“Frank Gehry should be told to scale down his two ‘Prescott’ towers, or Hove will suffer the fate facing London’s skyline,” according to a writer for the Guardian. The same writer loves Gehry’s work in other cities - just not in his own backyard.

Toni Gold warns that unless the state begins to employ the principles of smart growth, a massive new development will turn bucolic eastern CT into a congested mess.

The Washington Square Park Council has hired PPS to conduct a community workshop on October 15. The Council is not interested in “reinventing the park or changing its character.” The Council is opposed to a recent agreement on the redesign between the communit’s city councilmember and the parks department.

PPS conducted user surveys for the Council, to help better understand how people use the park at different times of day and night.

For New York City’s largest projects - Ground Zero and Atlantic Yards - Robert Moses’ legacy rises, but does Jane Jacobs’ falter?

An old highway is torn down, traffic “disappears,” and the city of San Francisco builds a great public space.

“After more than a decade of false starts, New York City officials announced yesterday that they had selected a company to remake the city’s jumbled streetscape by providing aesthetic order to its thousands of bus shelters and newsstands and, perhaps most intriguing, installing 20 freestanding public toilets on city streets.”

“Joe Riley, mayor of Charleston, S.C., since 1975, is also his city’s unofficial chief designer. One of his intentions is to incorporate beauty and history into the ordinary workings of daily life, especially in the city’s remarkable downtown. Visiting Minneapolis last week for an Urban Land Institute conference, Riley spoke with Star Tribune editorial writer Steve Berg…”

Transit agencies around the country are reporting an unusual spike in ridership on buses, light rail, commuter trains and city-run vans. The Environmental Protection Agency confirms the trend, reporting a surge in employee demand for company transit benefits.

While many connect the increases in mass transit use to rising gas prices, Phoenix officials are conducting passenger surveys to determine what other factors are accountable for the steady increases in ridership that area has seen over the past few years.

“New Orleans is bankrupt. Its population of nearly half a million is scattered around the country, banned — for no one knows how long — from returning. Its dry streets are spookily empty, and its wet streets may take a month to pump out. Yet all anyone in Louisiana seems to talk about is putting it back together again. The question — the one with no answer yet — is, how?”

Will the new Brooklyn waterfront park become a private backyard for residents of new luxury apartment towers?