The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

States around the country have delivered big tax breaks to film companies to shoot in their area, but do they pay off? A recent study in New Mexico says no.

January 9 - Governing Magazine

The New Yorker profiles Van Jones, a leading environmental activist and the driving force behind the movement to create a green energy jobs policy in the United States.

January 9 - The New Yorker

A new study from SMR Research Corporation reveals that people who live alone use 18% more energy than two-person households, and 30% more than three-person homes. McMansions are, or course, cited as big wasters.

January 9 - The Ground Floor

'Fridge-sized units' are being installed around Philadelphia to control traffic lights. Why so big? Columnist Inga Saffron investigates the morass of requirements that led to the oversized street furniture.

January 9 - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Mayor Bloomberg's office reportedly cut a deal with the Yankees allowing 250 more parking spaces and three additional billboards at their new stadium in exchange for a luxury suite, complete with free food and access to post-season games.

January 8 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

<p> Protecting the poor and protecting the environment are two areas we haven’t quite figured out yet. Put them together, and we’re really up a creek. And we are, because these two silos are actually linked very closely. The relationship between poverty and environmental degradation is incredibly complex, but you wouldn’t guess it by looking at some recent policies gathering support out there in the world. Solutions, it would seem, are incredibly simple. But most of these ideas, though well-intentioned, address only one side of the poverty-environment relationship -- and really hurt the other. </p>

January 8 - Nate Berg

Starting Monday, some SEPTA trains will launch a pilot program that discourages too-loud talking, a problem now prevalent during rush-hour.

January 8 - Philadelphia Inquirer

As they currently lead the way in designing the most avant-garde projects for overseas clients, American architecture firms must understand the roots of their success to stay afloat .

January 8 - Newsweek

It will take more than two decades to expand Los Angeles' Subway to the Sea by 10 miles, according to an MTA timeline. The mayor's office and transit activists are pushing for it to get done more quickly.

January 8 - Los Angeles Times

Correspondent/neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta, who has been tapped to fill the Surgeon General position by President-elect Obama, talks about 'livable cities' as they relate to climate change and public health.

January 8 - WorldChanging

Thirty-story buildings used for crop-growing is a good idea on paper, but the challenges still outweigh the benefits.

January 8 - The Christian Science Monitor

The catastrophic spill of coal ash sludge in Tennessee is a wake-up call: there are more than 1,300 such dumps across the U.S., and, as a result of coal industry lobbying, no federal regulations for safe storage, reuse or disposal of the waste.

January 8 - New York Times

In the first of two guest posts, UCLA researcher Eric A. Morris blogs on the logic behind congestion pricing.

January 8 - The New York Times

What comes next for the doomed, enclosed mall across America? This article highlights a number of solutions, including an adaptive reuse model that incorporates housing units inside the mall itself.

January 8 - HousingWire

FEATURE

Transit oriented development experts John Renne, PhD, and Jeff Wood recently fielded questions from Planetizen readers about TOD, its current applications and its future.

January 8 - Planetizen

Plans for a broad statewide highway project known as the Trans-Texas Corridor have been abandoned by state officials.

January 8 - The Dallas Morning News

Was it a walkability protest, political demonstration, or just an accident? Regardless, the thousands of used shoes that covered Miami's Palmetto Expressway last week, delaying traffic for hours, are now on their way to Haiti.

January 7 - Miami Herald

A federal court has knocked down a previous ruling that Los Angeles' billboard ban is unconstitutional.

January 7 - Los Angeles Times

Bend, Oregon councilmembers took no more than five minutes to vote to expand the city's urban growth boundaries, adding nearly 9,000 acres of developable land to the city's map.

January 7 - KOHD

Canada is now on the road to developing enough capacity to have at least some residents in every province receiving at least some of their energy from turbines.

January 7 - The Globe and Mail