Tag: mapping

  • Connect

    Connect

    It’s winter again in Boston. Anyone who was there last year during February and March knows what that means. The ability to move about the city could come to a screeching halt in the blink of an eye. . The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA, or the “T”) completely shut down last winter after repeated large winter storms,…

  • On the Map by Simon Garfield (Book Review)

    On the Map by Simon Garfield (Book Review)

    (This book was first reviewed here by Jeffrey Barke in April 15, 2013.  This is a second review). To satisfy our curiosity and wanderlust humans need two things, new modes of transportation and maps. Our proclivity to chart and map the world around us can be traced back to Babylonians, who divided a circle into 360 degrees, which…

  • Counting the Carbon Foot Prints and Changing Our Behavior!

    Counting the Carbon Foot Prints and Changing Our Behavior!

    In a recent discussion with a planner the question of over-consumption came up and how it impacts the health of our planet.  It is understood that we consume more raw materials than a sustainable eco-system can provide for.  In 2007 our (global) Ecological Foot Print was  1.5 planet earth, i.e. we consumed earth’s resources 1.5 times faster than the earth…

  • Using mapping tools to make the development permitting process more transparent

    It’s occurred to me that, in the era of open governments and publicly available data of all kinds, the development and permitting process should seek to connect to this emerging practice and  become more transparent. We live in a time in which governments are increasingly making their data available to the public, only to hope…

  • EVENT: 5/4/2013 OpenUrban Map-a-thon

    EVENT: 5/4/2013 OpenUrban Map-a-thon

    What: OpenUrban is hosting an urban development map-a-thon as part of the New Museum’s Ideas City Festival When: Saturday, May 4th, 2013 at 10:30 a.m. Where: The New School, 66 W. 12th Street (Orozco Room, 7th Floor), New York, NY For Whom: This should be of interest to urban planners, urban designers, architects, community mapping…

  • The Map That Could Fast Track Plans For High-Speed Rail

    The Map That Could Fast Track Plans For High-Speed Rail

    You might have seen it on social media somewhere, but in case you haven’t heard of it, Berkeley-based artist and high-speed rail advocate Alfred Twu recently posted a map he created on the Guardian’s website (the map was originally featured on the California Rail Map google group, where additional resources on high-speed rail are listed). It’s…