Exclusives

FEATURE

November 7 - Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

FEATURE

Two months after Katrina, what have we learned? Graham Stroh analyzes Katrina's disaster management lessons on law enforcement, communication and social infrastructure.

October 31 - Graham Stroh

BLOG POST

<img src="http://www.cio.ca.gov/images/ClarkKelso-www2.jpg" alt="Clark Kelso" align="right" />Clark Kelso, California's Chief Information Officer, was kind enough to respond to my recent post, <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/archives/2005/10/18/326/ ">California Updates State IT Strategic Plan</a>, commenting on the state's new strategic plan and what I perceived to be a lack of focus on making technology accessible to people with disabilities.<br /> <br /> Clark writes:<br /> <br /> <blockquote>...I am pleased to see that our planning activities are being followed so closely in the trade press.<br /> <br /> The last paragraph in your article suggests we may not be paying sufficient attention to Section 508 issues in our web developments. Although we did not cite Section 508 in the strategic plan, accessibility is the very heart of our efforts. As your article notes,<br /> the very first goal of the plan is to "Make government services more accessible to citizens and State clients." That concept of accessibility includes not only opening up new, technology-enabled vehicles for delivering services, information and benefits, but the goal of ensuring that those vehicles -- as well as all existing vehicles -- are ADA accessible and compliant.<br /> <br /> Our Portal Steering Committee, which was only recently created and is just starting to warm up to the topic, has already expressly recognized ADA compliance as a required component of the State's web presence. The following link plainly identifies ADA accessibility and compliance as a necessary aspect of the user interface: <br /> <a href="http://www.cio.ca.gov/PDFs/Portal_Committee-040805.pdf">http://www.cio.ca.gov/PDFs/Portal_Committee-040805.pdf</a> (PDF, 100KB) <br /> <br /> The State's web pages are NOT always appropriately accessible, but this is most certainly an issue that we take seriously at the highest planning levels, and we encourage all departments to make accessibility a high priority. </blockquote>

October 26 - Chris Steins

FEATURE

What are the necessary ingredients for successful Transit Oriented Development (TOD)? Bruce Liedstrand, Planner for Liedstrand Associates, lists the ten fundamental, common-sense elements of TOD.

October 24 - Bruce Liedstrand

BLOG POST

So we're hiring for two new positions at Urban Insight (the company that supports Planetizen). We're hiring a <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/jobs/item.php?id=4126">Web Designer/Developer</a> (with preference given to candidates with backgrounds in planning), and a <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/jobs/item.php?id=4174">Web Developer / Programmer</a>. <br /> <br /> I published the job announcements to several lists and also on a few online services that I've had success with in the past. I've received a fair number of responses, and, thank goodness, and several highly-qualified candidates (although not so many with backgrounds in planning/architecture/urban esign).

October 19 - Chris Steins

BLOG POST

<img src='http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//20051017castrategicplan.jpg' alt='California State Information Technology Strategic Plan' align='right' />While not strictly relevant to planning, it's always interesting to compare plans prepared by planners with plans prepared by other branches of government, in this case the California CIO and the IT Council Strategic Plan Committee have prepared the new <a href="http://www.cio.ca.gov/PDFs/101405_ITStrategicPlanUpdate.pdf">California State Information Technology Strategic Plan</a> (PDF, 220KB)<br /> <br /> The plan lists six impressive strategic goals:<br /> <br /> <li>Make Government services more accessible to citizens and State clients.<br /> </li>

October 18 - Chris Steins

FEATURE

October 17 - David Renkert

FEATURE

Spatial information professionals gather at the 43rd Annual Conference of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association being held in Kansas City, MO.

October 11 - Abhijeet Chavan

FEATURE

October 10 - Sriram Khé

BLOG POST

<img src="http://66.28.40.163/images/NTEN/RegConfLogos/Logo_NTEN_Conferences.gif" align="right" alt="NTEN Conference Logo" />Abhijeet presented last week at the <a href="http://www.nten.org/">Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network</a> (NTEC) 2005 San Diego Regional Conference on open source content management frameworks for building websites for nonprofit. He published his fabulous presentation online under a creative commons license:<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.urbaninsight.com/~chavan/2005/nten/">Building Websites For Nonprofits With Open Source Content Management Frameworks</a><br /> <br /> He really knows what he's presenting on, since much of his presentation is based on his hands-on experience with a massive project we just completed here at Urban Insight.

October 3 - Chris Steins

FEATURE

October 3 - David Goldberg

FEATURE

September 29 - Ken Snyder

FEATURE

September 26 - Jason Henderson

BLOG POST

When recently working in a distressed community in Philadelphia, we were thinking of the best ways to communicate what we were planning for the area and guide residents toward local resources that exist but are rarely used. As a cost effective solution, we worked with the <a href="http://www.klip.tv">Klip Collective</a> to implement a video installation within a vacant storefront. The installation runs every evening. Besides providing some valuable information, we used the installation to instill some street activity along what was once an active commercial corridor.

September 23 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

<img src='http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files/20050922openoffice.png' alt='OpenOffice' align="right"/><br /> <br /> Open source is not just about lowering costs. It's about staying in control of your own data. For governments, it is important to specify open file formats for storing public data. Eric Kriss, Massachussets' secretary of administration and finance asks an important question about long-term archiving of public documents created with Microsoft Office. "Will those documents still be legible 10 years from now, or in 50?" The state of Massachusetts has given some thought to that question and is taking action.

September 22 - Abhijeet Chavan

BLOG POST

…here comes Joomla. There was a lot of uncertainty about the future of the Content Management System Mambo over the past months. Finally the Developers now left Mambo and started Joomla.<br /> <br /> As <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1851367,00.asp">this article in eWeek</a> points out, "the original owners [Miro], wanted to regain control of the project. The developers, realizing that they were being cut out of executive management, decided to take the code and run…”<br /> <br /> The outcomes might describe the state of open source today.

September 22 - Ken Snyder

FEATURE

September 21 - Thomas J. Campanella

FEATURE

Bob Ransford reviews the magical and often paradoxical relationship Vancouver shares with its natural surroundings as described in Lance Berelowitz's Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination.

September 21 - Bob Ransford

FEATURE

Can a campus community become a "green" model for society as a whole? Educators, students, and professionals meet at an interdisciplinary conference to promote sustainability in education, research, operations and affiliated service organizations.

September 20 - R. Umashankar

BLOG POST

Joel Garreau weighed in yesterday on whether New Orleans should (or can) be rebuilt. He's always smart and readable; if you haven't read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385262493/qid=1126558443/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-4208330-1388856?v=glance&s=books&n=507846"><em>Edge City</em></a> you should go get it. It's a brilliant, well-reported take on urban theory and how cities are changing. Anyway, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR2005090902448_pf.html">here</a>

September 12 - Anonymous