Next week the Cambridge City Council will consider a petition to require new or newly renovated buildings of 25,000 square feet or more to be net-zero emissions. Under the rule, any energy that buildings use beyond what they produce must be sourced from approved, renewable energy sources. While … [Read more...]

Detroit's art assets have made news as Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr is evaluating the city's assets for a potential bankruptcy filing. Belle Isle, where Rod Lockwood recently proposed a free city-state may be on the chopping block, but according to a Detroit Free Press poll, residents are most … [Read more...]

This weekend Anthony Ling who writes the blog Rendering Freedom (and has previously written here) will be in DC. Stephen Smith will also be in town, and we're planning a meetup on Saturday. Anthony is an architect in São Paolo. He writes about architecture, economics, and urbanism, and I'm excited … [Read more...]

Stephen had great twitter coverage of urbanist election issues last night, but here are a few more links to significant outcomes: 1. Washington state and my home state of Colorado voted to legalize marijuana possession, private use, and in Colorado limited production. Drug policy liberalization … [Read more...]

I spoke to George Haikalis (trust me, he's a lot smarter than his HTML looks), a regional planner and former NYCTA official, about the high cost of New York City transit. He had a message to the press and academia: Part of the problem is that we don't really have a very strong independent technical … [Read more...]