Six. That's how many housing starts there were in the Marysville-Yuba City area in March. This is an area with a population of more than 150,000 people, an area that has needed four digits to count annual housing production during recent years. But in March 2008? Six housing star

Here's a puzzler for you: What land use creates more pedestrians than any other? Transit stations? Office buildings? Condos? Try airports! Every single person who arrives at an airport from out of town arrives without a car. At many airports, the first vehicle in which people rid

Even on a typical day, Las Vegas often seems like an extension of Los Angeles. Throngs of tourists arrive via car on the I-15 each day, and it's not uncommon to walk down the Strip and run into people you know. This week, however, the American Planning Association conference – be

Today, as planners, we are constantly inundated with new ideas and theories, and nowhere can this become more of a reality than a planning conference in Las Vegas. This year's national APA Conference is being held between the Paris and Bally's casinos, quintessential locations fo

All the urban planners in the country are in Las Vegas this week, and it's clear they have a love/hate relationship with the place. Vegas is kitschy and over the top, and at first glance it always looks like the least sustainable place on the planet. Vegas is acres of

OK, so everybody's bought into the idea that Sacramento's Blueprint process is a national model of regional smart growth planning. But what happens next in this cooler-than-we-ever-imagined metropolis? Depending on who you talk to the answer is:

The principles of smart growth should also be used as the principles of adapting land use patterns to climate change. That's what Ron Sims, executive of King County, Washington, said in so many words while speaking April 12 at forum on climate change and cities.

The passage of AB 32 – California's climate change law – has focused the attention of Left Coast policy wonks like a laser beam on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And as we have reported over and over again on this website , land use patterns are at the center of this debate.

The earth's climate is changing more rapidly than we had thought possible only a few years ago, and we had better both prepare for that change and do what we can to stem it.

Professional and trade conventions actually are new urbanist events. People arrive from out of town, often sans car, and spend several days walking around the convention site and the host city while taking care of business and enjoying themselves. So when we at CP&DR started talk

The housing foreclosure crisis has slammed the Central Valley as hard as any region in the country. Stockton, Sacramento, Modesto, Merced and Bakersfield are typically listed the top 10 to 15 markets with the most foreclosures per capita. In some cities, 5% to 7% of homeowners ar

People who design roads don't ride bicycles. That is evident to any cyclist.