This repository contains curated list of different urban & regional planning data & technology resources. Those interested in the built environment are invited to review and contribute to this repository.
The Technology's Division's Resource Repository is sponsored by the following companies and organizations.
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Platforms and Software Resources
- AI in Planning Tools and Platforms
- Economic Development and Econometric Platforms
- Environmental and Climate Planning Tools and Platforms
- Geospatial Data and Visualization
- Immersive Planning and Design Platforms
- Planning Management and Administrative Tools and Platforms
- Public Engagement Tools and Platforms
- Urban Design Tools and Platforms
- Urban Planning Tools and Platforms
- Transportation Planning Tools and Platforms
Data resources that are publicly available for use. Licenses may apply.
Open Data Sites and national scale datasets should be near the top of each section.
- Smart Location Database - The Smart Location Database is a nationwide geographic data resource for measuring location efficiency. It includes more than 90 attributes summarizing characteristics such as housing density, diversity of land use, neighborhood design, destination accessibility, transit service, employment, and demographics. Most attributes are available for every census block group in the United States.
- USBuildingFootprints - Microsoft Maps is releasing country wide open building footprints datasets in United States. This dataset contains ~130,000,000 computer generated building footprints derived using our computer vision algorithms on satellite imagery. This data is freely available for download and use. Additional Information:Article.
- National Structures Inventory - A dataset intended to provide access to consistent, and nationally available point based structure inventories with attribution to support evaluation of consequences from natural and man-made hazards.
- ClimRR - This portal empowers individuals, governments, and organizations to examine simulated future climate conditions at mid- and end-of-century for a range of climate perils.
- IPCC Atlas - A novel tools & data for flexible spatial and temporal analyses of much of the observed and projected climate change information underpinning the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, including regional synthesis for Climatic Impact-Drivers (CIDs).
- LANDSAT Products - Landsat U.S. Analysis Ready Data (ARD) products are consistently processed to the highest scientific standards and level of processing required for direct use in monitoring and assessing landscape change.
- MACA - The MACA method is a statistical downscaling method for removing biases from global climate model outputs.
- National Stormwater Calculator - An EPA resource including different features and controls for planning, pricing out projects that also shows the outcomes of stormwater retention interventions based on green infrastructure decisions.
- NCCS Data Services - The NASA Center for Climate Simulation houses curated data collections that include atmosphere, ocean, land, and flood data, both current and historical, as well as operational Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) weather analysis data and forecasts that are updated four times daily.
- NCDC Storm Data - United States storm data provided by the National Weather Service (NWS) and contain statistics on personal injuries and damage estimates.
- NOAA Severe Weather Inventory - The Severe Weather Data Inventory (SWDI) is an integrated database of severe weather records for the United States. The formats currently supported are Shapefile (for GIS), KMZ (for Google Earth), CSV (comma-separated), and XML.
- Temperature Severity Indicators - The Temperature Severity Indicator data distills observational information of prolonged temperature events to inform housing and community development policy and decision making provided by US HUD.
- Urban Heat Disparities Project - Census Tract level temperature data derived from a paper use remotely sensed land surface temperature measurements to explore the distribution of the United States urban heating burden by demographic group.
- WUDAPT - This database intends to make accessible coherent and consistent descriptions and information on form and function of urban morphology relevant to climate & environment studies on a worldwide basis.
- American Community Survey (ACS) - The American Community Survey (ACS) helps local officials, community leaders, and businesses understand the changes taking place in their communities. It is the premier source for detailed population and housing information for the United States. Additional Information: Geodata Download/Table Data Access
- Census Reporter - Census Reporter is an open-source website that makes it easy to explore and report census data. Census Reporter automatically provides descriptive statistics, downloadable tabular data, and interactive visualizations of American Community Survey (ACS) data for the United States. Visualizations can be embedded as HTML iframes. Additional Information:License: MIT License Geographic Coverage: Contains geographies matching the coverage and scale of the ACS 2019 1-year and 5-year estimates. Provider: About Page. Additional Links: GitHub Repository.
