Last week’s Open Cities conference, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and Next American City, brought together a diverse group to discuss the role of new media in shaping urban policy. One of the major topics discussed was the emerging trend of cities establishing data catalogs where a wide range of datasets and feeds are made […]
What Government Web Feeds Are Needed?
More and more governments are publishing data feeds, whether of news, alerts regarding public services, or even exposing administrative data. In the UK, the “Mash the State” project has the goal of encouraging every local unit of government publish a news RSS feed. Inspired by the project, Steve Clift asked “what web feeds should government […]
Planetizen Post: An iPhone in the City
See my latest post on Planetizen, on iPhone apps and urban life.
New Feed URL
I finally decided to move my RSS feed to Feedburner, so I can find out how many are reading that way. Starting today, the feed for this blog will be located at this URL. I’m activating a forwarding plugin, but I am not sure how it will work with all readers. It also means I […]
Placeblogs and the Nonplace Urban Realm
Communications technologies were supposed to doom urban community. After all, with high-quality, free, instantaneous communication with people from around the world, who cares about talking over the fence with the neighbor, or joining the local bowling league? Ironically, the Internet, the world’s most widely available communications medium, has sparked some of the most narrowly focused […]
Announcements
I’m long overdue posting here about a couple big announcements in my life. First and most importantly, last December, Libby and I got engaged. Longtime readers will know her from her occasional cameos among the wonkyness, or of course from real life! When we met at Michigan, we bonded over a shared interest in upside-down […]
High Speed Rail: Getting Our Money’s Worth
Advocates for passenger rail in America are excited. The stimulus bill provided $8 billion for high speed rail construction, California has passed a bond for nearly $10 billion to build a system in that state, and other projects from Florida to Chicago are moving forward. The Federal government is planning to issue the grants to […]