Cities, 2013.
Urban design, transit, civic tech, Open311, the city as internet
- Open311 Data Prediction Challenge
As the federal government shuts down, there is no shortage of predictions about how it will shake out, when it will end, and who will take the blame. Speaking of predictions (how’s that for a segue?), David Eaves (who writes a great blog for those who like the intersection of cities, governments and...
- Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia
Here’s a plug for Anthony Townsend‘s new book, Smart Cities (which I haven’t read yet but have discussed with him throughout the making). I can’t wait to get my hands on it, and suspect that it’ll be an enlightening read for anyone watching the “smart cities” / “civic hacking” space. The angle I’m ...
- Being an Urban Planner Just Got Awesome
I’m here today at the Adaptive Metropolis conference at UC Berkeley, organized by ReBar. Which, as I suspected it would be, is awesome. The premise of the conference is how cities, and the way we plan, manage and engage with them, is changing — an in particular, how bottom-up, diy, adaptive, respo...
- The Adaptive Metropolis
I’m writing this from a plane en route to Berkeley for what should be an awesome conference: Adaptive Metropolis: User Generated Urbanism. Among the organizers is my favorite DIY city-making collective: ReBar. Back in 2005, ReBar did something amazing. They pulled up to a San Francisco parking spa...
- Beyond Civic Apps: Making All Apps More Civic
(cross-posted on the MIT Center for Civic Media blog, the PBS IdeaLab blog, and the Harvard Data-Smart City Solutions blog) A few years ago when I was working on the Civic Commons project with Code for America and OpenPlans, I did a presentation at Living Cities called “Cities that Work Like the Web...
- Uber and Safer Cities
For some reason I have always liked talking to taxi drivers about their business. Maybe it’s because my dad was a NYC taxi driver back in the 70s, or maybe it’s because driving a taxi is such a classic immigrant path to building a life here. And it’s certainly because of the amount of tech… Contin...
- Open Data
Open data is a huge driver of innovation. Traveling around NYC is better because the MTA opens up route, schedule and real-time data for people to build apps with. Responding to natural disasters is easier when data is open and interoperable. As we continue to collect more data about ourselves an...
- Leading with Policy: Uber’s Ridesharing Strategy
Over the weekend, Christina pointed me to Uber’s new policy white paper on ridesharing. In a nutshell, Uber has decided to compete (with Lyft, Sidecar and others) in the ridesharing space, and will use a framework for deciding how and where to do that, based on the perceived regulatory friendliness...
- Why Casual & Natural Is So Awesome
Last week I was playing ping pong with Zander and the topic of conversation (naturally) turned to canal skating in Ottawa. You see, in Ottawa during the wintertime, the city’s canals freeze over and they turn into temporary frozen streets. As you can see above, Ottawans turn to using them for thei...
- FlightCar – a Beachhead for Car Sharing
Despite the extent to which I talk and think about car sharing and other newly possible. web-enabled modes of transportation, the truth is I still don’t use too many of them on a regular basis. Need to work on that. It seems as though I need to travel to SF to get the urge to get around town in new...
- NYC Taxis and Regulation 2.0
This week, the NYC’s black car association (limos and car services) filed suit to block the e-hail pilot that was set to begin today. The argument is that there has traditionally been a formal divide in NYC between taxis you hail on the street (yellow cabs) and cars you reserve in advance (black ca...
- Design, Policy and Infrastructure for Great Experiences
I consider myself an accidental policy person. In other words: I didn’t set out to study and understand how our policy decisions impact the world we live in. Rather, I came at it from the perspective of design and experience (both real world and virtual) and ended up backing into the policy implica...
- Making NYC Awesome
I am so inspired by Kid President. If you haven’t seen the video, go watch it now, and get your pep talk on. So… with kid on our shoulder, let’s think about how to make NYC more awesome. From a tech policy perspective :) A few weeks ago the (already awesome) NY Tech Meetup launched… Continue readi...
- Backing into your network
Today, we announced that USV is investing in Hailo. I am psyched about this for a number of reasons, but primarily because it’s infrastructure that connects people to their city in new ways. What’s most fascinating is that we almost certainly don’t yet know what those ways are. I want to point out ...
- Superheroes in the Snowpocalypse
Yesterday Uber made me feel like a superhero. It was about 10 degrees in Boston, and I was on the T on my way into Cambridge. And as we pulled in to Kenmore station the conductor notified us that all Green Line trains would be going out of service. So my train — and every… Continue reading