World
Global issues, U.N., etc.
Elevated Cycletracks: Future Urban Staple or Glitzy Dream Project?
With London's proposed SkyCycle and Copenhagen's successful Cykelslangen, are elevated cycletracks a viable transportation solution?
A Massive List of Tools for Digital Public Engagement
Here are 50 tools for online engagement. These digital platforms can help local government consult, collaborate with, and empower citizens in planning decisions.
Local Climate Change Response Prevailing Over Federal Action
With national action tackling climate change remaining weak, regional and local municipalities are taking substantive actions to address the oncoming severe affects of climate change.
What a Megacity with 107 Million People Looks Like—via SimCity
Writing for Motherboard, Derek Mead details what it took for a particularly ambitious SimCity player to build a city of 100 million people.
Plan Maps the Best (and Worst) of Future Road Construction
A new study published in the journal Nature maps out a plan for the development of roads around the world—where roads should be avoided due to their environmental costs, and where they can be built to maximize their potential benefit to humanity.
The Power of Public-Private Partnerships: Mobile Phone Apps and Municipalities
Private, crowdsourced mobile phone applications addressing urban mobility collect troves of data on how cities flow. So how can municipalities tap into these databases to accurately understand the movement of their citizens?
U.S. Street Safety Compares Poorly to Other Developed Countries
A new report from the International Transportation Forum (ITF) shows America's shortcomings on street safety compared to its peer nations.
New York City Does In Fact Sleep
Brian Wilt, a data scientist at Jawbone, the company behind many fitness trackers, aggregated sleeping patterns of people across the world to see how people's sleeping cycles compare.
Interpreting the 'Timeless and Time-Bound' in Cities
In his latest essay on interpretation of the urban environment, Chuck Wolfe suggests that if we take away context clues cities become matrices -- with blank cells to complete -- where each of us personalizes how space meets time.
Nine Women Leading the Public Interest Design Field
Rennie Jones of Architizer highlights nine women pioneering a variety of successful and poignant public interest design projects around the world.
Lean Urbanism: A Century-Old Practice?
A short case study in Lean Urbanism, compliments of Victoria Beach, Manitoba.
Bike Infrastructure Study: Bigger Investments Return Bigger Payoff
You get what you pay for, goes the old saying, and a new study out of New Zealand makes the case that when it comes investing in bike infrastructure, it's best to invest in quality.
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"?
Embodied Energy of Historic Buildings: Physical and Metaphysical
Inherently unlovable buildings—no matter how energy efficient—lacks the stuff of longevity. How can your EcoDistrict design for lovable buildings? It may not include tearing down the historic stock.
The Mapping Tool that Helped Identify the Ebola Outbreak
An online mapping tool called HealthMap helped identify the recent outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa by pulling data from all over the big data spectrum. It can also tell provide insight into the health concerns in your area.
Researchers Pull Social Media Data to Track Migration
The limitations (and inaccuracies) of traditional data sources like the U.S. Census are well known, so researchers are looking social media to gather the data necessary to draw conclusions about societal movements.
The Dangers of Building Too Tall
An article by Steven Snell summarizes the drawbacks of building vertical cities.
Revisiting the Common Sense Elements of City Life
Chuck Wolfe revisits five instances of how we can learn from the urbanism we already have.
New Applications for 3D Printing: Sanitation and Shelter
Called by some the "third industrial revolution," what are some of the opportunities and costs of applying 3D printing to issues facing the developing world, and more importantly, emergency housing?
Weekend Inspiration: Kids Design 'Dream Cars of the Future'
The ideas generated by a global competition that asks children to design the "dream car of the future" are incredibly aspirational in their pragmatism.
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.
EMC Planning Group, Inc.
Planetizen
Planetizen
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
