Around 10 p.m. last night, Barack Obama’s official Facebook page reached 1 million supporters. The news has generated buzz, and rightfully so. It dwarfs John McCain’s 147,000+ supporters, demonstrating his breadth of support. (techPresident has charts of various online popularity metrics) Politico’s Ben Adler reported the two campaign’s internal social networking tools have similar numbers […]
Software for E-Government
A topic I have begun to explore is the best e-government software to support public participation in urban planning. I’ve previously written about LimeHouse‘s tool, which amounts to a web-based document management system that supports the equivalent of blog comments on document sections. Adobe has been advertising their LiveCycle suite of tools heavily on the […]
Public Participation Theory
This post is Part 3 of my public participation in urban planning series, adapted from my urban planning final paper, Citizen Participation and the Internet in Urban Planning. The urban planning profession has developed increasingly sophisticated techniques and theories regarding how and why to involve citizens in planning processes, especially since the 1960s. Critics pilloried […]
We Need Congestion Pricing
Maybe it was during a 20-minute, 2-mile taxi ride from Georgetown to downtown D.C., where my average speed was 6 miles per hour. Or maybe it was during a lurching bus ride across K Street that took perhaps half an hour to traverse the same distance. During both trips, city street were jammed with large, […]
Transistasis: A Plan for Dallas’ Cedars Neighborhood
Last January I was a member of a student team at the University of Maryland that entered the Urban Land Institute Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. Interdisciplinary teams of students were given two weeks to create a master land use plan and proposed ten-block development for a neighborhood just south of downtown Dallas, […]
Who’s Prohibited from Public Transit?
Public transportation is open to all — except when it’s not. Amtrak may kick you off if you stink, and the Montgomery County bus may eject you for engaging in unwanted conversation. Whether traveling by train, taxi, bus, subway, or aircraft, public transportation providers set a host of restrictions about who can travel and on […]
A Brief History of Public Participation in Urban Planning
This post is Part 2 of my public participation in urban planning series, adapted from my urban planning final paper, Citizen Participation and the Internet in Urban Planning. In order to describe the potential uses of the Internet in public participation in planning, this section will begin with a short history of public participation in […]