In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, Eric Jaffe explores how cash-strapped cities will handle terrorism. "The short answer is public surveillance cameras. The long answer is smarter public surveillance cameras."
Jaffe reports from the New York Ideas festival, where NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly explained how New York City has managed to maintain vigilent in combating terrorism despite having 6,000 less officers than it did a decade ago. "[A]n intricate system of cameras and license-plate readers," which covers Lower Manhattan and is being expanded to midtown and other "vulnerable" parts of the city, has been integral to their efforts.
"Part of what makes this strategy so efficient, despite a reduction in the size of the police force, is that cameras are handling more of the workload on their own," says Jaffe. "Analytics enable the cameras to see something and say something, if you will: they can determine if a package has been left in a particular spot for a long period of time, for instance, and track back through files to find a person wearing a certain color shirt."
However, as Sean Gallagher explains in Ars Technica, technology (and facial recognition software specifically) clearly failed in the search for the Boston bombing suspects. "Under the best circumstances, facial recognition can be extremely accurate, returning the right person as a potential match more than 99 percent of the time with ideal conditions," he says. "But to get that level of accuracy almost always requires some skilled guidance from humans, plus some up-front work to get a good image." Let's just hope those skilled humans aren't being furloughed when they're needed.
FULL STORY: How Cash-Strapped Cities Will Handle Terrorism

Planning for Congestion Relief
The third and final installment of Planetizen's examination of the role of the planning profession in both perpetuating and solving traffic congestion.

Car Noise Is Killing Us
It’s not just traffic collisions that kill—a new study from researcher at Rutgers finds that the loud noises emanating from cars has direct impact on heart health in Americans.

Acceptable Deaths
What can we learn from our Covid response?

Redevelopment Threatens Iconic, Affordable Chicago Homes
The ‘workers’ cottages’ are being replaced with larger, more expensive homes, threatening one of the city’s original forms of affordable housing.

Six-Story Parking Lot Nixed From D.C. Union Station Renovation Plans
The Federal Railroad Administration has removed a six-story parking facility included in a 2020 draft Environmental Impact Statement for a $10 billion renovation of Union Station in Washington, D.C.

Newark Working to Stem the Tide of Wall Street Investors in the Residential Market
A new study by researchers at Rutgers University reveals the scale of Wall Street’s reach into the Newark, New Jersey, housing market—LLCs and private equity accounted for 47 percent of residential real estate transactions from 2017 to early 2020.
City of Malibu
EMC Planning Group Inc.
Jefferson Parish
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Harvard GSD Executive Education
City of Rohnert Park
City of Hot Springs
City of Lakeway, Texas
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Hand Drawing Master Plans
This course aims to provide an introduction into Urban Design Sketching focused on how to hand draw master plans using a mix of colored markers.