- IPUMS National Historic GIS - The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides easy access to summary tables and time series of population, housing, agriculture, and economic data, along with GIS-compatible boundary files, for years from 1790 through the present and for all levels of U.S. census geography, including states, counties, tracts, and blocks.
- Global Human Settlement Layer - This global layer of human population is based on remotely sensed land cover classifications and national censuses of population provided by the European Union.
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Education Demographics & Geographic Estimates (EDGE) - EDGE provides access to demographic and school related geographic data such as locations and districts.
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National Center for Educational Statistics - The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. Their data lab provides access to other 30+ education datasets and provides quick reporting and charting functionality for users.
- Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) - The LEHD program combines administrative data, and data from censuses and surveys. From these data, the program creates statistics on employment, earnings, and job flows at detailed levels of geography and industry and for different demographic groups. Additional Information: On The Map Download Page.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics - The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures and provides access to data on labor market activity, working conditions, price changes, and productivity in the U.S. economy to support public and private decision making.
- American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas - An interagency resource intended to help illustrate and document locally led, partnership-driven conservation and restoration work that is underway in communities across America.
- CropScape - CropScape displays data from the USDA Cropland Data Layer (CDL), an annual, remote-sensing snapshot of crop cover during the main growing season across the contiguous United States.
- EnviroAtlas - EnviroAtlas is a collection of interactive tools and resources that allows users to explore the many benefits people receive from nature, often referred to as ecosystem services within the United States.
- National Biogeographic Map - A platform maintained by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that provides a platform for analysis of questions about what species are where, how well protected they are, how vulnerable they are to stressors, and what management options will have the greatest benefit for conservation of biodiversity. Additional Links: More Information about the Tool
- National Hydrography - The NHDPlus High Resolution (NHDPlus HR), National Hydrography Dataset (NHD), and Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) are available for download and as map services. These datasets can help inform environmental planning and storm water management efforts in the US.
- National Wetland Inventory - The US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) is a publicly available resource that provides detailed information on the abundance, characteristics, and distribution of US wetlands.
- Park Score - The Trust for Public Land curates a comprehensive evaluation of park access and quality in the 100 largest U.S. cities.
- Tree Canopy - The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Geospatial Technology and Applications Center (GTAC) builds and maintains tree canopy cover (TCC) datasets.
- Geospatial Conservation Atlas - The Nature Conservancy's geospatial portal includes web maps, apps, a map gallery, local initiative portals, conservation data, and other resources.
- Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) - A free online tool by the U.S. Department of Energy. This interactive platform helps users make data-driven decisions on energy goals and program planning by improving their understanding of low-income and moderate-income household energy characteristics.
- State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) Platform - A free easy-to-access online platform, by the U.S. Department of Energy, to support data-driven state and local energy and decarbonization planning. SLOPE includes two distinct tools namely the Scenario Planner and the Data Viewer to support jurisdictions planning needs.
- NREL Solar Radiation - The National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) is a serially complete collection of hourly and half-hourly values of meteorological data and the three most common measurements of solar radiation: global horizontal, direct normal and diffuse horizontal irradiance.
- CDC Social Vulnerability Index - CDC Social Vulnerability Index (CDC SVI) uses 15 U.S. census variables to help local officials identify communities that may need support before, during, or after disasters based on their level of social vulnerability. Additional Information: Download.
- EJ Screen - EJSCREEN uses maps and reports to present three kinds of information: Environmental indicators, demographic indicators and EJ Indexes. Additional Information: Download.
- H+T Index - The Housing and Transportation (H+T®) Affordability Index provides a comprehensive view of affordability that includes both the cost of housing and the cost of transportation at the neighborhood level. Provided by the Center for Neighborhood Technology.
