PML: Planning Markup Language

The Environmental Rehearsal Studio at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has been working on developing a Planning Data Model and a Planning Markup Language (PML) based on the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and the Geography Markup Language (GML) developed by the Open GIS Consortium.

2 minute read

June 29, 2004, 1:24 PM PDT

By Abhijeet Chavan @legalaidtech

The Environmental Rehearsal Studio at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has been working on developing a Planning Data Model and a Planning Markup Language (PML) based on the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and the Geography Markup Language (GML) developed by the Open GIS Consortium.

In a 2002 presentation [PDF, 28 pages, 6693 kb] to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Prof. Lewis D. Hopkins from the Dept. of Urban and Regional Planning (DURP) at UIUC discussed the role PML can play in urban planning:

What can a Plan Markup Language(PML) do?

Encode content of plans and regulations

Enable plan use view to database of plans

Provide data structure for database of plans

Encourage good plan making practice

In a 2003 paper titled "Planning Markup Language: Representing the Meanings of Plans and Regulations" [PDF, 28 pages, 900 kb] Lewis D. Hopkins, Nikhil Kaza, and R. Varkki George Pallathucheril from UIUC write:

Access to many sources of data and information is essential to supporting the use and making of plans for urban development. This information includes plans and regulations of many different players, both private sector and public agencies. It includes the data inputs and analytical outputs of planning analysis models. In order to take advantage of current information technology, web-based access will be particularly effective. To achieve this kind of wide access will require a reference data model for the contents and meaning of plans and regulations and an implementation of this data model in web compatible form such as XML. This paper presents an initial version of such a data model, use cases that set the scope of such a data model, and the beginnings of an XML implementation, a Planning Markup Language.

In the paper, the authors take us from concepts... to XML schemas.

(Source: Planning Markup Language: Representing the Meanings of Plans and Regulations by Lewis D. Hopkins, Nikhil Kaza, and R. Varkki George Pallathucheril, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Paper prepared for presentation at the AESOP/ACSP Joint Conference Leuven, Belgium July, 2003 )

Abhijeet Chavan

Abhijeet Chavan is the co-founder and former co-editor-in-chief of Planetizen and the executive producer of Planetizen Courses. He was also the chief technology officer of Urban Insight, Inc., the technology consulting firm that operates Planetizen. Abhijeet Chavan has over 20 years of technology consulting experience working with government, higher education, legal services, and non-profit clients.

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