compare with "$100 fill-ups unlikely to kill our suburbs" http://www.planningnewsvote.com/story.php?title=100_fill-ups_unlikely_to_kill_our_suburbs__TheNewsTribune-com__Tacoma_WA by uberplanner where "Jeff Rubin with CIBC looked at the crude oil market and forecast that by 2010 the average price of gasoline in America will reach $7 a gallon".

WorldWide Telescope @ http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ Stellarium @ http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/

Martha Schwartz is a US-based landscape architect specialising in master plans, art commissions, urban renewal, reclamation and redevelopment: Martha Schwartz Partners ( http://www.marthaschwartz.com/ )

See also A toolkit for measuring sprawl - http://www.geosimulation.org/measuringsprawl.html Debate regarding suburban sprawl in urban studies is contentious. It is fair to say that the phenomenon is not fully understood to satisfaction in the academic, policy, or planning communities and there are a host of reasons why this may be the case. Characterization of sprawl in the literature is often narrative and subjective. Measurement is piecemeal and largely data-driven. Existing studies yield contrary results for the same cities in many cases. The partial appreciation for the intricacies of sprawl is problematic. In practice, city planning agencies and citizen advocacy groups are scrambling to suggest and develop "smart growth" strategies to curb sprawl, without a strong empirical basis for measuring the phenomenon. Yet, sprawl is extremely popular with consumers.

New Urbanism, a style of community design that embraces mixed use (commercial and residential) development in pedestrian-friendly and green space-rich neighborhoods-much like the old neighborhoods many baby-boomers remember before suburban sprawl made us all slaves to our cars. http://www.cnu.org/ : The CNU's Charter of the New Urbanism says: We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism

Good website. It has lots of useful information in one place. I know from personal experience that local planning officials and planning commissions, especially in rural and some suburban areas can certainly use this information. Most don't adequately understand the properties of groundwater and how to make policy to protect it.

slideshow http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/28/arts/20080331_PRITZ_SLIDESHOW_index.html

surprising to find few from the west 1 Tokyo, Japan 2 Mumbai, India 3 Delhi, India 4 Dhaka, Bangladesh 5 Sao Paulo, Brazil 6 Mexico City, Mexico 7 New York, United States 8 Calcutta, India 9 Shanghai, China 10 Karachi, Pakistan

In Pictures: The 10 Biggest Cities Of 2025 @ http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/19/cities-population-pollution-innovation08-cx_tvr_0319futurecities_slide_2.html

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/mta-votes-to-sell-west-side-land-rights-to-tishman/ The board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority gave tentative approval shortly before noon today to sell a 99-year lease to develop 26 acres of vacant land overlooking the Hudson River to Tishman Speyer Properties for just over $1 billion. Tishman prevailed over its principal rival — a joint venture of the Durst Organization and Vornado Realty Trust — for the right to build a cluster of residential and commercial skyscrapers, cultural buildings, a school and parkland on a platform over a pair of rail yards that sit on both sides of 11th Avenue between 30th and 33rd Streets.

Locality Explorer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local-explorer/

many newspapers also have this info: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/realestate/ http://www.nytimes.com/pages/realestate/ http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/

Here are a few of the new business models and applications discussed in the report: * HomeThinking @ http://www.homethinking.com allows consumers to find real estate agents based on what previous customer have said about the job they did. * Ease Realty @ http://www.easerealty.com/ is a real estate marketing cooperative. They provide national branding for a very low entry fee for agents. * O48 @ http://www.o48.com/ offers free moving after the sale within the continental United States. * Home Vestors of America @ http://www.homevestors.com/ is a business model that helps you buy houses that need repair, fix them, and then sell them.

You still can :) - check out 1 of the ads up top: http://www.ecoemploy.com/jobs/

I don't think that I was advocating a federalist approach. Anyway, as I understand, the point being made was that states that want/need federal urban guidelines are (largely urban and are) often left to their own devices given the pressure from their rural counterparts which wrongly fear "big brother" intrusions on their turfs. And that this pressure often prevails because a slant towards the rural is built-into our constitution and election process.

