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The Planetizen News Brief - 9/13/07

13 September 2007 - 7:00am

The Planetizen News Brief is a weekly rundown of some of the most interesting and important news and issues of the past week.

The Planetizen News Brief airs every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City", which is broadcast in cities across the U.S. Learn more about Smart City and listen to archived shows.

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Full Transcript

In what may be one of the most accurate and effective examples of its kind, a dynamic, real-time mapping project recently tracked the flow of traffic and pedestrians in the city of Rome and displayed it on a publicly accessible website. The project was initiated during Rome’s recent all-night street festival Notte Bianca in association with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s SENSEable City Laboratory, and was able to map the flow of mobility in the city by locating active cell phone signals and global positioning system devices on buses and taxis. Discovery News reports that the so-called Wiki City Rome blocked any personally identifying information from the signals, allaying fears of Big Brother watching over. And though this mobility map was only a temporary experiment, the system’s designers say it could be one of the most accurate and most easily accessible ways to map mobility in a city -- from detecting traffic congestion miles ahead on the freeway to seeing how far away the next bus is from the stop.

Meanwhile, an interesting trend has been observed that offers some clues as to why people choose to live where they live. In an article from the Journal of Political Economy, researchers using Census data have found that households tend to self-segregate based on education levels and race, and that many are willing to pay a little more to live near people that are just like themselves. It was found that college-educated households were willing to pay $58 more per month than non college educated households to live in a neighborhood with slightly more college-educated people. And along the same vein, blacks were willing to pay more per month than whites to live in a neighborhood with more black residents. These trends may seem unsurprising, but the article says they are nonetheless important, as they elevate the correlations observed beyond mere stereotypes.

And finally, Kansas City, Missouri, has passed a law prohibiting any new billboards from being built and displayed on city streets and sets strict standards for highway roadside advertising within the city. The controversial law follows an example set by Sao Paulo, Brazil, which this year passed a ban on all outdoor advertising -- known as the Clean City Law. Many in Kansas City have heralded the new law as a major progressive step for the Midwestern city. But many local business people are outraged, arguing that the ban will do nothing more than harm small business.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

Real-Time Online Map Shows Rome In Motion

More Than Just Neighbors

Kansas City To Limit Billboards

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These bold initiatives, while important steps, need to be part of a much broader food planning effort.
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