Maps

Roosevelt Arch

MapStory Traces the Development of the United States

Interested in tracing the development of everything from urban bike lanes to national parks to rocket test sites?

October 31, 2014 - CityLab

Does the Evolution of Smartphones Come at the Expense of 'Spatial Thinking'?

Are smartphones supplementing the capacity of humans to think spatially, such that future generations might lose fundamental cognitive abilities?

September 9, 2014 - CityLab

The Truth about Viral Maps

Matthew Yglesias lets us peek behind the curtain of those viral maps that reveal difference between states. Hiding behind these maps is a dirty little secret about how little variation there is in America.

August 28, 2014 - Vox

Ten Years of OpenStreetMap

Exactly how does a student take on an open data political stance and transform it into "the largest crowd-sourced mapping project on the internet"?

August 16, 2014 - TechCrunch

New York City's Crowdsourced Street Safety Map

As part of the Vision Zero initiative for traffic safety, the city has hosted a map system that allowed citizens to report safety issues encountered on the street. With the reporting period now over, you can still peruse the findings of the exercise.

August 5, 2014 - StreetsBlog NYC

Friday Eye Candy: USGS Launches Historical Topographic Map Explorer

A new tool, released in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey and Esri, provides easy access to historical maps from all over the country, featuring a timeline to easily select maps from different eras.

July 11, 2014 - ESRI

Friday Funny: Mapping Seinfeld's Locations

Whether it was a show about nothing, or, as Eric Jaffe claims, a show about anything, Seinfeld was all about New York City. And it debuted 25 years ago, on July 5, 1989.

July 11, 2014 - CityLab

New Maps Compare Travel Times by Mode

Want to know the fastest way to get where you're going? You Are Here has created a new visualization tool that shows you the fastest mode for your trip in 11 cities.

June 28, 2014 - You Are Here

Food Sign

40 Visualizations of America and its Relationship with Food

A new post by Vox includes 40 maps, charts, and graphs explain that where and how food works in America.

June 10, 2014 - Vox

Homeless Camp

Mapping America's Homeless Populations

The Committee to End Homelessness in King County produced a helpful visualization tool that compares the size of homeless populations around the country as well as the type of housing support they receive.

May 29, 2014 - Fast Co.Exist

Little Rock 1871

Friday Eye Candy: 'You Are Here' Maps the Little Things

The Social Computing Group and the MIT Media Lab have launched the "You Are Here" project, mapping data points from cities where participants have lived. The project has colorful maps of bicycle crashes, coffee shops, and permanent visa applications.

May 2, 2014 - You Are Here

New 'Job Access Map' at Work in New Haven, Connecticut

The Regional Plan Association recently released a Job Access Map—an interactive tool that allows user to discover the travel time homes and jobs, and much more, via every form of transportation.

April 28, 2014 - DataHaven Data Blog

NOAA Launching Storm Surge Mapping System

Americans tend to pay more attention to wind strength than storm surge when evaluating whether or not to evacuate before a hurricane. A new NOAA mapping project is designed to change perceptions about the multiple risks of storm events.

April 25, 2014 - Reuters

Desert Signage

Mapping Where People Don't Live

A map released this week and shared on numerous websites shades the 4,871,270 U.S. Census Blocks with zero population. That includes rugged backcountry and suburban super malls.

April 18, 2014 - mapsbynik

Examining the Surprising Segregation of New York City

The common perception of New York City is as of a well-integrated city, full of multi-ethnic neighborhoods. But a recent article peeks behind the curtain of the city’s surprising boundaries of racial segregation.

April 15, 2014 - City Notes

Airport

Where’s the Nearest Airport? New Diagram Shows—for Every Place on Earth

"Each region is closer to a particular airport than any other," explains the creator of what's called a spherical Voronoi diagram. The diagram illustrates just how far that airport is.

April 13, 2014 - The Washington Post - Wonkblog

What Does Citi Bike Data Reveal About New York City?

A website called I Quant NY has produced a string of posts examining recent ridership data released by Citi Bike. The visualizations and maps produced by the site make a good case for the value of open data.

April 9, 2014 - I Quant NY

New York Historic map

Friday Eye Candy: New York Public Library Releases Thousands of Historic Maps to the Public

“For the historic cartographile, Christmas may have come late, but here it is,” writes Daniel Stuckey.

April 4, 2014 - New York Public Library

Mapping NYC’s Taxi Redundancies

MIT’s Senseable City Lab produced a beautiful visualization of every taxi ride taken in New York City in 2011. More valuable than the pretty pictures, however, are the insights the data provide about creating a more efficient transportation system.

March 13, 2014 - Atlantic Cities

Can OpenStreetMap Overthrow the Google Maps Hegemony?

A recent long-read describes the current state of the competition for primacy in the world of online mapping tools. The champ—Google Maps. The challenger—OpenStreetMap.

March 5, 2014 - The Next Web

FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?

After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.

Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold

The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.

Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

Top Schools

The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

100 Most Influential Urbanists

The who's who of urbanism, according to Planetizen readers.

Urban Planning Creators You Should Know

A short list of voices on social, video, and podcasting platforms.