By Chris Steins and Josh Stephens
This article was first published in the American Planning Association's Planning magazine (April, 2008).

Hot technologies like blogs, mashups, YouTube, Flickr, and social networking are among the most notable of new Internet technologies that are collectively known as Web 2.0. These technologies offer nearly limitless possibilities for entertainment, business, communication — and even city-building. And although planning's ultimate goals will always reside in the real world, planners are harnessing this new virtual world in a variety of innovative ways.

Computer animation, GIS software, and other types of mapping and design software are already well on their way to replacing maps and blueprints. But unlike these technologies, Web 2.0 tools can be manipulated using only a web browser, and they are usually free of charge.

Creativity and connectivity are the most important elements of Web 2.0 technologies, not just among programmers and website designers, but among users themselves. Embodied by such high-profile sites as YouTube, MySpace, and Google, Web 2.0 envisions the Internet as a "participatory web" with applications that allow users to create and publish their own content. This means that planners can simultaneously craft and disseminate messages that were unthinkable or inaccessible even a few years ago, and others can often join a discussion in real time.

"Planners sometimes tend to be oriented toward public involvement, and sometimes they tend to be technical," says Bill Fulton, a planner and a city council member in Ventura, California. "I think we're going to see a merging of those two roles as you put the technical tools in the hands of the average person."

Just as planning has evolved from a prescriptive, top-down enterprise in the 20th century to a more reactive, flexible medium for building bridges in the 21st, so has the Internet gone from being a source of static information to a dynamic combination of meeting hall, playground, and courtroom in which people can meet and share information. These features allow planners and stakeholders to discuss their visions for how the built environment should look, feel, and function in a truly collaborative environment.

"Life is a bottom-up process," says Joel Garreau, author of the seminal book Edge City and more recently of Radical Evolution, an analysis of the relationship between humanity and technology. "That's the nice thing about the web: It's inherently bottom-up. If planners can get comfortable with the idea that life is not a top-down command affair, I can see enormous possibilities for them."

The standard methods of outreach and collaboration that rely on traditional media, public meetings, mailings, neighborhood canvassing, and charrettes are not expected to give way anytime soon, but Web 2.0 offers creative ways to engage stakeholders who otherwise might be overlooked. Of the many permutations of Web 2.0, planners have begun to focus on several specific technologies: blogs, surveys, photo and video sharing, mashups, and social networking.

"Planners need to be confident in communicating to a broader public," says Robert Goodspeed, who cofounded Rethink College Park, a planning advocacy site in College Park, Maryland. "Web 2.0 [is] a powerful set of tools for planners to communicate with people."

Blogs

If the Internet is the most important innovation since the printing press, then blogs essentially complete the work that Gutenberg started — by making reproduction not merely possible but universal.

Businesses and individuals that want unique, distinctive websites often design and build them from scratch, at considerable expense. Blogs, on the other hand, offer ready-made templates for planners to post all manner of information without writing a single line of code. Blogs rely on the written word and do not necessarily depend on graphics, video, or algorithms, but they can provide an attractive, accessible platform for using other Web 2.0 technologies.

Blogs' color and font schemes are usually customizable, and they can contain photos, videos, and other graphics. Perhaps most importantly, blogs can be created and updated by users at any moment. For planners, this means being able to keep pace with projects and ensure that information reaches stakeholders as quickly as possible.

Although the special-interest nature of blogs sometimes makes posts difficult for anyone but dedicated readers to find, planning enthusiasts can make use of a technology called RSS, or "really simple syndication," which enables readers to track when their favorite blogs have been updated, which, for some blogs, can happen several times a day.

"I think what's compelling and useful about them is the immediacy and interactivity," says Joey Arak, senior editor of Curbed New York, a popular real estate blog. "There's no news cycle or traditional patterns of consumption or rules anymore."

While sites such as Curbed track all manner of planning news and often post stories from mainstream media, other blogs focus on particular causes or viewpoints. Rethink College Park uses a blog to promote smart growth and track ongoing developments and political discussions in that particular city.

