Our cities today are relics from a time before the Internet. Services and infrastructure, created and operated by the government, are centrally managed, non-participatory and closed. And while this was once the best (and only) way for cities to operate, today it leads to a system that is inefficient, increasingly expensive to maintain, and slow to change.

What is needed right now is a new type of city: a city that is like the Internet in its openness, participation, distributed nature and rapid, organic evolution - a city that is not centrally operated, but that is created, operated and improved upon by all - a DIY City.

This is the DIYcity Challenge: can we, working together, define and build a version 1.0 of the Do-It-Yourself City, a city that operates on open data flowing through decentralized, open source tools, that actively engages residents not only as users but as participants and owners of the system?

Can we build this not only for our own individual cities, but for cities everywhere? Can we build an open toolset that any city, anywhere in the world, can access, modify to suit their needs, and deploy on their own terms?

Can we build this in one year? In six months? In three months?

Shall we get started?

DIYcity folks,

Work with us to take our Placemaking processes and tools online. After the imminent re-launch of our website, we are looking at developing web 2.0 and 3.0 applications to support community-driven, place-based planning efforts.

The Job Description:
http://www.pps.org/info/aboutpps/jobopenings

Ethan

Ethan Kent
Vice President

Project for Public Spaces
700 Broadway New York, NY 10003
T (212) 620-5660 x 318 F (212) 620-3821
http://www.pps.org

Hey there DIY New York City - Appify, our new site about discovering local smartphone apps, has a section for New York City going live tomorrow.

This means anyone coming to Appify will be able to easily see the NYC-related apps that have been entered into the system and download them.

If you have a NYC-focused app, be sure to submit it now, so we can get as many apps visible as possible tomorrow.

If you have friends who have a NYC-focused app, tell them to submit their app, too.

The section going live is going to be very basic compared to what the eventual city section will be like, but we want to start rolling out city pages now, to start making apps more visible to people.

Also, if you have an app entered in the Big Apps competition, we're going to make it easy for you to direct people to vote on your app.

In case you missed last week's announcement about Appify and what it is, you can read it here. We also got a nice shout-out on ReadWriteWeb here.

Enter your app now so it can be seen tomorrow!

Hello everyone out there in DIYcity! Apologies for the silence here for the past two months - I've been hard at work at what I've long been calling "DIYcity part 2". And that is finally live, in alpha, today. But the surprise is it's not DIYcity. It's a brand-new site, Appify.com.

How did that happen?

Well, Danny Shapiro, Aditya Chada and I were working on revamping DIYcity, and the idea kept evolving, getting better, getting bigger, and at a certain point it became clear that this was no longer DIYcity but something entirely new.

At that point, we shelved the DIYcity framework and started running with the new one. The result is Appify. Here is an excerpt from a note I've sent around to a few mail lists this morning:

I'm excited to share with you a new site, launching today, that is all about local apps - *your* local apps.

It's about getting those apps discovered, and used, by everyone in your community. It's about learning exactly what the people around you want in the way of apps to make their communities work better. And it's about seeing what other areas have in the way of local and civic apps that your own local area could use as well.

The site is called Appify, and it's launching today in a "developer's alpha". We're looking for EVERYONE who has built a local app, on any platform, to come to the site, input their app (takes 30 seconds) check out the site, and give us feedback.

So - Appify is live, sort of, (alpha version for now, full version coming in January).

If you have a local app that you've built, please add it to Appify today.

If you have friends who have built local apps, please forward this post to them.

Please also follow us on twitter.com/appify.

And please read our blog at http://blog.appify.com.

So, if Appify is not DIYcity 2.0, what happens to DIYcity? I'll save that for another post - and since DIYcity has always been community-driven, it will be something I'll expect everyone to weigh in on.

For now - please check out Appify and let us know what you think!

Dear DIY NYC:

The Open Planning Project and the Regional Plan Association would like to invite you to an upcoming workshop to brainstorm new technology for participatory city planning.

When: Friday, November 13th, 12:30 - 5:30pm (followed by a happy hour on our roof).

Where: The Open Planning Project, 148 Lafayette St, NY, NY

What: An afternoon of discussion, brainstorming, and collaborative product designing.

RSVP: http://planningtechworkshop.eventbrite.com/ (please RSVP soon, attendance is limited)

Why:

Everyday social computing, mobile technology, and the adoption of "web 2.0" approaches by governments have laid the groundwork for far wider citizen involvement in civic life. Citizens can now be involved earlier on, more frequently, and in more meaningful ways than was ever possible before. How can these opportunities be leveraged for use in the city planning space? What are the technologies that will make this possible? What are the bureaucratic, logistical, or social issues that need to be addressed in considering these ideas? What tools could we build -- today -- that would be the most impactful?

The Open Planning Project is interested in developing free, open source tools to support citizen engagement in planning. To that end, we are reaching out to the planning, government, nonprofit, citizen and tech communities to help us explore opportunities and share ideas. This event should be the first of many, and will be a hands-on workshop aiming to bring together many diverse perspectives.

