfinished sites.

January 13 - The New York Times

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker is talking about reforming the city's longstanding restrictions on alcohol. Writer Luke Garrett puts in his pitch for relaxed zoning to allow an old-fashioned pub in his neighborhood.

January 13 - The Salt Lake Tribune

In Virginia Beach, VA, homeowner Herbert Harris was told that the wheelchair ramp and extra bedroom he was building for his wife and ill daughter needed building permits. Thus began a trip down the rabbit hole of the Board of Zoning Appeals.

January 13 - The Virginian-Pilot

The suburbs are stereotyped as homogeneous, boring, cookie-cutter communities. But suburbs are evolving, according to this column from Tom Condon. Their relationship with cities is also changing -- and it can be good for both.

January 13 - The Hartford Courant

BLOG POST

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-CA;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span>Like all of us I have been watching the carnage in Gaza with concern and growing despair. And like many people, I have struggled with how best to understand this conflict, fraught as it is with historic hatreds, accusations and counter-accusations. If it is at all possible I would like to attempt a pragmatic view, starting with the recognition that the historic conflict over Palestine concerning land ownership, use and associated rights may be seen as falling within the spectrum of issues related to land use planning.</span>

January 13 - Michael Dudley

Chicago's 100-year anniversary of the Daniel Burnham city plan offers an opportunity to rethink how the city works and how it should look for the next 100, according to this piece from Blair Kamin.

January 13 - Chicago Tribune

Officials in Baghdad are instituting a new program to sweep beggars off the city's streets -- a number that has risen sharply since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

January 13 - Agence France Presse

Environmentalists reject CA Gov. Schwarzenegger's attempt to waive new highway construction projects from environmental review to qualify for Obama's stimulus package, offering 'fix-it-first' construction and public transit projects as alternatives.

January 13 - Los Angeles Times

It's open season in Montgomery County, Maryland, where hunters are being allowed -- and in some cases encouraged -- to hunt deer in populated suburban areas.

January 13 - The Washington Post

San Marcos, Texas, joins a handful of other cities around the country in requiring pet owners to monitor their pets electronically.

January 13 - News 8 Austin

Officials in Pittsburgh are hoping that expanding transit-oriented development will spur growth in struggling and decaying neighborhoods -- and they have the voter-approved legislation to help.

January 13 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A new study predicts that by the mid- to late- 21st century, scorching summer temperatures may result in massive failures of heat-sensitive crops such as wheat.

January 12 - The Globe and Mail

Some trends are indicating that when the 2010 Census goes through Phoenix it's going to show a shrinking population -- a first for the booming desert city.

January 12 - The Arizona Republic

Exxon's CEO has joined Al Gore, Dr. James Hansen, and others on the forefront fighting climate change in requesting a carbon tax, though they make in clear it should be in lieu of cap & trade, the method favored by the Democrats.

January 12 - The Wall Street Journal

While the economic downturn is slowing many construction projects in Dubai, the city's 47-station light rail system is moving forward on schedule.

January 12 - Architectural Record

As U.S.-Cuba relations evolve with a new presidential administration, author Richard Louv argues that officials should be careful about relying on commerce to save the country's decaying urban areas without preserving them.

January 12 - Citiwire

Charles Komanoff reveals a revised new plan that aims to bring congestion pricing to New York City and use its revenue to reduce the price of transit.

January 12 - Grist

The city of Chicago has missed a deadline to approve a pending parking fee ordinance that would have helped the city qualify for $153 million in federal grant money.

January 12 - Crain's Chicago Business

The District of Columbia may be expecting the largest gathering of people in America's history for President Obama's inauguration, but many residents will also be leaving town.

January 12 - The Globe and Mail

San Francisco's federally-funded parking experiment SFPark will be a live test of the theories of dynamic parking management popularized by Donald Shoup.

January 12 - Streetsblog San Francisco