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Will Twitter Revolutionize How Cities Plan for the Future?
(AP Photo/Sang Tan, File) Twitter is nothing if not versatile; it’s been used for everything from procrastination to revolution. Could the data it produces also be used to understand, and even help...
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This Neighborhood Needed a Basic Sewage System – It Got a Gondola Instead
Rio’s Complexo do Alemão, which has a Knowledge Plaza and a gondola, but not basic sanitation. The internet was down two weeks ago in the three-year-old, high-tech Knowledge Plaza in Rio’s Complexo do...
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75% of the Infrastructure That Will Exist in 2050 Doesn’t Exist Today
Google’s self-driving cars on display in Mountain View, California. (Photo by AP / Eric Risberg) A hard rain in Manila is a case study in the inadequacies of infrastructure. After a recent, rather...
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Underwater “Windmills” Could Power One-Third of Scotland
Scotland’s stormy Pentland Firth is an ideal site for extracting electricity from ocean tides. (Photo by Phillip Capper via Flickr) The Pentland Firth is a raw, stormy sound between the Scottish...
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App Helps Low-Income Moms Stay Connected to Nutrition
(Photo by Jim Henderson) When it comes to making “there’s an app for that” a more equitable catchphrase, progress continues. Last month I wrote about Easy Food Stamps, an app that hopes to assist...
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“3D Soundscape” Can Guide Blind People Through Cities
On a typical day, Jennifer Bottom makes her way around London with her guide dog in tow. Sometimes, “I just wander about, ask people and get directions,” she says. “But if you’re not comfortable with...
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New Google Fiber Expansion Ups Kansas City’s Tech Rep
(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) Kansas City was the first place in America to get Google Fiber, symmetrical gigabit Internet access (meaning uploads are as fast as downloads). For comparison, if you’re...
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This Startup Competition Winner Is Gamifying Entry-Level Job Training
(John Konstantaras/AP Images for Kmart) Could an emotionally savvy computer game help keep young people employed? Related Stories The ImprovisersThe Mystery of Bed-Stuy’s Missing JobsPublicly Financed...
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What Happened When a Scientist Followed Hedgehogs on Their Urban Commute
(Photo by Calle Eklund/V-wolf) In pursuit of scientific discovery, some researchers hunker down in a lab. Others go out and stalk hedgehogs. Related Stories City-Dwellers, Expect Your Neighbors to Get...
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The Problem With Some of the Most Powerful Numbers in Modern Policing
Chicago police display confiscated firearms. The city is one of two being looked at in a new study of the impact of predictive policing on law enforcement. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File) It’s been...
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What Happens When Developers, Scientists and Super-Computers Connect on Urban...
(Credit: Bo Rodda/Urban Center for Computation and Data) On Chicago’s Southeast Side lie the ramshackle remnants of a U.S. Steel plant, shuttered and abandoned in 1992. Now, plans are underway for a...
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“Internet of Moving Things” Startup Eyes U.S. Cities
(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Many transit riders are familiar with onboard WiFi, but as of September, in Porto, Portugal, buses, taxis and even garbage trucks actually act as moving hot spots,...
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3D-Printed Architecture in Amsterdam Could Usher in a Future of Affordable...
“3D Print Canal House” has caught the attention of affordable housing advocates. (Credit: 3D Print Canal House) In Amsterdam, an international team of innovators is working on a solution to the...
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Modern Mapping Connects Historic Preservation and Planning
(Credit: Plan Portsmouth 3D Model/Developed by Tangram 3DS) The historic district in the small seaport city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire is an architectural treasure, with a mix of Georgian, federal...
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Will a City-Made App Help D.C. Taxi Drivers?
A Washington, D.C. taxi (Photo by Kevin.B) Even as Uber has come under fire for its pricing, driver behavior and tactics when dealing with the press, it and other “ride-sharing” companies like Lyft...
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A “Yelp” for Former Prisoners Aims to Reinvent Reentry
When he was released from prison in 2013 more than a decade after being wrongfully convicted for criminal homicide, Brian Ferguson confronted a challenge faced by thousands of inmates each year who...
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Airbnb-ifying Asphalt Could Shift Parking Politics
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Whether an extra bedroom or empty seat in your car, unused space forms the backbone of the “sharing (for profit) economy.” But while certain home- and ride-shares spent...
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How Dating Apps Are Changing the Way We Behave in Public
New Yorkers on their phones (Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr) Last month, on a blustery night the week before Christmas, my friend Jeff Ferzoco and I sat alone in a gay club in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg...
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Would You Share Private Data for the Good of City Planning?
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) In the 1950s, a decade after he outlined the theory of the Big Bang and the expanding universe, the physicist Robert Herman started studying road traffic. His peers...
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Big Data Could Help Some of the 200,000 NYC Households That Get Eviction...
An eviction assistance pilot program using data analytics helped about 65 families avoid homelessness last year in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Every renter’s...
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