How:

The workshop will follow the "unconference," or "BarCamp," format, where sessions and talks are proposed and led by the participants of the workshop. Please visit the workshop wiki at http://etherpad.com/GfjsHfnoGi to see the agenda, an overview of the format, and a list of proposed talks & sessions. Please feel free to add your ideas directly to the wiki -- we'll also be reaching out to attendees in advance to prepare some talks & sessions.

Pass it along:

Lastly, if you know of someone who should be invited to this event, please pass on this invitation. Attendance will be capped at 70 people, on a first-come, first-served basis, and we're hoping for a mix of sectors and perspectives. Please RSVP at http://planningtechworkshop.eventbrite.com/ We realize this is short notice, so we hope you are able to make it.

Thanks, and we're looking forward to seeing you on the 13th.

Sincerely,

Nick Grossman

--
Nick Grossman
Director, TOPP Labs
The Open Planning Project - http://openplans.org
@nickgrossman

ISPs may not act for years on local complaints about slow Internet—but when a town rolls out its own solution, it's amazing how fast the incumbents can deploy fiber, cut prices, and run to the legislature.
By Nate Anderson | Last updated October 27, 2009

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/want-50mbps-internet-in-...

Hello all of you out there on DIYcity. It's been a long time since I've written in, and I just wanted to give a quick update on things.

First: progress on the new site is speeding along, though predictably taking ten times longer than expected. The idea has evolved and evolved into something very new and different, and I think exciting. It feels like we're in the home stretch toward a launch now, but one never knows for sure.

Then: wow, the world really is changing fast, isn't it? It has been almost exactly one year since DIYcity was launched, and in that time we've seen DC, San Francisco, NYC, Vancouver and Toronto all open up data sets for their cities. I've talked with tech people in other cities who say they're preparing to go down the same road. I think we can expect things to start moving even faster in the next year. (Really makes the case for a new version of DIYcity, no?)

Here are a few events coming up in the next month around open data sets, in various cities around the world:

A NYC Open311 Dev Camp October 24th

A Toronto Open Data Lab November 2

A San Francisco Open Data Event on November 7.

That's a very partial list, just culled from things I'm planning to (hopefully) attend. If you know of other events I've missed, feel free to post them here.

Some other links here, to things I've written around the web lately:

- How Long is Your City's Tail? on O'Reilly Radar.

- Getting Beyond Hyperlocal on Urban Omnibus.

Finally: apologies for all of the spam that was going out on DIYcity until recently. I think the site somehow became the target of a massive, global spam network. I've clamped down on the freewheelin' anyone-can-post-at-any-time nature of DIYcity for a bit, until it calms down, then will hopefully remove the clamps again once the coast is clear.

That's all for now. More to come...

Reposted announcement from Philip Ashlock, The Open Planning Project:

I'd like to invite you to take part in the initiative to bring cities together in the pursuit of sharing technology and standards for 311 services. Please forward this to other interested parties.

http://open311.org/2009/09/announcing-open311-devcamp/

To attend or see the current list of attendees including other cities: http://open311.eventbrite.com/ (So far the 311 teams from NYC, D.C., Toronto, Columbus, and other cities are attending)

On October 24th, The Open Planning Project will host Open311 DevCamp at their NYC office. Please register to attend either in person or remotely via Eventbrite (it’s free). This is a DevCamp style un-conference to coordinate a standard specification for 311 services. Washington D.C’s 311 API will be a major case-study for developing a more universal 311 API. In general, this DevCamp will be an opportunity to discuss and develop what’s needed to make 311 services more accessible and for cities to share knowledge for mutual benefit. The event is intended for developers, project managers, and policy makers involved with 311 services. We encourage those involved with 311 services from all cities to take part. If you cannot attend in person, please sign up as a remote attendee and we’ll provide you with information about how to connect to the DevCamp remotely.

Please register at http://open311.eventbrite.com
The wiki page for the event is http://wiki.open311.org/Open311DevCamp

Ultimately this conversation will lead to a standard specification for 311 services, but the very first goal is to create an environment for knowledge-sharing and best practices.

On the same day there will another event in NYC that focuses on coordinating open technology for mobile devices and we plan to coordinate with that event as well: http://openmobilecamp.eventbrite.com/

I hope you can be involved or can forward this to the most relevant person in your city. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Philip Ashlock
--

Philip Ashlock
The Open Planning Project - http://www.openplans.org
phil@openplans.org | @philipashlock | (360) 389-2741

Wanted to make sure everyone sees today's NY Times article on the MTA slowly starting to open up access to data:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/nyregion/28mta.html?ref=nyregion&pagew...

It's very good. Compare this quote from the MTA:

“It’s clearly an emerging area, and we’re going to keep trying to evolve to keep up with it,” said Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the authority.

to this quote from Portland:

“I look at it as a huge value for us,” said Carolyn Young, who oversees technology at TriMet. “We don’t have the resources in a small city compared to New York to have a bunch of developers making all this stuff. With the third-party applications, we’re getting work that we don’t have staff to do.”

The difference in attitude is striking. However, things are moving in the right direction! I'm sure that Nicholas' MTA summit was a big help in moving this process forward. Was this reporter there?

For those interested http://fixmta.org