Open Source

Google Maps Store

Meet Google's Open Source, Time-Traveling Map

All historic maps are welcome in Google's open source machine learning project.

November 12, 2020 - Fast Company

Uber

Uber Releases Open-Source Mapping Tool

Individuals and major companies alike have already found a variety of applications for the software.

July 8, 2018 - Fast Co. Design

Tile Vector

Mapzen to Close at the End of January

The mapping community was sad to learn this week that the Mapzen open source mapping platform would cease operation at the end of the month. Many of Mapzen's open source tools will live on, for those that now how to use them.

January 3, 2018 - Mapzen

Washington D.C. Row Houses

'Housing Insights' Mapping Tool Designed to Preserve Subsidized Housing in D.C.

The Housing Insights team of volunteer civic hackers hopes you'll use their software in other cities, too.

October 14, 2017 - Greater Greater Washington

New York Cycling

Bikes Have the Attention of the Ford Motor Company

The age-old conflict between cars and bikes finally has the attention of one of the giants. Ford's Info Cycle project mounts sensors on street bikes to map out how multi-modal city travelers move around.

July 27, 2015 - CityLab

Cities Map—and Track Benefits—of Urban Forest

OpenTreeMap allows cities to inventory trees and see the environmental and economic benefits.

April 16, 2014 - FastCompany Exist

SimCity 2013

Visualizing Big Data In Your Own SimCity World

Two former Mozilla engineers strive to merge big data with a 3D model of London and, potentially, other cities.

April 11, 2014 - FastCompany

Liberating High-Quality Home Design

Does not having the money to hire a world-class architect mean you shouldn't be able to build a well-designed house? A new website seeks to make high-quality design accessible to the masses with open source architecture.

December 5, 2013 - Wired

Urban Design in the New Soft City

Carl Skelton argues that the public needs new tools of citizenship to participate fully in the digital cities of the near future.

June 28, 2013 - Places Journal

Bridging the Gap Between the Virtual World and Reality

A young artist in New Orleans launches a social experiment on the built environment, turning the walls of the city's buildings into a public forum.

June 24, 2012 - Next American City

Can V-Poles Replace Urban Clutter?

Vancouver will attempt to address urban clutter with innovative multifunctional utility poles that house Wi-Fi and telecom services, as well as other amenities, designed by none other than famed novelist Douglas Coupland.

June 5, 2012 - National Post

Building Codes Should Not Be Privately Copyrighted

Public domain activist Carl Malamud explains in this brief talk why he believes building, fire and safety codes should be taken out of the hands of the private companies that distribute them and made publicly accessible.

October 25, 2010 - Boing Boing

Using Public Data to Make Easy "Next Bus" Displays

At the recent RailVolution conference in Portland, OR, Chris Smith of Portland Transport showed off a cheap and simple display device that uses open source data to display transit times in public spaces. His price? $200.

October 25, 2010 - Steetsblog

Sharing the Civic Commons

Civic Commons is a new non-profit that facilitates the sharing of information and knowledge on open city initiatives for open, data-driven, and collaborative city services.

September 9, 2010 - Next American City

Recovery Through the Open Source Design Movement

With the devastation in Haiti fresh in mind, Good's Alissa Walker takes a look at the growing practice of sharing design ideas.

January 28, 2010 - Good

Atlanta To Map Itself

A group of 200 volunteers with GPS devices will walk the streets of Atlanta this weekend to create a community-owned map of the city and its intricate details.

October 16, 2009 - BBC

Open City Data, But How Much?

Opening city data to the public was a relatively new idea when the District of Columbia began publishing its data streams online recently. As applications using the data developed, some in the District got a little weary of the idea.

July 22, 2009 - Washington Monthly

Open Source for Planners

Mark Gorton, creator of Limewire started developing his GeoServer software in 1999. Recently Portland adopted the software to plan bus routes. Gorton wants to foster a new revolution in participatory planning.

February 1, 2009 - Wired Blogs

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.

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.