This tool from Sidewalk Labs lets planners draw upon vast quantities of data to create agent-based models, simulating who gains and loses when changes are made.
Comparing it to a far-more-accurate version of Sim City, Oscar Perry Abello covers Doppelgänger, an agent-based modeling tool from Google's Sidewalk Labs. Doppelgänger provides "real-world planners a simulation based not on some 1990-era coder's best approximation of people, but instead one based on the terabytes upon terabytes of real-world data available in today's digital world."
According to Sidewalk Labs modeling lead David Ory, "Doppelgänger enables planners to create a set of virtual households that accurately reflects real neighborhoods, cities, regions, or states, along any dimension relevant to the problem at hand. [It] can create households that have accurate numbers of children, seniors, teachers, persons with disabilities, electric-vehicle owners, swing-shift workers, and so on."
With its capacity for future projections, the tool may help planners visualize which sections of a city benefit (or lose out) from a given change.
FULL STORY: Digital Tool Aims to ID Urban Planning’s Winners, Losers
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Seattle Legalizes Co-Living
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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.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Los Alamos County
City of Culver City
Skagit Transit
American Planning Association, Sustainable Communities Division
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Cambridge, Maryland
Newport County Development Council: Connect Greater Newport
Rockdale County Board of Commissioners