Inga Saffron of Philadelphia Inquirer wins Pulitzer Prize for criticism

-- "Inquirer's Saffron, critic of the built environment, wins Pulitzer," Philadelphia Inquirer

There are only a handful of newspapers in North America that have urban design or architecture beats, and publish articles on the subject on a week-in. week-out basis.

-- Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times
-- Christopher Hume, Toronto Star
-- Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune
-- Michael Kimmelman, architecture, New York Times
-- John King, San Francisco Chronicle
-- Steven Litt, architecture and urban design, Cleveland Plain Dealer
-- Robin Pogrebin, urban design, New York Times
-- Inga Saffron, Philadelphia Inquirer

More newspapers used to cover this beat (Baltimore Sun, Charlotte Observer, Miami Herald, etc.), but no longer do. (Philip Kennecott of the Washington Post is an art critic and covers architecture and urban design issues frequently, but not as regularly as the journalists listed above).

In my opinion, given the vital importance of urban design to a city's identity and quality of life, it's one of the most important beats a local newspaper could have to demonstrate its commitment to "localness."

Inga Saffron's articles and columns are informative to all of us interested in the subject, not just Philadelphians.