Exclusives
BLOG POST
Sun(burned) - A Review of Sun's 'Environmentally Friendly' T2000 Server
<em>Note to readers: Justin Emond is a project manager and web developer at <a href="http://www.urbaninsight.com/">Urban Insight</a>, and a former IT manager for the University of Southern California's School of Theatre.</em><br /> <br /> <strong>By Justin Emond <br /> My First Experience with a Sun Server.</strong><br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files/20060420-sun-surefire.jpg" alt="Sun Fire T2000 Server" align="right"/>I was excited when the company I work for decided to take advantage of Sun's <a href="http://www.sun.com/emrkt/trycoolthreads/index.jsp">Try and Buy program</a>
BLOG POST
Cities' Visionless Wireless
This came through the telecom-cities listserv by Anthony Townsend. He very succinctly summarizes the issues with municipal wireless networks. The quote below I find particularly interesting:<br /> <br /> "Discussions about the design of today's municipal wireless networking efforts have not yet addressed the way community-created content can be solicited and integrated in the splash pages and portal sites where wireless users are greeted when they connect. We do know that cities such as Long Beach, California and business improvement districts in New York City have experimented with local content.
BLOG POST
A Mobile Marketing Ecosystem?
Will the new urban ecosystem be wireless? And if so, will corporate American own this new ecosystem?<br /> <br /> That's the fascinating point Jeffrey Chester makes in his new article, "The Dangers of Corporate Wi-Fi", published on TheNation.com and distributed through <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/34018/">AlterNet</a>. Chester argues that there's no such thing as a free wireless lunch:<br /> <br /> <blockquote>"Consumers and public officials should have no illusions that what is being touted as a public benefit is also designed to spur the growth of a mobile marketing ecosystem, an emerging field of electronic commerce that is expected to generate huge revenues for Google, Microsoft, AT&T and many others. Soon, wherever we wander, a ubiquitous online environment will follow us with ads and information dovetailed to our interests and our geographic location."</blockquote>
BLOG POST
Making Better Fake Cities
If you follow the entertainment/business news, you know that <a href="http://corporate.disney.go.com/index.html">Disney</a> <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4642116.stm">bought</a> <a href="http://www.pixar.com/">Pixar</a>, the digital animation company that made <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114709/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnx0dD0xfGZiPXV8cG49MHxrdz0xfHNvdXJjZWlkPW1vemlsbGEtc2VhcmNofHE9dG95IHN0b3J5fGZ0PTF8bXg9MjB8bG09NTAwfGNvPTF8aHRtbD0xfG5tPTE_;fc=1;ft=23;fm=1"><em>Toy Story</em></a>, among other great movies.
BLOG POST
A Tricorder for Mapping Geeks
<a href="http://www.surveylab.co.nz/What_is_ike.html">This</a> is cool, right? A gadget called ike that combines "an array of different sensors, e.g. GPS, Laser Distance Meter, Compass, Camera and operating software into a rugged hand held mobile device, for rapid data capture." Not so useful for a desk jockey like me, but talk about going off to find yourself....<br /> <br /> Via <a href="http://pruned.blogspot.com/2006/03/prunings-xix.html">Pruned</a>
FEATURE
Top Ten Planning Issues Of 2005
From eminent domain to "condofication", Planetizen editors outline the top 10 planning issues from 2005.
BLOG POST
urban teasers
From Pew / Internet: "A new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that 45% of online American adults have taken virtual tours of another location online. That represents 54 million adults who have used the internet to venture somewhere else. On a typical day, more than two million people are using the internet to take a virtual tour."<br /> <br /> The need to represent urban areas on-line is greater than ever, especially when we consider the impact a movie can have on a City (The Sixth Sense is Philadelphia's best example of a tourist 'push' after release).
BLOG POST
public tech art
I'm finding this a bit late but i really like some of the projects and their potential for further exploration. "<a href="http://www.spectropolis.info/index.php">Spectropolis</a> Mobile Media, Art and the City is a three-day event (October 1-3, 2004) in Lower Manhattan that highlights the diverse ways artists, technical innovators and activists are using communication technologies to generate urban experiences and public voice. The increasing presence of mobile communication technologies is transforming the ways we live, construct and move through our built environment.
BLOG POST
Clean Air, Open Code
<img src="http://www.arb.ca.gov/images/arbheader1.gif" align="right" WIDTH="200" alt="California Air Resources Board" />I was interested to find <a href="http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/html/62/6296.html">this interview</a> with Bill Welt, the Chief Information Officer of the<a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/homepage.htm">California Air Resources Board</a> (ARB), discussing with ARB is increasingly building models and applications using Open Source software. The interview appears on the <a href="http://www.madpenguin.org/">Mad Penguin</a>
BLOG POST
All Play and No Work for Jack Makes Jill a Better Planner
Several years ago I was with a group of people who decided to approach the makers of SimCity to see if we could convince them to develop a similar but more credible tool for planners, enabling towns and their residents to look at real planning challenges and experiment with different scenarios in their own community. The response was a solid "no, we're not interested, we're interested in making games.â€<br /> <br /> Can't blame them, considering the market for gamers is easily a thousand-fold greater than that for serious minded planners (not to mention realistic planning tools need real data to run credible analysis; imaginary cities don't).
BLOG POST
Top 8 Planning Technologies, 2006
<img src="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//20060224cssbccog.jpg" align="right" alt='Online Impact Analysis' />Thanks to a kind invitation from <a href="http://www.siembab.com/">Wally Siembab</a> to present at the well-attended<a href="http://www.southbaycities.org/"><strong>South Bay Cities Council of Governments</strong></a>' Seventh Annual General Assembly, I had the opportunity to unveil my annual list of the top technologies for planning.<br /> <br /> I briefly presented each of the top eight technology tools, and then provide one or more examples of each.
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
