Government as Data Source

A provocative new article in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology titled “Government Data and the Invisible Hand” (PDF) makes the proposal that the federal government should abandon their attempt to create public websites, and focus almost entirely on providing data in standard formats for use by private websites. The article points out greater […]

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June is Public Participation in Urban Planning Month

Although there may be no such thing as “Public Participation in Urban Planning Month” that I know of, I’ve decided to declare one on this website at least. That’s because I’ve decided to use June to publish a series of posts describing the research and recommendations contained in my final paper for graduate school, titled […]

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University of Maryland Graduation Remarks

Last week I graduated from the University of Maryland with a Masters in Community Planning. I was one of the graduating students invited to speak at the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation Commencement Ceremony. Here is the text of my speech. Thanks to my parents and Libby and her parents who were able to […]

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Accomodating Ridership Growth at Metro Stations

Metrorail’s relatively new Station Access & Capacity Study provided us the raw data to evaluate how well the Washington region jurisdictions were doing cultivating transit oriented development, but now that summer is here I had more time to go back and investigate it in more detail. The study sought to predict ridership growth and station […]

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D.C. Pedestrian Plan Released

Last week the Post had a big story on the District’s new pedestrian plan. The only problem, as DCist pointed out, was that the actual plan was not yet available online. This week the actual plan was posted to the project website. The website also includes detailed maps of their pedestrian crash analysis, the sidewalk […]

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Review: A Better Way to Zone

I have mixed feelings about zoning, which may explain my thoughts about Donald Elliott’s new book about it, A Better Way to Zone. A land use law consultant in Colorado, Elliott’s book is dedicated to making “simplicity and understandability not just an aspiration but a guiding principle in zoning.” While I agree with much of […]

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