"It fits really well with the incremental nature of development," says Goodspeed. "The timelines for major projects are long, and the web allows you to make content available and post short updates that are seamlessly connected to archives of past articles." Newspapers, which are the traditional source of information of this sort, cannot do this, he notes.

Whether they are maintained by government officials, planning consultants, or individual citizens, blogs allow planners to post information and updates about projects almost as soon as decisions are made. Planners have used blogs to link to media coverage, explain decision making, and debate both general issues and specific projects. In Ohio, the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission maintains a blog that follows planning trends via media stories and classifies them by theme and by geography based on the four dozen cities within the greater Cleveland area.

Planner-blogger

One of the best blogs in the field of politics and planning is published by Bill Fulton, who uses his blog to narrow the distance between government and citizens by maintaining the blog himself, without an intermediary.

"I started it in order to explain to my constituents why I vote the way I do," says Fulton. "I think blogs are especially useful for complicated issues. If you want to show someone a long thought process, that's hard to do on the fly in a council meeting, and it's hard to do in the newspaper; you're going to get two sentences. Sometimes [writing] is a way for me to establish my position even in my own mind."

Some popular blogs, such as Curbed and Bldgblog, are often run independently by self-described planning geeks who enjoy disseminating news stories, information, and (often droll) commentary in ways that traditional media usually do not.

"There hasn't really been a forum where people could discuss topics like urban planning and real estate," says Arak. "You would just read a story about something, stew to yourself, and not be able to do anything about it."

Unlike traditional news sources, many blogs can offer all participants in the debate a chance to say their piece and volunteer candid insights that might be valuable for planners, often by posting their own response directly on to the webpage where the original story appeared. In particularly controversial situations, "threads" can get testy and may need moderation, but a lively readership can often result in valuable conversations and new insights, and, at the very least, the blogs allow stakeholders to go on record.

"All the usual public processes are very one-way," says Goodspeed. "You as a citizen write your letter or say your statement in meetings, and ... you don't have a sense of what other people think and there's no public record of what you say. They can listen to you or ignore you. Blog comments let you write really thoughtful responses."

And many of those comments do catch the attention of decision makers. "Sometimes people tell me that I'm a jerk, but most of the time people thank me for keeping them informed," says Fulton. "Mostly people are grateful that I'm making the effort to put it up there for them to read."

Photo and video sharing

Although many planners are adept at writing and speaking about proposed plans and projects, often the most powerful way to convey information about the built environment is to simply show it. With the advent of new methods of recording and distributing still, moving, and animated images, planners are enjoying new ways of letting their ideas speak for themselves.

Photo- and video-sharing sites such as Flickr and Photobucket allow users to upload photos and then disseminate the photos by embedding them in almost any other kind of web media, including websites, blogs, and e-mails, or as albums.

For planners, visually documenting a place, plan, or environment, and then sharing these images, has become much easier, and far less costly, than sending out glossy brochures. The intended audience needs only click on a link in an e-mail or on a website for planners' images to come immediately to life.

Such collections can amount to poignant photo essays, or they can provide viewers with comprehensive views of project areas and plans. And by using free photo-sharing servers, rather than hosting photos on their own sites, professional planners and amateurs alike can post photos, embed them in blog pages, and even allow other users to contribute photos with ease. They also offer nearly limitless storage space, so planners don't need to worry about picking the "perfect" image to represent a project; they can post as many images as they want.

Photo-sharing sites also include powerful search functions that allow users to search all public albums, via tags that users assign to their photos. Planners and community members often need only enter a few keywords — searches by city and even neighborhood can yield thousands of photos — to find images that may be useful or interesting. Users can also join groups that allow them to pool photos according to interest and, in many instances, location. Sites even allow users to tag photos by address; the sites automatically create maps that display the photos in conjunction with their assigned locations.

