This start-up uses an AI to comb through Google Street View images, matching users with cities that fit their "lifestyle preferences."

Big data and machine learning have a tendency to serve up the awesome and the unsettling on a single platter. Here, Dave Gershgorn writes about Teleport, a big data startup with a means "to automatically look around cities and see if people will like them based on their lifestyle preferences."
The process goes like this: "First, [Teleport] plots 10,000 randomized points throughout a city, and grabs images taken by Google Street View. Then those images are run through computer-vision algorithms that identify objects, people, and buildings, and describes them in a short sentence. Words are a lot easier to search than images, and the final step is calculating which phrases or words are most common."
The tool takes its inspiration from MIT's StreetScore, which uses Street View to gauge street safety.
FULL STORY: An AI can use Google Street View to help you decide where to move

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Defunct Pittsburgh Power Plant to Become Residential Tower
A decommissioned steam heat plant will be redeveloped into almost 100 affordable housing units.

Trump Prompts Restructuring of Transportation Research Board in “Unprecedented Overreach”
The TRB has eliminated more than half of its committees including those focused on climate, equity, and cities.

Amtrak Rolls Out New Orleans to Alabama “Mardi Gras” Train
The new service will operate morning and evening departures between Mobile and New Orleans.
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