California may be a capital of cosmetic surgery, but it’s not just noses and eyelids falling under the knife. A hot housing market is driving buyers to pay exorbitant sums for old, frumpy houses, knowing they’ll pay plenty more to remake them to modern tastes. Others currently own dowdy houses and choose to renovate rather than relocate. — Wall Street Journal

Facing a potentially bruising ballot fight over real estate development next year, Los Angeles' political leaders announced Wednesday that they will seek a sweeping update of the plans that govern the size and density of new buildings that go up in scores of neighborhoods.

Mayor Eric Garcetti and several council members said they want the Planning Department to revise nearly three dozen “community plans” by 2026, a task that will require the hiring of 28 new employees at a cost of $4.2M a year. — latimes.com

Rapidly rising property prices and rents, combined with the loss of social housing through right to buy, have put councils under growing pressure to find new ways to help people off their housing lists.

In Lewisham one solution is a £4.3m scheme to provide 24 homes and 880 sq m of business space that can be picked up and moved at a later date, allowing the council to make use of vacant brownfield land while longer-term projects are finalised. — theguardian.com

From a concrete ditch, the river is now, very, very, very slowly becoming that green, recreational space many supporters have imagined. But, the question is, what's taking so long?

As anyone who's ever set out to build in Los Angeles knows, things aren't always as simple as they seem. A vision becomes reality at a glacial pace, which can be a good or bad thing. — kcet.org

[Botany professor Paloma Cariñanos] found it surprising that the design of these green spaces thought about landscaping, climate, and fashion criteria, but didn't think about pollen problems.
[She] says that in the future, urban green spaces 'will become 'comfort islands' inside 'urban heat islands.''...Cariñanos and her team stress that their research is a tool for planning and prevention. They hope that other cities will be able to use their methods to prevent high allergen levels. — phys.org

'We are transforming LaGuardia into a globally-renowned, 21st century airport that is worthy of the city and state of New York. It’s the perfect metaphor for what we can achieve with the ambition and optimism and energy that made this the Empire State in the first place, and I want to thank our many partners for joining us to build the airport that New York deserves.' — Gov. Cuomo — governor.ny.gov

Prince Charles urges architects to place pedestrians “at the centre of the design process” as part of a 10-point “master plan” he has devised for the developments of towns and cities.

He also calls for many street signs to be removed. “Slow” and “Reduce Speed Now” signs, for example, should be taken down and replaced by features such as squares, bends and trees that “naturally” encourage motorists to reduce their speed. — telegraph.co.uk

Earlier this week we reported on Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett’s decision to prevent construction of a sidewalk on Riverside Drive that would provide walking access to a major new city park. Local advocates say the lack of a sidewalk will make the park harder to get to on foot, and they don’t buy the mayor’s explanation that people will be safer if there’s no sidewalk tempting them to walk. — usa.streetsblog.org

Daniel Campo, an urban planner and professor of planning at Morgan State University, is particularly interested in those recreational spaces that aren’t planned or designed, but are appropriated by residents for their own purposes. [...]

Dylan Gauthier, a public artist, educator, and writer based in North Brooklyn, walked around these parks with Campo to discuss the benefits of unplanned spaces for recreation [...]. — urbanomnibus.net

Beavercreek, Ohio, nabbed its own infamous place in civil rights history last year, when the Federal Highway Administration ruled that the suburb had violated anti-discrimination laws by blocking bus service from nearby Dayton. [...]

The Beavercreek case illustrates larger, more widespread problems with America’s transportation system [...]. The Kirwan Institute is producing a one-hour documentary exploring the Beavercreek case and how racism can influence transportation decision making. — usa.streetsblog.org

9 x 18. In square feet, that’s 162, smaller than the most micro micro-apartment.

It is the size of a typical parking space. That lowly slice of asphalt has prompted three young architects — Miriam Peterson, Sagi Golan and Nathan Rich, fellows at the Institute for Public Architecture — to come up with what could be an innovative way to ease the housing crisis. — nytimes.com

I asked myself the question: so what struck me about the process of thinking across boundaries and reimagining planning in the issues that we have been discussing in our celebration of DPU [The Bartlett Development Planning Unit]’s 60th anniversary in this conference. At the risk of simplifying a complex and dynamic set of discussions, I want to make six points. — thisbigcity.net