On Flickr, a user called "MarkCH" posted a 130-image photo essay chronicling street life in the Short North neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio (www.flickr.com/photos/mhiser/sets/72157600622304401). His photos are accompanied by an introduction explaining the relationship between the neighborhood's built environment and its "diverse and artistic" community, and many photos have prompted comments from viewers who have contributed their own insights into the photos and their portrayal of the neighborhood.

Your inner filmmaker

YouTube and similar sites host hundreds of thousands of special-interest videos that can reach small, targeted audiences whose interest runs deep.

The most straightforward urban planning videos are simply webcasts of conventional meetings that allow interested citizens to monitor the public discussion even if they cannot attend. In the past, financial and technological constraints would have limited these records to written transcripts or meeting minutes, but now the cost and effort of recording the entire proceeding and posting them for posterity are nominal.

Video offers infinite possibilities, and many planners have tapped into their inner filmmakers to produce and post a wide range of videos that are both creative and functional.

The planning department of Durango, Colorado, has posted a training video that orients would-be developers and stakeholders to the city's planning process. Videos have also been used for historical documentation, as in New Orleans's Ninth Ward, where restoration is an issue of national and international concern. Meanwhile, countless cities and private planning firms post virtual tours of proposed projects and other videos designed to inform stakeholders, rally support, and perhaps even humanize what might otherwise seem like an opaque process.

"I imagine it would help to have the planner on [a video] saying, 'Here's what we've done,'" says Judith Innes, professor of planning at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in the study of civic engagement. "And if people post their own videos talking about whatever they're concerned about, that could help [decision makers] get a sense of their sincerity."

Using the embed feature on YouTube or Google Videos, planners can post the video, so that image and sound are integrated into pages just as conventional still images are. This feature eliminates the need to host the video file on a proprietary server. Rather than try to describe both the form and function of the plan at once, a video tour can attend to the form while audio narration explains the intentions of a plan.

Video can also capture powerful reactions to a plan. The Columbus, Ohio, planning department is making heavy use of video as it prepares its Columbus 2012 plan. Video cameras have become standard equipment for the Columbus 2012 team, who are interviewing residents in the field and intend to post many of their comments on YouTube for the whole city to view.

This project is in part an outgrowth of a course taught by Kyle Ezell at the Ohio State University. Ezell assigned his students video mission statements and resumes in which they convey, and often discover, their personalities, passions, and strengths. (See "Where Do I Fit," October 2007.) Some of Ezell's students' videos are complied at a YouTube group, http://youtube.com/cityplanningosu.

At the more creative margins, videos can inject commentary, advocacy, and even satire into planning. Activist Koohan Paik has gained notoriety for "Discover Kauai," a satirical look at the effects of sprawl on the Garden Island that sets images of big boxes and fast food outlets against Kauai's peaks, palms, and cultural traditions.

"The video took the island by storm," says Paik. "[It] was a successful catalyst in galvanizing community action against development."

Paik says that success on YouTube depends as much on entertainment as on content but that with a catchy angle, even potentially dry topics can take on lives of their own. "An Internet video is only as effective as it is 'pass-on-able,'" says Paik. "Its unique benefits are that the distribution costs nothing and your potential audience is global."

Surveys

Web-based surveys have definitely caught fire. Sites such as SurveyMonkey, Wufoo, and Zoomerang allow users to create sophisticated surveys with a wide range of question types, from true or false, to gradations, to extensive comment sections. Survey solicitations can be posted on a website (or embedded in a blog post) or broadcast via e-mail. The sites tabulate responses and allow planners to organize data in a variety of ways.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Recovery Authority launched one of the nation's broadest online polling efforts to help aggregate the deluge of opinions, hopes, and dreams that poured in regarding the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The poll, which was part of the Louisiana Speaks website (www.louisianaspeaks.org) and an element in a broader outreach campaign including 500,000 mailers and one million e-mail notices, invited stakeholders to respond to a range of questions via the web, paper ballot, or phone poll.

Of the 23,000 total responses, just over half were submitted online and have now been tabulated and incorporated into the Louisiana Speaks Regional Plan, which includes the authority's official recommendations for recovery.

