I noticed two flawed attempts to solicit public participation on the web recently. First, on Tuesday Hillary Clinton said the following during her nationally televised speech: “Now the question is, where do we go from here … But this has always been your campaign, so to the 18 million people who voted for me and […]
Urban Planning and E-Government
This post is Part 1 of my public participation in urban planning series, adapted from my urban planning final paper, Citizen Participation and the Internet in Urban Planning, which received the University of Maryland Urban Studies and Planning Larry Reich Award for Best Final Paper. Since the advent of information technology, there has been intense […]
‘I Will Be the Democratic Nominee for President’
“Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America.” — Barack Obama, June 3, 2008, St. Paul, Minnesota “The most important thing we can do right now is to reengage the American people in the process of governance. To get them excited and interested again in what works, and what can […]
Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Public Transit
From a speech to the annual meeting of the American Public Transportation Association: Last year, public transportation ridership reached its highest level in 50 years. While this upward trend is tremendously encouraging, it is overloading many of your systems, and making the need for infrastructure investment all the more pressing. The question is not whether […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]