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Why Mix Urban Planning and Social Media? Contemporary urban planning uses many techniques to get people involved in a particular planning process. These techniques range from mail-in or telephone surveys to multiple-day design charrettes or open houses. The advent of social media, which is a set of tools found on the internet like blogs, forums, wikis, social networking sites, and collaborative software, is really exciting for the planning field. All of these tools can help communities think about, design, and build the kind of communities they want. Social media tools can also help planners and local governments stay in touch with people to make planning more effective and representative. This essay describes social media in more detail and tries to explain why people like to participate in social media. It also describes ways in which social media can help planning be more participatory. Nevertheless, there are some limits to social media. Hopefully you will find this article interesting! There are plenty of links and references to follow where you can learn more. - Daniella Fergusson

The Future of Cities, Information, and Inclusion Downloads: The Future of Cities, Information, and Inclusion (PDF) The Future of Cities, Information, and Inclusion (image)   Over the next decade, cities will continue to grow larger and more rapidly. At the same time, new technologies will unlock massive streams of data about cities and their residents. As these forces collide, they will turn every city into a unique civic laboratory-a place where technology is adapted in novel ways to meet local needs. This ten-year forecast map, The Future of Cities, Information, and Inclusion (PDF), charts the important intersections between urbanization and digitalization that will shape this global urban experiment, and the key tensions that will arise.  The explosive growth of cities is an economic opportunity with the potential to lift billions out of poverty. Yet the speed of change and lack of pro-poor foresight has led to a swarm of urban problems-poor housing conditions, inadequate education and health care, and racial and ethnic inequalities. The coming decade holds an opportunity to harness information to improve government services, alleviate poverty and inequality, and empower the poor. Key uncertainties are coming into view: What economic opportunities will urban information provide to excluded groups? What new exclusions might arise from new kinds of data about the city and its citizens? How will communities leverage urban information to improve service delivery, transparency, and citizen engagement? As information technology spreads beyond the desktop into every corner of citizens' lives, it will provide a new set of tools for poor and excluded groups to re-engineer their relationship with government, the built environment, and each other.  Funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, IFTF has identified this challenge-harnessing data for development and inclusion-as a critical cross-sectoral urban issue for the next decade a