- Location Affordability Index - The Location Affordability Index (LAI) works to close this gap by providing estimates of household housing and transportation costs at the neighborhood level along with constituent data on the built environment and demographics.
- Opportunity Atlas - These datasets provided by Opportunity Insights allow you to analyze social mobility and a variety of other outcomes from life expectancy to patent rates by neighborhood, college, parental income level, and racial background.
- Mapping Inequality - An interactive map that layers georectified Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps onto a modern basemap of the United States. These color-coded HOLC maps were a physical embodiment of the real estate practice known as redlining. Additional Information: License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, Geographic Coverage: Major Metropolitan Areas in the Lower 48 US States (1935-1940).
- Justice40 - The purpose of the tool is to help Federal agencies identify disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. Combines multiple data sources at the census tract level across eight categories of criteria.
- USDOT Equitable Transportation Community Explorer - The U.S. DOT Equitable Transportation Community (ETC) Explorer is an interactive web application that uses 2020 Census Tracts and data, to explore the cumulative burden communities experience, as a result of underinvestment in transportation, in the following five components: Transportation Insecurity, Climate and Disaster Risk Burden, Environmental Burden, Health Vulnerability, and Social Vulnerability.
- STEAP - The Screening Tool for Equity Analysis of Projects (STEAP) is a census sampling tool that allows rapid screening of potential project locations anywhere in the United States to support Title VI, environmental justice, and other socioeconomic data analyses.
- Tree Equity Score - This dataset provides measures how well the critical benefits of urban tree canopy are reaching those who need them most in urbanized areas.
- County Health Rankings - The annual Rankings provide a revealing snapshot of how health is influenced by where we live, learn, work, and play.
- HealthData.gov - This site is dedicated to making high value health data in the United States more accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers in the hopes of better health outcomes for all.
- CDC Places - A CDC collaboration that allows local health departments and jurisdictions regardless of population size and urban-rural status to better understand the burden and geographic distribution of health-related outcomes in their areas and assist them in planning public health interventions.
- USALEEP - Estimates of life expectancy at birth—the average number of years a person can expect to live—for most of the census tracts in the United States for the period 2010-2015.
- WHO Data - The World Health Organization's (WHO) health data collections featuring international datasets on health indicators and related data.
- National Register of Historic Places - The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation.
- UNESCO World Heritage Sites - A World Heritage Site is a site on a list of properties maintained by the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO and called the World Heritage List "which it considers as having outstanding universal value".
- FHFA Public Data - The Federal Housing Finance Agency provides a series of public datasets regarding housing and mortgages in the United States. It including all states, about activity in the U.S. mortgage market through its House Price Index, Refinance Report, Foreclosure Prevention Report, Mortgage acquisition datasets, and Performance Reports.
- Home Attainability Index - The latest (2022) Urban Land Institute Terwilliger Center Home Attainability Index. A resource for understanding the extent to which a housing market provides a range of choices attainable to regional workforces providing insights into a wide range of factors for selected communities across the United States.
- National Housing Preservation Database - The National Housing Preservation Database contains property and subsidy-level data pulled from nine different HUD and USDA data sources. The database contains information on over 70,000 properties nationwide.
- NLCD - The National Land Cover Database is generated in cooperation with the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLC), a partnership of Federal agencies working together to produce current, nationally consistent, land cover products for all 50 US states and Puerto Rico.
- Corine Land Cover - European Land Cover Database generated by the Land Monitoring Core Service (LMCS) of Copernicus, the European flagship programme on Earth Observation.
- National Zoning & Land Use Database - This GitHub project catalogs major metros municipal zoning ordinances in plain text. It can be a useful reference for comparing ordinances or perhaps fine tuning language models.
- National Zoning Atlas - This colloborative project is working depict key aspects of zoning codes in an online, user-friendly map to enable cross jurisdiction comparison's of land use regulations. This project was further explored a Planning Webcasts here and here.
