Last spring, I heard about an interesting dataset about Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I lived for four years as an undergraduate student. Busy with the flurry of activity leading up to my completion of graduate school, I stored it away to look at later. After all, real-time information on cities is hard enough to come […]
Obama-Biden Transition Website Accepting Questions and Comments
Although overshadowed in the media, two recent initiatives by President-Elect Obama demonstrates his unprecedented commitment to Internet transparency and citizen engagement. The first concept, announced by transition head John Podesta last weekend, is called simply “Your Seat at the Table.” Obama-Biden Transition team will meet with hundreds of private organizations. Anyone they meet with must […]
Urban Planning on the Web and Usability
In my master’s final paper I described how to adapt five basic criteria for public participation in urban planning to the Internet. The fifth criteria was information, defined as “provide more information in a clearly understood form, free of distortion and technical jargon.” For providing information over the Internet, the most important concept is usability. […]
Searching for Philadelphia’s Trinities
When I visited Philadelphia in April 2007, I stayed with my friend Emily in an improbably tiny house. She had explained that it was off a pedestrian alley off an alley – itself an unusual description – but when I entered I discovered the house had, apparently, just one room. A tiny, twisting staircase led […]