This article really "hit the nail on the head" about urban policy in this country. Federal agencies like HUD could do a lot more to help change things in cities. But states that need the most assistance with urban policy don't seem to want it.

Aside from the populist give-aways from both democratic candidates, can they outline how they plan to integrate mass-transit with energy-independence and counter the formidable auto-industry while doing so?

Which urban policy issue would you like to be addressed by our leading presidential candidates? Add to the comments @ http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/02/19/opinion/19tue1.html . Urban:Rural=79%:21% @ http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-P1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-format=US-1

good article. Once upon a time I wanted to go into environmental planning. But things worked out differentlyl.

http://www.ccgismap.com/map.php uses Autodesk's MapGuide - requires account.

definitely controversial but with a grain of truth

Most Damaged Homes Sold to State http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/01/27/us/20080127_ORLEANS_GRAPHIC.html

http://mas.org/

Is Ethanol for Everybody? @ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/opinion/10cohen.html : "If the vast potential of sugar cane ethanol is to be realized, in Brazil as in poor African countries, its development must come in ordered ways that allow the likes of Danuza and her children to benefit. A new fuel should not carry oil’s frequent curse: the enrichment of a narrow elite. This will depend on several things: the labor standards adopted by the growing hordes of international investors drawn to ethanol; the opening up of the global trading system to this biofuel that many poor tropical countries will be able to produce; and the development of a global traded commodity market in ethanol with established norms. Without such standards, development will stall. So will social progress." Roger Cohen's blog @ http://www.iht.com/passages

Thanks. I make further comments on my blog The BICEP Bulletin. http://bicepbulletin.blogspot.com/2008/01/city-of-detroit-should-sell-under.html

Great comment for planners on-the-go: summarizes the news succinctly!

I would tend to feel that selling park land is a bad idea. But in the case of Detroit, I have to say that the city's rec department proposal seems logical to me. The article cited statements from experts who cited that the city's population shrank dramatically since the 50's. By concentrating parks and rec in neighborhoods that are more likely to utilize them makes sense to me. Some would likely argue that keeping and maintaining the pocket parks can be used in revitalizing neighborhoods and attracting new residents, small businesses, etc. No argument from me there. But, in the case of Detroit neighborhood resurgence, I think that the city needs to attract new neighborhood mixed-income dwellers from outside of the downtrodden neighborhoods. As well as outside of the the city limits. Not to mention making the best of scarce resources. Satisfactory/poorly maintained pocket parks are not enough to attract these people in order to bring up neighborhoods.

* High Noon in New Orleans: The Bulldozers Are Ready: http://www.planningnewsvote.com/story.php?title=High_Noon_in_New_Orleans_The_Bulldozers_Are_Ready * Louisiana gaining residents again - State appears to be rebounding from Katrina’s devastation: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22401946/ * New Orleans population nears 300,000 - Number represents 65 percent of pre-Katrina size, report says: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22392889/

Thanks! Feel free to make suggestions for PNV- check-out our blog @ http://planningnewsvote.blogspot.com/ .

Interesting. What about the question of growing farmland subsidies? Here's something topical on it: Iowa's Ridiculous Caucus - Iowa doesn't represent the country. The rules of its caucus are so arcane that even to this day, there is uncertainty about who won the 1988 Democratic contest. The vast majority of Iowans don't participate in the caucus. The existence of that caucus guarantees the continuation of wasteful ethanol subsidies. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/community/groups/index.html?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3aa70e3396-6663-4a8d-ba19-e44939d3c44fForum%3a5543a34c-af92-4736-b81b-4aad0ab02e2eDiscussion%3a9a5c94c8-0341-4f86-93c3-26762f8da656 Happy 2008! ;)