- OpenStreetMap - OpenStreetMap is the free wiki world map. This collaborative project is one of the largest databases of volunteered geographic information in the world. Its contents include points of interest, routable networks, and other geodata.
- BBBike - Provides shapefiles and raw OSM format for cities around the world, extracted weekly. This is useful if you are looking for data extracts for a single city.
- Geofabrik - OpenStreetMap extracts prepared in either PBF or shapefile format for download daily.
- MetroExtracts - Each day, OSM Extracts by Interline mirrors the entire OpenStreetMap planet and creates city and region sized extracts ready for download into formats ready for GIS.
- Overpass Turbo - Overpass Turbo is a web-based data mining tool for OpenStreetMap. It runs any kind of Overpass API query, shows the results on an interactive map, and allows users to export query data in the form of GeoJSON files (which may be converted to Shapefiles). It also provides helpful support for new users in the form of the "Wizard" tool. Using Overpass Turbo, you can query virtually any location globally using dedicated tags in Open Street Map.
- Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Tools & Data - HOT provides a rich set of tools for the OSM community. An especially helpful tool is the Export Tool.
- Tasking Manager - Tasking Manager is a platform where anybody can learn to use Open Street Map and contribute to mapping undermapped areas of the world. This work is critical for disaster preparation and resiliency in developing countries, so that aid workers and community members have access to accurate maps when disasters strike.
- Overture Maps - A joint mapping consortium looking to power current and next-generation map products by creating reliable, easy-to-use, and interoperable open map data. Builds on OpenStreetMap and other datasets to expand access to open data.
- OpenPrecincts - OpenPrecincts is a data and software resource to open the redistricting process to all citizens and ensure that district boundaries are fair for all voters.
- MIT Election Lab - Election Lab is a clearinghouse for data sets that can fuel studies on elections and how they're conducted. Find election data and research tools produced by us and others.
- Sea Level Rise Viewer - NOAA provided map viewer is to provide federal, state, and local coastal resource managers and planners with a preliminary look at sea level rise and coastal flooding impacts.
- Earth Quake Data - NOAA provided data includes a global record of significant earth quakes going back to 2150 BC to present with geographic information.
- National Risk Index - The National Risk Index is an online mapping application from FEMA that identifies communities most at risk to 18 natural hazards.
- HIFLD - This site provides National foundation-level geospatial data within the open public domain that can be useful to support community preparedness, resiliency, research, and more.
- RAPT - The Resilience Analysis & Planning Tool (RAPT) gives everyone easy access to important community data and analysis tools related to community resilience. The community resilience indicators in the RAPT were pulled from the Community Resilience Indicator Analysis (CRIA).
- Adaptation Clearinghouse - Maintained by Georgetown's Climate Center, this is an extensive online database and networking site that serves policymakers and others who are working to help communities adapt to climate change.
- Accessibility Observatory - As part of the Access Across America series the Accessibility Observatory at UMN evaluates multiple modes of transportation accessibility in major U.S. metropolitan areas. Reports are published annually, and select data sets are available through the University of Minnesota's Digital Conservatory.
- BTS Open Data Site - On the BTS Open Data site, browse geospatial data that is part of the BTS National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD) product. NTAD is a set of nationwide (United States) geographic databases of public spatial information for transportation facilities and networks; flows of people, goods, vehicles, and craft over the transportation networks; and social, economic, and environmental conditions that affect or are affected by the transportation networks.
- City Access Map - CityAccessMap was developed by urban scientists, for urban planners. It uses open data from OpenStreetMap and the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL), to quantify and visualize walking accessibility to a variety of services for any city in the world.
- CTPP - The CTPP Program procures tabulations of American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year (and historical Census decennial) data. The chief differences between ACS data and CTPP data are FLOWS from home to work and WORKPLACE BASED data at small Geographies.
- HPMS - The HPMS is a national level highway information system that includes data on the extent, condition, performance, use and operating characteristics of the nation's highways.
