Historically, data sources for urban planning have remained relatively stable. Planners relied on a collection of well-known government-produced datasets to do their work, including statistics and geographic layers from federal, state and local sources. Produced by regulatory processes or occasional surveys, the strengths and limitations of these sources are well known to planners and many citizens. However all this is beginning to change. Not only has the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey introduced a bewildering variety of data products, all with margins of error, three interrelated categories of new data are growing rapidly: crowdsourced, private, and "big" data.
Crowdsourcing
Calgary Experiments With Crowdsourcing Its Budget
In order to educate its citizens on how budgeting decisions are made, and inform decision makers on the priorities of its citizens, Calgary has engaged in an ambitious outreach process to get citizens to participate in drafting the city's budget.
The Atlantic Cities
CicLAvia Tour Integrates Crowdsourcing
As cyclists toured Watts and other parts of South Los Angeles, they were invited to share photographs and record places of interest along the way.
Los Angeles Times
EPA Issues 'State of the Environment' Photo Challenge
The Environmental Protection Agency is crowdsourcing a massive photo project to update a 40-year old agency project known as 'Documerica', which includes images of American environmental problems and everyday life.
Network World
Building the Crowdsourced City
Peter Sigrist takes us through three other tools for open sourced, democratic governance processes conducive to mobilization, collaboration, and funding--each integral for the crowdsourced city.
POLIS
Detroit RoboCop Statue Brings New Form of Public Participation
Crowd-funded plans to build a statue of the movie character RoboCop are moving ahead in Detroit, and the project is redefining public participation in civic ventures.
domus
Turning to the Crowd for Ideas
Alexandra Lange highlights a crowd-sourced urban design that actually worked.
Design Observer
Crowdsourcing Street Trees
A new online tool uses the power of crowdsourcing to "map, inventory, and preserve the Philadelphia urban forest."
Azavea
Are Angry Crowds Still Crowdsourcing?
NYC's Deputy Mayor of Operations Stephen Goldsmith reflects on the value of listening to people, and talks about the new crowdsourcing projects the city is rolling out.
Governing
Crowdsourcing the City
"Give a Minute" is a program that seeks ideas for fixing cities directly from the people who use them, using ads in newspapers and displays in public spaces to ask a big question, such as "What would get you to walk, bike or take transit more often?"
Urban Omnibus
The Big Picture for 311 Data
Steven Johnson examines how officials in New York and other cities can leverage information collected from public call centers to build better cities.
Wired
Using Crowds, and GPS, to Chart Roadkill
Ron Ringen has logged more than 1,400 animals for a roadkill project. "I'm almost a fanatic with it," he said. "You get hooked."
The New York Times
Crowdsourcing the Master Plan
The city of Lincoln, Nebraska, is asking locals to submit and vote on ideas to integrate into its new master plan, hoping to get citizens more involved in the process and test out unconventional ideas.
Lincoln Journal Star
Crowdsourcing Plans
Wed, 03/24/2010 - 12:52
Many thanks to Wired’s Jeff Howe who’s 2006 article “The Rise of Crowdsourcing” put an effective label at what the internet was doing to business. Building from Web 2.0 applications focused on social media like Facebook and on-line communities, it’s become a popular and controversial term in tech circles. For those not as familiar with the idea, let’s consult the most often used example of crowdsourcing – Wikipedia. “Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model. Problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions.
Top 10 Free Web Applications for Planning
Wed, 05/27/2009 - 11:00
I had the opportuntity, at the 2009 national planning conference in Minneapolis, to present (together with my colleague Christian Peralta Madera) ten free web applications that can be used to support planning.
Approximately 350 participants attended the session. Since the presentation, I've received over 100 emails congratulating us on the practical nature of the presentation, and requesting links to the websites we presented. Since our presentation was a hands-on demonstration, this blog entry outlines the ten technologies, and provides links to examples of the technology in practice and resources so you can experiment with the technologies.
Obama, Web 2.0 and Planning
Mon, 01/19/2009 - 12:02
What can we as planners learn from president-elect Barak Obama's use of technology?
President-elect Obama has been an early adopter of Web 2.0 technologies both in his campaign and the transition to the White House. It is likely that the Obama administration will continue to use Web 2.0 technologies to both engage the public in determining policies and to make government operations more transparent.
As planners, there are a lot of great tools and techniques that we can use in the planning processes. Here are some of the tools that the Obama team have used that could be used in planning.
