Portland has a lot of problems. However, it has a lot of good ideas and is farther along than many cities in some areas. Transportation, planning and density is one of them. We're still far from being a car-free metropolis, however. I think we've reached a critical mass though on public opinion. We've bought into the idea of sustainable development with an emphasis on livability and moving away from fossil fuel dependency. The downside to that is that we still have to balance out that vision with the practicalities of living and doing business in a world with slightly different priorities. Hence why we have a higher than national average 10% unemployment rate.
As for the urban data feedback technologies, yes, they are totally cool. Portland has an open data initiative that is truly drool worthy. They provide an amazing amount of data to the public and are rapidly embracing open source development as a collaborative public-private engagement. It also helps, in my opinion, that a fair bit of the city data nerds run Coldfusion. See http://portlandmaps.com/ I'm really keen on the open government initiatives. One of my goals this year is to get more involved in the local hackathons around open government. We'll see how it goes. Judah On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Gruss Gott <[email protected]> wrote: > > http://www.businessinsider.com/portland-and-energy-transition-2011-4 > > Portland, Oregon is now far enough along in its transition away from > oil that by 2015 one can imagine this city being able to market and > sell its own example to the rest of the world. > > Most of Portlands longstanding initiatives, from public transport and > the integration of the bicycle, to city agriculture, water and waste > management, and use of technology are solutions that will be seen not > as discretionary but necessary by mid-decade. > > .... > > [cool tech note] Portland is now employing urban data-feedback > technologies of the kind developed at MITs Senseable City La > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:336502 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