- Transitland - Transitland is an open data platform that collects GTFS, GTFS Realtime, and other open data feeds from over 2,500 transit operators in over 55 countries. Additional Information: Interline, GitHub.
- National Noise Map - Data within the National Transportation Noise Map represent potential noise levels across the nation for an average annual day for the specified year.
- National Transit Database - Repository of operations, financial, and asset data that US transit agencies are required to report to the Federal Transit Administration.
- Global Urban Street Networks - Ready‐to‐use global street network models and calculated indicators in a GIS format. Additional Information: Geopackage Download
- Rapid Transit Database - Collection of all rapid transit corridors worldwide, including bus rapid transit, light rail, and subway, published by the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy.
- TIGER - The Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) database consists of boundary, road line, and boundary information pulled from the US Census's master address files.
- Transit Equity Dashboards - Equity analysis of transit systems in seven (and counting) US cities, published by TransitCenter.
Vendors that can provide purchased or licensed data for a variety of uses.
- CyberCity3d - CyberCity3D offers a diverse range of digital city models from stero imagery and keeps an extensive library in 130 cities.
- PLW Model Works - PLW Model Works combines geospatial modeling expertise to create highly detailed, photo-accurate 3D polygonal city models for different industries.
- Esri Tapestry Segmentation - Provides concise information on the demographic, economic, education and consumer characteristics of populations based on ZIP code.
- Data Axle - Data Axle offers some of the most comprehensive and accurate business and consumer databases, boasting almost 400 distinct attributes across businesses and consumers in the United States and Canada.
- Mapillary - Access street-level imagery and AI-derived map data from all over the world. Fill in the gaps by requesting new coverage or capturing your own with an easy to use mobile app.
- Ecopia - Ecopia AI leverages AI to convert high resolution images of the earth into HD Vector Maps and to digitize infrastructure assets in a geospatial format.
- Geomate - Geomate provides HD vector maps from high-resolution aerial imagery to support autonomous vehicles and urban planning use cases.
- Cyclomedia - Cyclomedia captures accurate visual data including imagery and LIDAR at street level and transforms it into valuable insights.
- CoreLogic - Provides high quality parcel data, providing instant access to detailed property characteristics, sales records, valuation and digital copies of current county assessor documents.
- Regrid - A leading provider of land parcels and location context data for your maps, apps and spatial analysis.
- CoStar - A commercial real estate information and analytics provider serving the UK, US, and Canada.
- EarthDefine - EarthDefine is using AI to transform earth sensor data into consumable geospatial information products including high resolution land cover classifications and building footprints.
- Climate Engine - Provides data and insights to support financial and operational resilience for a changing planet across a variety of climate related hazards.
- RiskFactor - Provided by the First Street Foundation, this tool enables users to understand properties' environmental risks from flooding, wildfire and extreme heat. The tool communicates historic events, current risks, and future projections for properties based on peer-reviewed research. Additional Information: Access Census Tract Risk Data, First Street Foundation Website
- Jupiter Intelligence - Provides global high resolution climate projections out to 2100 for a variety of hazards (flood, precipitation, wind, heat/cold, wildfire, thunderstorms, drought) as well as asset-level estimates of damage and financial loss.
- Numina - Utilizes edge computing devices that measures all kinds of curb-level activity. Anonymously and in aggregate, Numina delivers the volume counts, paths, and traffic behaviors of travelers and objects in streets.
- Transoft - Transoft ITS Safety solutions utilize computer vision to identify 'near-miss' behavior on streets. This technology was featured Planning Magazine in the Art of Learning by Example.
- Automotus - Computer vision based platform that helps cities, airports, fleets, and businesses monitor the curb in real time. Enables curbside management policies that increase revenue while making streets less congested, more sustainable, and more equitable.
- curbFlow - Computer vision based services to quantify events occurring in the built environment affordably and quickly.
