Hover over a place to see its name and double-click for more info.
Post #1: Research Topic & Group (Due 9/14)
The aim of the first blog post is to suss out what excites and intrigues you about the city in order to help me focus and support your research plan for the semester. The questions:
- Which research group would you like to take part: public space, housing, or infrastructure? Why?
- How did the Hayden reading and Townsend lecture affect your choices or further your thinking about your topic choice?
- How does your own experience of cities affect your preferred research topic?
As always, see the How to Write Posts & Comments post for more information on length, style, grammar, and citation format.
What Does Cisco Think the Smart City Is?
Cisco is an international corporation makes and sells networking equipment. These are its vision of a smart city for NYC and Barcelona. Feel free to comment below!
How to Add Posts to the Website
How to Create a Blog Post in WordPress:
How to Add Image, Video & Audio in WordPress (Media Library)
About Course Slides
Course slides will appear here after each class.
How to Write Posts & Comments
Blog Posts
The aim of the blog posts is to get you to critically think through a series of scaffolded questions that will help you address and analyze the advent of smart urbanism can play a roll in the growth of the city of Portland, Maine. You will be able to draw on classic and cutting-edge readings about cities, namely New York City to give us a focused comparative case, and work on smart cities. In each of the blog posts you will draw upon the readings for the course in order to reflect on a question or series of questions.
Each post is due the night before class so that if a blog post is due on 9/15 on the syllabus, you need to turn it in by 5 p.m. the previous day, i.e. 9/14. Be sure to include proper citations with footnotes “[1}” at the end of sentences and Chicago citation format below the text. All blog posts must be three to four paragraphs long. Do not use contractions. It is essential that you categorize your post so that Prof. Gieseking can find it for reading/commenting/grading. You can find the proper category (the name of the assignment) under Categories to the right of the editable text box window.
Comments
Once your research group is set, you will comment on all of your working group’s posts in brief replies. The aim of these comments is to carry on the conversation beyond the classroom about your topic, while also allowing you to grow a bigger and stronger knowledge base while working as a team. While you will have individual research interests within your topic–say, public wifi on India Street or a bus times app in the infrastructure group–your arguments will be stronger and more refined for the collective churning over of ideas.
Comments can be as long as you like but need only be 2-3 sentences per comment. There is no requirement to cite the readings in your comments but it is highly encouraged.
If you need help with the technical aspects of posting to the website, see the posts under Tech Tips.
How to Update Your User Profile
How to Update WordPress.com User Profile
What are Data Visualizations?
Data visualizations are visual representations of data, usually descriptive statistics. Dataviz, as they are often known, range from graphs to infographics, images to maps, social network analyses to scatterplots, and on and on. The .pdf below is a helpful 101 about how data visualizations work in terms of conveying and convincing. You will primarily be crafting spatial data visualizations, i.e. maps, in this course but it will be good for you to get a grasp on how data visualizations work more broadly.
[gview file=”http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/file-863940581-pdf/Data_Visualization_101_How_to_Design_Charts_and_Graphs.pdf”]
Main/e & NYC Links of Interest
Websites, News, and Data Sources
The Atlantic City Lab http://www.citylab.com
The Atlantic Cities (2013 and previous) http://www.theatlantic.com/the-atlantic-cities/
Next City http://nextcity.org/
The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram http://www.pressherald.com/
The Portland Daily Sun http://www.portlanddailysun.me/
The Portland Phoenix http://portland.thephoenix.com/
Portland Magazine http://www.portlandmonthly.com/
Portland Monthly Magazine http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/
Maine Today http://mainetoday.com/
Munjoy Hill Observer http://www.munjoyhill.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=53
The West End News http://thewestendnews.com/
The Forecaster http://www.theforecaster.net/
The Bollard http://thebollard.com/about/
Portland, ME | Official Website http://www.portlandmaine.gov
- Portland City Council Agenda Center www.portlandmaine.gov/AgendaCenter
- City of Portland Council Common Goals 2014 www.portlandmaine.gov/DocumentCenter/View/3674
- Portland, ME State & County QuickFacts http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/23/2360545.html
- City of Portland GIS – Public Map Gallery http://click.portlandmaine.gov/GISPortal/
- Geo Maine.gov DataShare Data Sets http://www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/data/data_search.pl?format=geo
- Ctr for Workforce Research and Information www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/data.html
- ME Dept of Ed Data Warehouse http://maine.gov/doe/dataresources/warehouse.html
- Maine.gov DataShare Overview www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/data/index.pl
- Maine.gov DataShare Data Sets http://www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/data/data_search.pl?format=raw
- State Agency Data www.maine.gov/portal/data2/agency_list.shtml
Tech Meetups in Maine http://technology.meetup.com/cities/us/me/
Code for Maine (2014) https://dash.code4maine.org/
- Code for Maine (2013) http://code4maine.org/#
- Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census – NYTimes.com http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map
- Maine Civic Hack Day Portland, Maine June 2013 After Action Report http://startupportland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Maine-Civic-Hack-Day.pdf
- Code for Maine OpenTransit Project Wiki http://code4maine.org/opentransitprojects/
- TechMaine Community Groups & Meetings http://www.techmaine.com/groups
- Code for Maine/CfA Brigade Meetup (Topsham) http://www.meetup.com/Code-for-Maine/
NYTimes City Room http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/
NYTimes Bits Blog http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/
NYTimes Tech News http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/
NYC Open Data https://nycopendata.socrata.com/
Welcome to The Digital Image of the City Course Blog
As an educated citizen of the increasingly urbanized 21st century, how can technology produce better cities for the common good? This course will give you the background, skills, and space to produce critical thinking and suggestions to this question.
Welcome to The Digital Image of the City course blog.