Introduction
The Urban Gauge project aims to balance a regional planning agenda with local community concerns, while keeping track of the economic viability of an individual development project. One of the inherent problems in the current planning process is the lack of connection between the local issues that dominate the evaluation of a single project - shadows, parking, congestion, etc. and the larger, regional issues that are so critical to today’s debates about the public interest such as sustainability, energy efficiency, housing affordability and supply, economic competitiveness and jobs.
The Urban Gauge tool does three distinct things:
- It creates a web 2.0-style digital map of the region, and maps specific data relating to regional interests such as housing, energy, jobs, transportation, economics, and even regional form.
- It divides the region up into a discrete set of neighborhoods, districts, or communities. And within these communities it maps the local interests, which will likely vary considerably from neighborhood to neighborhood.
- It allows a dynamic three-dimensional model to be inserted into the map.
This means that instead of endless debate about possible effects of a project in the public meeting forum, a well-run meeting can actually evaluate and visualize different possible scenarios- in real time. The regional visualization tool alone will provide a view to the larger public interest that has been lacking in our public debate for almost 100 years.