- Vade - Using custom IoT cameras and computer vision to bring real time parking availability easily queryable via web-based API's.
- StreetSimplified - Deploys temporary cameras utilizing computer vision to examine various transportation behaviors such as speeding, crossing rule compliance, and red-light running.
- EcoCounter - Since 1997, Eco-Counter has developed unique and innovative solutions to count pedestrians and cyclists that vary infrared sensors to computer vision based counters.
- VivaCity - Viva provies transportation monitoring solutions that help identify near-miss behavior on streets and multimodal counts.
- AirSage - AirSage is a well-known provider of location based services and GPS data from cell phones operating in the space since 2000.
- Replica - Replica is a data platform providing rich origin-destination, spend, and scenario impact analysis based on an activity based modeling process.
- SafeGraph - Points of interest (POI) provider providing information on destination locations and their characteristics such as spending rates in the United States.
- WeJo - Wejo has made it simple and secure to share and access connected car data, on a global scale. This data can be used for everything from origin-destination analysis, safety & speed studies, and more.
- StreetLight Data - Provides data using smartphones as sensors to measure vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians across North America. Carry out your mission on time and under budget, with 24/7 access to counts, O-D, and other metrics you need.
- Strava - API for a popular tracking app for runners and cyclists. Data can be used to understand active transportation usage and patterns.
- Teralytics - Provides data and insights on mobility patterns based on cellular trace data using a global network of telecom providers.
- Inrix - Delivers innovative data products for the automotive and transportation industries such as real-time parking and traffic information solutions.
- Unacast - Provides location based analytics related to how people move across 80+ countries ranging from foot-traffic metrics to cross-visitation.
- PlacerAI - A location based data provider that provides estimates of foottraffic to different points of interest.
A collection of urban planning related data specifications and standards for use as part of programs & projects.
- CityGML - The CityGML standard defines a conceptual model and exchange format for the representation, storage and exchange of virtual 3D city models. It enables an interdisciplinary common operating platform for civic systems.
- LBCS - The American Planning Association's Land Based Classification Standards classifies land uses across five dimensions (Activity, Function, Structure, Site, and Ownership).
- DTDL - The Digital Twins Definition Language is the language by which developers can define the language of the entities they expect to use in their topologies.
- BLDS - The BLDS data standard is a collaborative effort by civic technology companies, governments and other interested parties to create a shared data specification for building and construction permit data.
- HouseFacts - The House Facts data standard is a uniform format for reporting government data on the operation, safety, and performance of residential buildings.
- IFC - IFC is a standardized, digital description of the built environment, including buildings and civil infrastructure. It is an open, international standard (ISO 16739-1:2018).
- EPA Data Standards - A chart with links to the diversity of data standards adopted by EPA.
- SharedStreets - SharedStreets Referencing System is a global, non-proprietary linear referencing system for describing streets maintained by SharedStreets. Additional Information: GitHub
- CurbLR - An open data specification for curb regulations maintained by SharedStreets. Additional Information: GitHub, Demo: Interactive map and example feed, Blog post: Why CurbLR was built.
- CDS - The Curb Data Specification provides data specifications for curb regulations alongside a connected event and metrics API intended to help cities manage their curb zone programs and surrounding areas, and measure the utilization and impact.
- GTFS - The General Transit Feed Specification is a popular standard for describing transit systems.
- GTFS-flex - A data format that models flexible public transportation services (microtransit/paratransit) as an extension to GTFS.
- GTFS-RT - This standard provides users transit data updates in real time greatly enhances their experience of transit services.
- NeTEx - Network Timetable Exchange is a European standard to exchange standardized time tables and other system characteristics used to describe transit systems.
- SIRI - Service Interface for Real Time Information (SIRI) is a European standard for real-time information which has had limited adoption in the United States, but would be compatible with hardware and network systems which meet European standards.
- shared-row - A data specification for representing street right of ways.
