Planetizen is requesting your input in creating the definitive list of mobile apps for professional, student, academic, or citizen planners—updated for a planning profession forever altered by the Covid-19 pandemic.
After a pandemic-length hiatus, Planetizen is relaunching its traditional documentation of the cutting-edge and tried-and-true mobile apps used by planners (urban, regional, city, or community). Just like the last time we conducted this survey in 2019, we are relying on input from the community of professional, student, academic, and citizen planners that make up the Planetizen audience.
Obviously a lot has changed since we last published a "Top Planning Apps" list in July 2019. The Internet has proven indispensable since the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic—as evidenced by the multitude of online dashboards, mapping tools, and numerous other online tools used by planners and the public to make sense of the new world as it evolved and mutated along with the once-novel coronavirus over the past 18-months-plus. The 2021 version of the survey adds a question about any apps that proved specifically, particularly helpful for planning during the pandemic.
Otherwise, this is the same survey Planetizen has been deploying since 2012, first written by Jennifer Evans Cowley, FAICP, former Planetizen contributor and current provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of North Texas.
The survey will still only take a couple minutes to complete. Please feel free to share the survey with colleagues to help Planetizen gather as much feedback as possible.
Planetizen will use the data collected in this survey to produce a list of contemporary planning apps later this year. For an example of the kind of information we hope to generate, and then share, see Planetizen's Best Planning Apps post from 2019.
Take the Best Planning Apps survey for 2021.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
The state-sanctioned urbicide of Austin
People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
US to reduce Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
A new Colorado Treaty amendment reduces Mexico’s Colorado River water allocation by 250,000 acre feet.
5 New England states march closer to 800 megawatt wind energy project
Securing federal approval for the project may be complicated under the Trump administration, which has historically been hostile towards domestic wind power.
Baltimore to break ground on $50 million Transit Priority Project
The project will bring faster bus trips, safer streets and better bike connections to Baltimore.
Airbnb launches $250 million 'last-dollar financing' housing accelerator, makes first investment in Austin
The company will put $6.4 million towards affordable housing development in Texas’ capital.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association