Bad ideas and misunderstandings in planning don't go away, they just get recycled ... in new articles

From Planetizen:

The Vancouver Dream, The Vancouver Nightmare
Aug 20, 2010 -- New Geography
Despite its reputation as a planner's dream, the city of Vancouver has incredibly high housing prices, which is part of the reason New Geography's Steve Lafleur calls it a middle class nightmare.

- the issue is high demand. Housing is really expensive in New York City too. There are a lot of reasons for this and in order to address them, you need a wide ranging housing affordability plan that probably not one jurisdiction in the world has. You have to include a wide range of housing types, accommodating different types of housing, mix it up, and include a variety of land tenure systems (how you own or control property) and rental options. It's pretty hard to do that in a capitalist system, especially when you have a lot of planners and public intellectuals out there muddying up the issue sphere with muddled thinking.

The Case Against The Centralized City
Aug 19, 2010 -- The Global Urbanist
Kerwin Datu suggests that transit in cities of the future should no longer be organized around a distinct center. "Rather than think of a city as a centre surrounded by suburbs, think of it as a patchwork of specialised districts woven together."

- no. To make transit work, you need to link origins and destinations over relatively short distances, under 7-10 miles, especially between home and work, home and school, and major activity centers.

You can't have effective and efficient "mass" transit otherwise.

See Belmont's Cities in Full. It's all about the recentralization of housing, commerce, employment centers, and transit. In my opinion, Cities in Full, published by the American Planning Association, is the most important book in planning after Jane Jacobs' Death and Life of the Great American City.