Exclusives

BLOG POST

<img src="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//popdens.gif" alt="" width="400" align="right"/>More human beings are moving to cities. You already know that. But according to new data (plus maps!) from the <a href="http://www.earth.columbia.edu/news/2005/story03-07-05.html">Global Rural Urban Mapping Project</a> at Columbia University (yes, that acronym is GRUMP), the Earth looks even more citified than anyone thought.<br /> <br /> Mixing satellite data with stats from that <a href="http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/plue/gpw/index.html?main.html&2">Gridded Population of the World</a>

April 5 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

<img src="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//cover13_04.jpg" alt="" width="150" align="right" border="5"/>Yes, yes, blogosphere echochamber mutual admiration blah blah blah. It pays the bills, baby. My <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/">day job</a> this month has a fun, interesting package on hybrid cars and how they're going to change the shape of the energy debate (and here is a <a href="<a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/hybrid.html">link</a> to it, on which you may click upon with your mouse device, should you so choose).

March 31 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

<img src="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//mortality-1.jpg" alt="" width="600" border="0"/>You know the end is nigh. Now the big brains at Columbia have confirmed it. The <a href="http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/chrr/">Center for Hazards & Risk Research</a> has released a report (PDF chunks of which available <a href="http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/chrr/research/hotspots/">here</a>) called Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis. It lists (and maps and charts) the places on Earth most in danger of drought, earthquake, volcano, landslide, flood, or tornado.

March 31 - Anonymous

FEATURE

Marisa Cravens examines planning through the cinematic lens with a recent compilation of important planning movies reflecting the instincts and hidden goals of planners.

March 30 - Marisa Cravens

BLOG POST

<img src="http://photos6.flickr.com/5878672_7ab00e126d.jpg" alt="Front Range" align="right" />Ann Oliveri from the <a href="http://www.uli.org">Urban Land Institute</a> kindly pointed me to an article, <a href="http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3646692,00.html">Toll road gets tangled in Web of defeat</a>, in the <em>Rocky Mountain News</em>.<br /> <br /> The developer says he was "blindsided" by the rapid an online opposition on legislation that would make it possible for the development of a privately financed <a href="http://www.cololegislativeinfo.com/TRInfo.html">$2 billion tollway</a>

March 25 - Chris Steins

BLOG POST

Thanks to <a href="http://www.writingbusiness.com/">James Carberry</a> for pointing me to this article on the slightlly academic, but consistently readable and relevant, Knowledge@Wharton journal.<br /> <br /> <img src="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/images/archive//032305_blog.jpg" alt="Blogs & Blogging" align="right"/><a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&id=1172">Blogs, Everyone? Weblogs Are Here to Stay, but Where Are They Headed?</a> wonders about the future of blogging.

March 24 - Chris Steins

BLOG POST

I'm in San Francisco this weekend for the annual <a href="http://www.planning.org/2005conference/index.htm">2005 American Planning Association Conference</a>. On Saturday, I'm presenting on a panel, "Computer-Based Decision-Support and Visualization Strategies", organized by Kenneth Topping, FAICP of Topping Associates International.<br /> <p><br /> I'll be releasing my annual list, "Top Five Technologies For Planning, 2005". After the session, I'll post my top technologies here also.<br /> <p><br /> Rumor has it that the Moscone West Conference Center is outfitted with wireless Internet access. If so, I'll blog the presentations, as well as publish a few photos of the event.<br /> <p><br /> <img src="" alt="Conference photo" /><br /> <p><br /> Other presenters include:<br /> <li>Mark Sorensen, University of Redlands: Linkages between knowledge-base, multiple criteria analysis and GIS <br /> <li>Chuck Donley, Donley & Associates Inc.: Using vector data for site selection, land use allocation, forecasting, and visualization. <br /> <li>Ken Snyder, PlaceMatters.com: Using visualization and GIS tools on the neighborhood scale <br /> <li>Dr. Michael Flaxman, Assistant Industry Manager for Design, ESRI: A Conceptual and Technical Framework for GIS-Based Land Use Planning: Alternative Futures for La Paz, Mexico <br /> <p><br /> The official panel description: "Presenters will showcase IT-based approaches to community outreach and decision making. Case studies include redevelopment of Lower Manhattan and other high-pressure planning situations. The enhanced program includes 3-D visualization geared for use in public settings, electronic democracy techniques, scenario-building models, web-based GIS, and multi-media tools. "</p>

March 18 - Chris Steins

BLOG POST

Hey, if any of y'all are going to be in Kobe after April, find out if it's true that the city is running a pilot project to embed Radio Frequency Identification (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID">RFID</a>) chips in public places, to be read by anybody's PDA. According to <a href="http://ubiks.net/local/blog/jmt/archives3/003524.html">RFID in Japan</a> (which says the story comes from an article, in Japanese, on <a href="http://japan.cnet.com/news/tech/story/0,2000047674,20081418,00.htm?ref=rss">CNET Japan</a>).

March 18 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

Japan has cooler cell phones than us. We just have to accept. My sister-in-law lives over there, and every time she comes to visit, her phone does more stuff than mine. I get a camera; she gets a camera with a flash. I get downloadable ringtones, she gets to play MP3s. Grrr.<br /> <br /> Now, Japanese cell-phone app company <a href="http://www.navitime.co.jp/ja/topics/20050310.html">Navitime</a> (in Japanese) is offering a navigation service that gives you overhead maps (with real pictures) to guide you to destinations.

