Tuesday News Roundup

It’s been a whole week since our last sidewalk photo, which was, of course, correctly identified by keen readers Ken Wilson and John as Sherrin Avenue near Shelbyville Road across from Trinity High School in St. Matthews. Here’s a new photo ready for guesses in the comments, and I promise to try to keep the gaps in between much less than a week in the future. And look how the news piles up…

Local News

• New Albany’s Toast on Market opens Tuesday morning (NA Confidential)
• And the new Wick’s Pizza looks like it will open October 7 (N & T)
• 95-unit Old Louisville apartment complex sold for $4.2M, upgrades planned (Biz First)
• Planned Zorn Avenue hotel chopped by 68 feet after neighbors complain (C-J, Biz First)
• ‘Green Giant’ near U of L to clean up site for redevelopment (Ville-Voice, Biz First)
• On the progress (or lack thereof) on major Downtown projects (Biz First)
• Illegal tire dumping still a problem in Louisville neighborhoods (C-J)
• Churchill Downs to install permanent lighting for night racing (C-J)
• Suburban church plans New Urban addition to foster community feel (C-J)
• While another suburban church to be demolished for a strip mall (C-J)
• If you haven’t yet, check out LEO’s Readers’ Choice Awards (LEO)
• ‘Labyrinth Conference’ planned for Louisville next month (Unusual Kentucky)
• Butchertown case study: evolving roles of neighborhoods (Urban Review STL)
• CBRE says Louisville retail vacancy rate at five year high (C-J)
• Kentucky still in bottom 20% of business friendly states (Biz First)
• And a couple more takes on the local economy and beyond (C-J, Biz First)

Transportation

• David Byrne: Cities best understood while riding a bike (Infrastructurist, TreeHugger)
• Few Americans ride bikes to work, but numbers increasing fast (Ride the City)
• On Portland (OR)’s remnants of ‘dead highways’ (Mercury via Hard Drive)
• On considering the health impacts of highways on the community (WaPo via Twitter)

Everything Else

• Considering strategies to ‘re-imagine the good life’ & sell urban living (Urbanophile)
• Habitat for Humanity finding rehab opportunities in down economy (Miller-McCune)
• Considering the ‘multi-functional’ benefits of a green roof (gizmag via P-zen)
• Kansas City uses its stimulus funds to create ‘green impact zone’ (Switchboard)
• GOOD magazine is rethinking cities.
• On the importance of buying local for the local economy (BR Now via CEOs4Cities)
• A couple of interesting maps on two suburban chain stores here and here.
• And this upside-down-house in Germany is just bizarre (Boing Boing)