The ultimate result of online surveys is that planners may reach the typically disinterested stakeholders who do not want to attend in-person meetings or who may not be passionate enough about a project to compose their own commentary, yet are content to respond to surveys. In this respect, web surveys may capture opinions that could counterbalance NIMBYs and busybodies who do frequent meetings.

Online communities

The liveliest corner of Web 2.0 recently has been social networking technologies: online groups that enable users to connect with "friends" and group themselves according to areas of interest. These communities sometimes mirror real-world communities and other times exist only online, populated by nearly anonymous, placeless members, with no terrestrial analog.

Built around user-created "profiles" that are equal parts resume, scrapbook, and soapbox, MySpace.com and Facebook.com were originally marketed to high school and college students, respectively. But, in keeping with the dynamic, ever-changing nature of Web 2.0, adult, professionals, and organizations now participate in droves.

Planners in particular are beginning to tap these communities' potential for facilitating serious discussion and professional connections. Rather than build proprietary pages from scratch, users can tap into online communities as templates for straightforward but highly functional, affordable websites. Depending how they position themselves, they can reach a significant share of the sites' total membership — which number in the tens of millions.

Recently established Facebook groups include those relating to the American Planning Association, Planetizen, planning alumni from a variety of planning schools, and issue-based groups such as Americans for Multi-Modal Transit, Urban Infrastructure and Development, Curb Urban Sprawl, and simply Urban Planning. Group pages can accommodate photos, videos, message board posts, web links, event listings, and any other items that members might consider of interest to each other.

There is no limit on the scope of a group, and planners can tailor them to narrow neighborhood and even individual projects, resulting in groups that closely mirror actual communities. The town of Bradford, England, gained a presence on Facebook when city planner Ben Marchant set up a group dedicated to a proposed plan for the town center. Bradford advertised the plan's official site via a link on the Facebook page, and he posted notices about public meetings and commentary on the plan's merits.

"I see the group as being targeted mainly at a younger audience, as younger people do not tend to get involved in formal consultation (either for lack of time or interest) and therefore, via Facebook, they can voice their concerns and opinions on the city center from their own computer," says Marchant. "We often find that many people ... miss the opportunity to participate in formal consultation on planning matters for the place they live. This group gives them the opportunity to simply log on, read up, and comment away!"

At their most vigorous, online communities can allow users to identify themselves with topics of interest and join of their own accord, thus ensuring that group members share common ground and a degree of amity.

With online communities, "it becomes easier for people to interact at times that are mutually convenient and come together for collective action, to solve local issues, discuss local problems, and to even do things like contact local elected officials," says Keith Hampton, a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania who has researched online communities and civic engagement.

In addition to MySpace and Facebook, sites such as Ning.com host minicommunities that can focus on niche issues. Whereas planning groups on Facebook are merely subsets within the larger Facebook universe, communities such as CitySkip, on Ning, welcome planners, architects, and other "cool people who dig cities" and provide a forum for posting messages, sharing photos and videos, and participating in discussions that are deeper than anything likely to be found in mainstream social networks. Prospective members must register and be approved by group administrators before they can participate.

Less social are sites such as Linkedin, an intentionally stoic business networking site that includes an urban planning group, creating communities based on existing relationships that expand exponentially as users get "linked in" to each other's circles of colleagues. For planners, this means that colleagues, collaborators, and friends — both present and future — are close at hand, regardless of their geographic locations.

Focusing more on the local end of the spectrum, I-neighbors allows residents to post and gather logistical information about each other — e-mail, address, event listings — for the sake of democratic action. It does not seek to replace real communities but rather aims to enhance them by promoting face-to-face contact among people who live near each other and, presumably, share a mutual interest in their common landscape.

Mashups

Originally born of dual turntables in dance clubs, "mashup" refers to the combination of disparate forms of media or data sets into an often imaginative new product. In music, this means synching different songs to create an unusual harmony or beat. In planning, mashups often entail the combination of two or more types of information with some kind of interactive map to create new, and often fascinating, ways of visualizing a landscape.

