Interactive Tours

The "trace", as some designers and planners refer to them, are marketed and annotated tours that cover specific topics including waterfronts, historic districts and parks. Traditionally, they've been undertaken through marketing efforts and physical improvements such as signs, markers and designated trails. Until recently, they have been developed top-down with funding and the identification of historic markers and sites by specific organizations. Ken Snyder's excellent post

1 minute read

July 29, 2005, 11:55 AM PDT

By Scott Page


The "trace", as some designers and planners refer to them, are marketed and annotated tours that cover specific topics including waterfronts, historic districts and parks. Traditionally, they've been undertaken through marketing efforts and physical improvements such as signs, markers and designated trails. Until recently, they have been developed top-down with funding and the identification of historic markers and sites by specific organizations. Ken Snyder's excellent post on the innovative uses of google in annotating local stories points to a different bottom-up approach. With inexpensive technologies, we are verging on a world where an individual can access personalized stories as well as designated tours for any City in the world. I've mentioned the likes of "murmur" here before but other commercial applications are available including the Talking Street and Racontours. Combined with the further development of on-line mapping applications, a world where the complexity and richness of cities is clearly accessible and interactive is upon us . I'll call it an urban transparency.




Scott Page

Scott Page is an urban designer and planner with degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Georgia Tech. His experience in neighborhood design, city-wide housing strategies, waterfront planning, downtown revitalization and economic development has resulted in innovative and achievable strategies for a diversity of public, non-profit and private clients. Scott's design process merges creative grass-roots planning with a focus on sustainable development and design.

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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