Visualizations

Los Angeles Skyline

Every Parking Lot, Visualized

A car spends 95 percent of the time parked, and only 5 percent of its time in use. The huge amount of space that system requires is made "intuitively and accessibly" comparable by the What the Street project.

July 22, 2017 - Fast Company

Boeing Urban Form

Friday Eye Candy: Comparing a Square Mile of the World's Famous Cities

Street networks and city blocks, reduced to their fundamental attributes, reveal the vast differences between cities.

January 27, 2017 - Geoff Boeing

Gentrification

Friday Eye Candy: Turning Gentrification Data Into Art

Herwig Scherabon is a graphic designer featured this week in The Guardian.

December 2, 2016 - The Guardian

Volcano

Friday Eye Candy: Watch as the Earth 'Breathes'

A new visualization from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History shows how the earth "breathes"—in the form of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and emissions.

October 14, 2016 - The Washington Post

Pyramids of Giza

What 6,000 Years of Population Data Looks Like

We can now watch 6,000 years of urban settlements and movements unfold on our computer screens.

June 28, 2016 - The Guardian

Historic London

Friday Eye Candy: Historic London Visualized

Historic London collects panoramic views of modern London streets with historic photos transposed over them. Most of the views date from the first two decades of the 20th century.

April 29, 2016 - Historic London

Old Timey Ticky Tacky

400 Years of Single-Family Homes in America

A data visualization project illustrates the long and varied traditions of American single-family housing.

August 4, 2015 - The Washington Post

Paris Metro Train

An Animation of the World's Transit Systems

"A German university student has developed a fun new tool for visualizing public transit in a more system-oriented way," according to a post by Sam Sturgis.

May 20, 2015 - CityLab

Visualizing the Spread of the OpenStreetMap Project

OpenStreetMap has released an animated map to illustrate the impressive growth of the project over the first ten years of its existence.

March 3, 2015 - Maps Mania

How Images Shape our Understanding of Places

An article by Ben Campkin, Marina Mogilevich, and Rebecca Ross examines how images shape ideas about cities—from "John Snow’s Cholera map to Le Corbusier's plan for a contemporary city and Moose's 'clean graffiti.'"

December 3, 2014 - Guardian Cities

Friday Eye Candy: A Colorful Weather Visualization for Urban Weather

Part infographic and part diary, the weather radials project tracks the weather for every day in 2013.

November 28, 2014 - The Washington Post - Wonkblog

How Apps Can Help Track How Angelenos Move

In a review of the iPhone app Human, Los Angeles County planner Clement Lau examines how the daily movement of residents can be measured.

July 20, 2014 - UrbDeZine

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

Washington D.C. COnstruction

Watch D.C.'s Surface Parking Lots and Unoccupied Buildings Disappear

The Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District recently released its State of Downtown report. Downtown D.C.'s transformation over the last two decades has created an incredible revenue generator for the city.

April 27, 2014 - The Washington Post

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

Tracking Chicago’s Potholes

A new animated map presents the reported cases of potholes in Chicago since November—the maps colorful and provides insights into how the city, and our relationship to it, can change with time.

April 4, 2014 - Chicago Tribune

Graphic Reveals Cardinal Orientation of Street Grids

Seth Kadish says he was born with an innate sense of direction. As such, he appreciates street grids oriented to cardinal directions. The phenomena interested him enough to create a graphic that visualizes the orientation of 12 urban areas.

March 26, 2014 - Visual Statistix

Friday Eye Candy: 19 Fascinating City Maps

Lauren Drell at Mashable has rounded up 19 (or is it 21?) 'dynamic, real-time and compelling visualizations of how we live and move.'

May 31, 2013 - Mashable

News from HUD User

HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research

Call for Speakers

Mpact Transit + Community

New Updates on PD&R Edge

HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research

Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

Top Websites

The best of the Internet—since 2002.

Top Apps

Planning apps for a brave new world.

Top Schools

The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

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.