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Planning disruptions: the rise of the IMMBY

One of the highlights of APA 2011 (for me, at least).

PlaceMatters invited Holly St Clair from MAPC, Scott Page from Interface and me to talk for three minutes each about disruptions on planning, at #beersinbeantown on Monday.

I talked about the rise of the IMMBY: “I Mapped My Back Yard”. IMMBYs are data and tech savvy non-planners, better informed, more technically capable, and more agile than the “pros”. Consider these three converging trends:

  • Useful computer analysis of massive datasets — for example, Narrative Science turning their sports coverage robots onto the census data.
  • Google Fusion Tables — so much analytical power, (almost) nobody needs desktop GIS, especially not the IMMBY
  • Exceptionally high-quality collaborative data, like Open Street Map

Are IMMBYs universal? How can planners usefully engage them in the planning process? How can we learn from their skills and inside knowledge? Go IMMBYs!

April 12, 2011
  • http://urbanomnibus.net/2011/04/field-report-apa-conference-2011/ Urban Omnibus » Field Report: APA Conference 2011

    [...] the potential technology has for planning, and the skills of what Frank Hebbert of OpenPlans dubs IMMBYs (I Mapped My Back Yard) or “data and tech savvy non-planners, better informed, more technically [...]

  • http://blog.placematters.org/2011/04/27/creative-disruptions-in-planning-beers-in-beantown-redux/ Creative Disruptions in Planning: Beers in Beantown Redux

    [...] We had a great group of people involved in the discussion and 3 wonderful unpanelists that seeded the conversation.  Frank Hebbert from OpenPlans started us off by summing up the three forces contributing to I Mapped My Backyard (IMMBYs).  Those three forces are reproduced here from Frank’s blog post on the subject: [...]

  • http://colabradio.mit.edu/the-enabling-city-towards-a-culture-of-everyday-democracy/ CoLab Radio » Blog Archive » The Enabling City: Towards a Culture of Everyday Democracy

    [...] engagement. This is particularly evident in the viral growth of practices like crowdmapping and IMMBY, two trends that are creating a new language around the culture of everyday democracy. Mapping (and [...]