Data
Can L.A.'s New Mayor Drag the City's Operations Into the Digital Era?
With a goal of improving the quality of life for the city's residents, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is embarking on a titanic task: using technology, transparency, and accountability to transform the city's "lumbering" bureaucracy.
Philly Prioritizes Public Access with Hiring of Chief Data Officer
Self-described "civic hacking veteran" Mark Headd has joined Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's administration as the city's first "chief data officer," with the mission of "improving public access to information the city collects."
Is Any City Truly Unique?
As new research data on cities pours in daily, interesting patterns emerge regarding income, green space and urban growth. Like people in their genetic make-up, are cities fundamentally all the same?
So We've Got All This Data. Now What?
Ben Hecht offers his insights on what civic leaders should do to capitalize on big data and how efforts in Chicago are turning these ideas into reality.
Choosing Ignorance is Stupid
People love statistics. They let us understanding the world beyond our own senses. USA Today publishes a daily Snapshot which presents a graph of random statistics. Sports talk and business analysis are dominated by statistics. We measure our progress, or lack thereof, and compare ourselves with others, based on statistics about our size, activities and accomplishments.
Is Vienna the Quintessential Smart City?
Adie Tomer looks at how Vienna contributes to Europe's smart city movement through innovations in sustainability, place-making, and data utilization.
The High-Tech Urban Experience, Now Standardized
The seven largest metros in the nation are teaming up to unify the technologies that are revolutionizing life in the city, Steve Towns reports.
What's the Big Deal With 'Big Data'?
Ben Hecht contemplates the currency of the digital age and how it will transform the cities we live in.
The Coming Urban Data Revolution
Historically, data sources for urban planning have remained relatively stable. Planners relied on a collection of well-known government-produced datasets to do their work, including statistics and geographic layers from federal, state and local sources. Produced by regulatory processes or occasional surveys, the strengths and limitations of these sources are well known to planners and many citizens. However all this is beginning to change. Not only has the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey introduced a bewildering variety of data products, all with margins of error, three interrelated categories of new data are growing rapidly: crowdsourced, private, and "big" data.
Putting Alternative Fuel Stations on the Map
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy released an interactive map displaying thousands of alternative fuel stations around the nation.
The Environmental Impact of New Cars
The new "Eco-Drive Index" offers a mode of comparing the average monthly environmental impact by an individual U.S. driver who has purchased a new vehicle that month.
How Taxi Data Can Help Solve Public Transit Problems
Data on taxi pick-up and drop-off points can be a useful tool to better understand urban mobility, and how taxis can function as an aspect of public transportation, according to this post.
Data and Maps Aiding Police
Geomapping data is helping police in cities address problem areas, improve unsafe intersections and improve overall efficiency.
D.C. Transit Data Now Available on Google Maps
Google announces the addition of D.C.'s Metro and bus routes to their online and mobile maps, including connections to other commuter transit systems.
In Manhattan, Shopping and Driving Don't Mix
The New York City Department of Transportation's yearly statistical smorgasbord adds a new tool: neighborhood travel profiles showing how people arrived in eight neighborhoods. In many of them, the number of drivers was in the single digits.
Mapping the Nation's Well-Being
Who's the happiest and healthiest of them all? The New York Times posts an interactive map of the national Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.
Enumerating the Effects of Eco-Driving
Three California schools are seeking to quantify the effects of efficiency-conscious driving in a study to establish a baseline for drivers' behavior.
Postal Service as Mobile Urban Data Collector
The U.S. Postal Service operates a massive fleet of trucks and vans throughout the country. Michael Ravnitzky argues that this fleet could be easily modified to collect data about the places the vehicles go.
Five Technologies That Matter For Cities
Mobile broadband, government-sponsored cloud computing, smart devices - these are a few of the technologies that cities should be thinking about for the future, says the Institute for the Future in a new report.
Debunking Misconceptions About Metro Area Domestic Migration
On his blog, Aaron Renn has done an analysis of 2008 tax return data from metropolitan areas to show where domestic migration is happening. Some of his findings are a bit surprising.
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.
City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