One of the original and most famous mashups is HousingMaps (www.housingmaps.com), which mashes together GoogleMaps and the classified advertising site Craigslist by culling data from Craigslist's apartment listings, assigning map points to each listing, and then linking each map point to the actual Craigslist ad. The result is that prospective renters can see an entire city's worth of properties — with relevant data such as price and street address — in one glance.

While mashups need not involve maps, planning naturally lends itself to new forms of maps — some of which only the most whimsical cartographers could have imagined even a few years ago. Users can adorn maps with landmarks, photos, commentary, links, and even inlaid video that marries geographic location with information corresponding to regions and places.

More sophisticated sites such as Walkscore.com or Pedometer.com use data-matching algorithms to offer insights such as ratings that determine the "walkability" of a particular location according to algorithms that evaluate the proximity and quality of local amenities.

Countless similar sites have been established that help users create custom maps on a variety of themes using data banks, but planners can create powerful custom maps of their own using data they have on hand. For instance, planners can identify map points where a building might go and then attach an informational pop-up window containing text, photos, and even video pertaining to the location. Many such maps seem so sophisticated that they belie the ease with which planners can put them together.

GIS remains the industry standard in data mapping and offers a remarkably powerful, flexible, and precise platform for analyzing and presenting place-related data, but despite the invaluable role it plays for many planners, it has its limitations, especially for users who may not need to harness its full range of functions. Mashups based on geographic data, on the other hand, use readily available maps and data that users can unite using simple visual interfaces and publish via any kind of webpage.

"Before the Web 2.0 platform, it would take a huge team of developers to write a serious mapping application and someone would have to download a piece of software to run it," says Matt Lerner, a computer scientist who cofounded Walkscore.com. "Now a fairly small team can set up a mapping application and anyone with a browser can look at it."

The result for planners is that they can present project areas not just in maps, photos, and commentary but rather as all three all at once.

"There's been a great deal of interest in the profession in GIS software, but they're really very closed and restricted, difficult-to-use systems," says Goodspeed. "There's an enormous gap between what Google is doing with MyMaps and the GIS systems that planners use."

The capabilities of GIS software far outstrip even the most sophisticated mashups, and its precision and ability to manage massive amounts of data mean that it is likely to remain the industry and government standard and the chief medium for handling legal data, such as property lines. Mashups, however, represent a condensed means of conveying the same data. The differences are more a matter of depth than sophistication, much like the relationship between magazines and books, which are explicitly directed at a mass audience.

"I'm excited to see more accessible and interactive approaches to the massive amounts of GIS data that planners have," says Goodspeed.

Chris Steins is the chief executive of Urban Insight (www.urbaninsight.com), an Internet consulting firm, and coeditor of Planetizen (www.planetizen.com). Josh Stephens is a Los Angeles-based educator and freelance writer.

Resources

Images:

Top — A Flicker user has posted a 130-image photo essay chronicling street life in the Short North neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio.

Middle — Bill Fulton, a city council member in Ventura, California, has created a blog to discuss current city issues and to explain his positions on matters before the council. Courtesy Bill Fulton.

Bottom — Competitive Edge Explorer, created by Laboratory for Mobile Learning at MIT, is a web-based tool for viewing regional data such as income levels, recent job growth, and housing costs.

Read blogs at blogger.com, wordpress.com, typepad.com, fulton4ventura.blogspot.com, www.rethinkcollegepark.net, and curbed.com. Photo and video sharing are here: flickr.com, photobucket.com, picassa.google.com, youtube.com, and video.google.com.

For information on surveys: surveymonkey.com, wufoo.com, and zoomerang.com.

Visit online communities at facebook.com, myspace.com, ning.com, cityskip.ning.com, linkedin.com, and cyburbia.org.

Mashups are here: maps.google.com, maps.live.com, pipes.yahoo.com, googlemapsmania.blogspot.com, and mobilab.mit.edu/mashup.