Urban Planning Blog

I never thought much of Mobile, Alabama until I saw David Rencher’s photographs. He definitely proves that any city can be beautiful and just has to be seen through the right lens.

A tad old but this multimedia image showing population densities in the United States still impresses me.

Tired of mundane cliched pie charts and histograms? If you look around, there are plenty of other great and innovative options to present your data. Make an impact at your next conference by presenting a Mindmap.

Google has been sending GPS kits to India that enable locals to make more detailed maps of their area. After the data has been uploaded and then verified against other participant’s data it becomes a part of the map.

“Vacant and abandoned properties occupy about 15 percent of the area of the typical large city, more than 12,000 acres on average.” The National Vacant Properties Campaign is a resource to harness that potential for redevelopment.

Chitika and University of Texas made a study that estimates a $500 million revenue for the top 50k blogs in 2006. Can an Urban Planning blog be self-sustainable by blog income?

I live in a college town so probably can identify with the lure of one. UConn is taking that seriously as it sets out to build a college town from scratch.

Technorati Tags: college town, university, housing, city center, UConn

The list of America’s Most Sustainable Cities is out. Portland tops the list, followed by San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Incidentally, Houston which was ranked dead last in 2005 (I am not surprised) has made some significant progress to climb up to #39. Read the story of its rise.

How to make your parquet flooring a little – heck, a lot – more interesting.

The Empire State Building is 75 today. I love this quote: “You know, man is the only animal clever enough to build the Empire State Building and stupid enough to jump off it!”

A long-ish obituary for Jane Jacobs. She was one of the foremost thinkers in the field of urban planning and her seminal work, The Life and Death of American Cities changed our perception of cities forever.

An amazing compact apartment that used an interlocking system to maximize space in an urban apartment.

Library design with “reclaimed fuselages of 727/737 passenger jets”. Cool and cheap manner to recycle when it is expensive to do so in traditional ways.

The American Institute for Architects has announced its list of Top Ten Green Projects. I have seen the UT School of Nursing and Student Center in Houston but haven’t had the pleasure to have walked through it.

A death blow for affordable housing in Bombay as nearly 285 acres of land occupied by defunct textile mills is proposed for sale to private builders without a component of affordable housing.