Images for Planning: Free Internet Resources

Visual communication is becoming more sophisticated in planning, however many online image sources are restricted and require payment for use. Others, such as flikr.com and Google Images are extremely useful but have uneven quality and information provided about the images can be difficult to assess. While flckr.com and Google Images will remain a key resource, a number of other online image databases provide more consistent metadata along with free access.

2 minute read

July 31, 2008, 8:40 AM PDT

By Ann Forsyth

Visual communication is becoming more sophisticated in
planning, however many online image sources are restricted and require payment for use. Others,
such as flikr.com and Google Images are extremely useful but have uneven quality
and information provided about the images can be difficult to assess. While flckr.com and Google Images will remain a key resource, a
number of other online image databases provide more consistent metadata along with free access.

Irin, the news service of the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has wonderful, high quality images from
around the world. Users wanting high resolution images need to register, but
image use is free and I've had good luck getting permission to reprint photos
in publications. Go to: http://www.irinnews.org/photo.aspx

The American Memory collection in the Library of
Congress has a rich collection of historical photos. Not all are digitized but
if you search for a key word, then slect "gallery view" as the display option
you'll see where images are available. Go to: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

The Lincoln Institute's new web site on Visual
Tools for Planners, under the direction of Lew Hopkins, has
handy examples of planning graphics. It seems to be still under development but could become a key resource. See: http://www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/VTP/

Strange Maps is a terrific blog featuring maps
of almost everything: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/.
Scroll through each month or use the search feature to find maps organized by
theme or keyword. I first found this site through an earlier Planetizen blog
entry by Abhijeet Chavan at http://www.planetizen.com/node/29582

Another great source for ideas about finding
images is the blog of Karen Brummand, the digital image instruction guru at Cornell. While some images she lists are restricted, her blog illustrates her great resourcefulness in locating images on the web. The digital image section and a special list on global cities are both useful.

Several organizations have free images
collections including the Project for Public Spaces (http://www.pps.org/imagedb/?referrer=breadcrumb) and the Metropolitan
Design Center
image bank (http://www.designcenter.umn.edu/imagebank/index.html).

Many public libraries and historical societies
have online collections. One of many good lists of such collections is: http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/documents/clipsources.html

Some of my earlier posts have pointed to video and film resources
available online as well as planning scholarship available for free. In
upcoming months I'll be investigating various topics related to how planners
communicate, including more on visual communication.

Design Visualization Images

Ann Forsyth

Trained in planning and architecture, Ann Forsyth is a professor of urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. From 2007-2012 she was a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell. She taught previously at at the University of Minnesota, directing the Metropolitan Design Center (2002-2007), Harvard (1999-2002), and the University of Massachusetts (1993-1999) where she was co-director of a small community design center, the Urban Places Project. She has held short-term positions at Columbia, Macquarie, and Sydney Universities.

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