As part of our New York trip, we visited the offices of OpenPlans, where we were hosted by Ellen McDermott and Naama Lissar and also spoke with other members of their organization. OpenPlans is a non-profit organization of about 60 people, a mix of planners, software engineers and others, all of whom are passionate about developing open source tools for urban planning and for transportation. Their goal is to help cities work better. For instance, crowdsourcing could be used to collect information about the city, perhaps the locations of old, defunct payphones that need to be removed. These tools could also engage the public in a more participatory city planning process. The folks at OpenPlans have been looking for new ways to apply their tools. And we've been looking at new tools and technologies for urban planning and research. We're hoping to continue discussions with our friends at OpenPlans and explore the possibility of collaborating in the near future.
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