Planning tools, technology plan resources and a new book

Four days after the last post I had a baby... hence no new posts since then!
Anyway, I'm going to use this blog to keep track of interesting stuff I come across on the general topics of ICT and regeneration/ planning/ urban design.

In that vein, this is a potentially useful way of using the Internet to allow people to access and use planning information about their localities. Neighborhood Knowledge California is a web-based mapping tool which provides demographic, housing and lending data at the census tract level throughout the state of California. The idea is that smaller actors can have access to similar tools as the professionals.

Here's more from the American Planning Organisation about collaborative planning tools and a write up of one intranet designed for planners. Interesting to compare this with how other industries are already using collaboration tools-- quite a lot of experience already in other fields (e.g. product design where large information intensive documents have to be exchanged and worked on by diverse groups in different locations).

Another one on e-permits-- sounds like similar processes to e-procurement?

List of good technology plan resources here courtesy of Strategic Technology Collaborative.

New book called Digital Infrastructures -- 'Digital Infrastructures addresses how information technologies can be used to manage water, power, transport, and telecommunication systems. '