The Goodspeed Update

There’s a reason I told Planning magazine I’m excited about “more accessible and interactive approaches to the massive amounts of GIS data that planners have.” After all, it’s a type of data that has not yet been adapted to truly seamless social platform. I sketched out how such a system could be applied to vacant […]

This month’s Planning magazine features a story about the uses of technology for urban planning that features quotes from me. (Planning is the monthly member magazine of American Planning Association.) The article describes the blogs, video and photo sharing, survey, and other online now available to activists and government planners alike. While a good overview, […]

I’ve written before about potential applications of Web 2.0 to the field of urban development. On Planetizen, I described some of the ways the new tools could be used to inform and engage the public in urban planning issues. On this blog last August, I described how a well-designed interactive website could help the city […]

Tomorrow I’ll be participating in the Society of Professional Journalists Convention as part of J-Lab’s Citizen Media workshop here in Washington, D.C. at the Hyatt Regency hotel. I’ll be presenting about my experiences with Arborupdate, DCist, and Rethink College Park. The SPJ website has some more information about the speakers and program.
The organization sponsoring the […]

As you read this, heavy construction crews are hard at work grading roads, laying infrastructure, and preparing to build homes and offices in Austin, Texas’s newest neighborhood.
Located on the former site of the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport (which closed in 1999), the 711 acre Mueller redevelopment project will be larger in size than either downtown […]

While new websites have done a terrific job allowing people to share text, photos, and videos, one form of data that has thus far resisted the trend towards new collaborative tools is raw data. Even the best websites generally isolate data as downloadable spreadsheets, leaving it to the individual users to analyze the results and […]

During my travels through South Africa, I was consistently surprised by the extent of coverage of my Vodocom cell phone. From the tip of the Cape of Good Hope to remote mountain passes over two hours’ drive from Cape Town, my Nokia cell phone always reported a strong signal.
Perhaps I should not be surprised - […]