by Gwen Urey For progressive planners, the “digital divide” should be thought of as a “digital wedge.” Technology-based strategies to improve the flow of information at the local level may have perverse effects if we don’t really understand the needs of the most marginalized neighborhoods as suppliers and demanders of information. Technology-based strategies that ignore […]

by Blanca Gordo In the last six months, the “digital divide” has attracted a lot of public attention from corporate leaders, politicians, and scholars. The growing interest is in part a response to the release of the Department of Commerce’s report, “Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide,” a PBS documentary, a series of […]

by Bill Pitkin Within planning, the computer has long been associated with images of the rational, technocratic planner who plugs data into a model that magically analyzes the information and proposes optimal solutions. Planners within a ‘progressive planning’ tradition tend to reject this use of technology, focusing instead on more social or political methods, such […]

by Randy Stoeker In 1994 Wendy Plotkin, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, started an e-mail discussion list on the history of community organizing. She had lined up a nice set of papers to present on-line. But while she originally envisioned that this on-line group would discuss the historical dimensions of community organizing, […]

by Ann Forsyth For two centuries technological changes in production, transportation, and communications have been reshaping cities and regions; and for around a century people recognizable as planners have been trying to manage those changes. We are currently in the midst of a new wave of technological change that started in earnest in the 1970s […]