March 16 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

The Museum of Chinese in Americas is undertaking an installation of a digital media project that explores New York City's Chinatown. <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.moca-nyc.org/MoCA/content.asp?cid=17">www.moca-nyc.org/MoCA/content.asp?cid=17</a><br /> <br /> Its an extremely interesting example of digital archiving that recognizes the multiple ways we learn about cities - both physically and virtually. A hope of things to come? Putting our information and databases to use in helping us learn more, and subsequently, feel a stronger connection to place is an increasingly utilized concept already expressed in more mundane sites such as Citysearch.

March 10 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

An article in Computerworld, <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/story/0,10801,100007,00.html">Political Animals</a> offers an interesting glimpse into how senior IT professionals see urban governance and the battle for wireless zones in cities.<br /> <br /> <br />

February 28 - Chris Steins

FEATURE

February 21 - Rocco Pendola

BLOG POST

I appreciate Charlie's post on Wifi. Can't we believe that cities are still capable of providing public services? There are a number of problematic examples of private companies taking over public utilities such as water and electricity. The experience from these experiments illustrates a number of useful lessons in who gets left out and how and where the money is spent. <br /> <br /> That said, I also believe that broadband is a fundamentally different kind of service than water and sewer. We no longer live in an age when cities provided all services as well as funding for revitalization activities.

February 17 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

I came across this image created by the Philadelphia Daily News some time ago. It depicts all of the potential problems one might encounter in living within Philadelphia and the associated number to call. Many neighborhood organizations have copies of this image as it was difficult to immediately figure out whom to call for different problems until this information was gathered in one location. The graphic has some particularly interesting graphic depictions of urban issues. In the end, its an amazing contrast to initiatives like the 311 service implemented in New York City.

February 16 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

Interesting assessment on Slate today (<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2113107/">here</a>) of the Disney-developed planned community Celebration. It's from their architecture critic, the always-readable Witold Rybczynski, who likes the town more than a cynic might expect (though he does go for the inevitable Main-Street-at-Disneyland lead). His main complaint: it's too damn popular:<br /> <br /> <blockquote>Like all American real-estate ventures since colonial days, it's a mixture of vision, business, and blarney. The design and planning are an order of magnitude better than what is usual in planned communities. If there is a trickle-down effect—and the financial success of Celebration has not gone unnoticed by commercial homebuilders—Celebration may push developers in the direction of denser, more varied, and better designed suburban communities, which will be a good thing. But Celebration is hardly the model for the future that Disney intended. A four-bedroom house on a small lot—like the relatively modest Craftsman-style Bungalow pictured here, hardly a McMansion—now sells for $450,000. This is more than three times the average selling price of houses in metropolitan areas nationwide, which is currently $140,000, making Celebration the residential equivalent of a Lexus. The truth is that despite its best efforts, the populist Disney Co. has produced an elitist product.</blockquote>

February 10 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

An article by Shane Petersen in the publication <em>Government Technology<br /> </em> provides an update on <a href="http://www.govtech.net/magazine/channel_story.php?channel=17&id=93014">how government agencies are using Open Source Software</a> (OSS). <br /> <br /> <blockquote>OSS has finally achieved an aura of legitimacy, paving the way for government agencies to pursue higher levels of OSS integration...OSS has moved from fringe applications to core business functions because more enterprises now trust its stability. </blockquote>

February 9 - Abhijeet Chavan

BLOG POST

Thanks to Larry Segal (former editor of <a href="http://www.planningreport.com/tpr/">The Planning Report</a>, now at <a href="http://www.kbhome.com/">KBHome</a>) for pointing me at an interesting <a href="http://www.laobserved.com/archive/003035.html">observation</a> from <a href="http://www.laobserved.com/">LA Observed</a> about open source:<br /> <br /> <blockquote><a href="http://www.lacity.org/council/cd13/c13nps1a.htm">Eric Garcetti</a>: The blogging councilman and colleagues Wendy Greuel and Jack Weiss offered a motion to push the city toward using more open source computer programs and re-routing the money saved on software to hiring more cops.

February 4 - Chris Steins

BLOG POST

<img src="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//taiwan-traffic.jpg" alt="" width="300" align="left" border="0" hspace="2" vspace="2"/>When I was living in Boston the first time, in 1993, I had a conversation with my cousin, a longtime resident, about the then just-starting <a href="http://www.masspike.com/bigdig/index.html">Big Dig</a> project, putting the Central Artery highways underground (and increasing their capacity). Boston has terrible traffic (and terrible drivers -- I have never been closer to a stress-induced stroke than trying to drive around the Hub in rush hour) and I told my cousin, Jeff, that the Big Dig was a good thing, since it would certainly reduce congestion in the city.

January 30 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

<img src="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//falcon.jpg" alt=""width="200" align="right" border="0" hspace="2" vspace="2" />So I'm reading the January 7 issue of the journal <em>Science</em> the other day -- because that's the kind of fun I have -- and I noticed two stories that looked related to me, though apparently not to the editors, who separated them. <em>Science</em> is subscription only on the Web, but I'll put links to the citations, at least.<br /> <br /> The first was from the journal's NetWatch page, where they highlight cool stuff around the Web.

January 25 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

The United States has a wicked high infant mortality rate compared to the rest of the industrialized world. Possible reasons: better reporting in the US, a more diverse population in the US, and a lack of universal health care. All those things are true.<br /> <br /> Another possible reason is that we have a lot of poor people in the States, relative to comparable nations. So a couple of researchers at NYU and Boston University decided to put that last assertion to the test. In the January issue of the <em>American Journal of Public Health</em> (subscription req'd; here's the <a href="http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/1/86">abstract</a>

January 24 - Anonymous