- OpenSidewalks - A data specification for routable pedestrian networks and describing and sharing pedestrian network and pedestrian network-adjacent data.
- GBFS - The General Bikeshare Feed Specification is a standardized data feed for shared mobility system availability.
- MDS - The Mobility Data Specification is a data standard to enable communication between mobility companies and local governments.
- MTLFS - The Managed and Tolled Lanes Feed Specification is intended to be used by the managed lanes and toll industry for the standardization and sharing of dynamic toll rates, and any managed lane purpose including but not limited to, ramp metering, bus only lanes, express lanes, especially if the resources are being priced dynamically.
- GMNS - The General Modeling Network Specification defines a common human and machine readable format for sharing routable road network files.
- OpenDrive - The data that is stored in an ASAM OpenDRIVE file describes the geometry of roads, lanes and objects, such as roadmarks on the road, as well as features along the roads, like signals.
This is a curated list of Python, R, or other open-source libraries or programming tools can be useful for urban planning applications.
Python Libraries & Related Resources.
- Pandas - Flexible and powerful data analysis / manipulation library for Python, providing labeled data structures similar to R data.frame objects, statistical functions, and much more.
- Arcpy - ArcPy is a Python site package that provides a useful and productive way to perform geographic data analysis, data conversion, data management, and map automation with Python.
- ArcGIS Python API - The ArcGIS API for Python is a powerful, modern and easy to use Pythonic library to perform GIS visualization and analysis, spatial data management and GIS system administration tasks that can run both interactively, and using scripts. This library enables easy use of pandas within the ArcGIS platform.
- Geopandas - GeoPandas is an open source project to make working with geospatial data in python easier. GeoPandas extends the datatypes used by pandas to allow spatial operations on geometric types.
- Partridge - Partridge is a Python 3.6+ library for working with GTFS feeds using pandas DataFrames.
- Peartree - Peartree helps explore GTFS data and their network characteristics.
- Pandana - Urban network analysis library intended to help planners compute quick accessibility metrics or shortest paths. Additional Information: License: AGPL-3.0 License: Provider: UrbanSim Inc. (UDST).
- UrbanSim - UrbanSim is a platform for building statistical models of cities and regions. These models help forecast long-range patterns in real estate development, demographics, and related outcomes, under various policy scenarios. Information: License: BSD License: Provider: UrbanSim Inc. (UDST).
- Geosnap - Geospatial & temporal neighborhood analysis using US Census Data.
- OSMnx - Python for street networks. Retrieve, model, analyze, and visualize street networks and other spatial data from OpenStreetMap.
- Madina - Madina is a package of classes and functions to streamline the representation and analysis of urban networks. This library includes a python implementation of the Urban Network Analysis Tools.
- Pybikes - Pybikes provides a set of tools to scrape bike sharing data from different websites and APIs, thus providing a coherent and generalized set of classes and methods to access this sort of information.
- Leafmap - Leafmap is a free and open-source Python package that enables users to analyze and visualize geospatial data with minimal coding in a Jupyter environment. Leafmap's interactive GUI allows no code layer management and analysis including a powerful analytical backend (i.e., WhiteboxTools). Additional Information: leafmap.org, JOSS Article, Medium Article.
- Prettymaps - A small set of Python functions to draw pretty maps from OpenStreetMap data.
- HerePy - A library that provides a Python interface to HERE APIs.
- StreetTraffic - StreetTraffic is a Python package that crawls the traffic flow data of your favorite routes, cities by using the API provided by HERE.
- PySAL - The Python Spatial Analysis Library is a collection of algorithms for exploring spatial correlations and other spatial relationships.
- city-seer-api - A package for pedestrian-scale network-based urban analysis: network analysis, urban morphology, land use, accessibility, and statistical aggregations.
- Geemap - A Python package for interactive mapping with Google Earth Engine, ipyleaflet, and ipywidgets.
- Geoplot - Geoplot is a high-level Python geospatial plotting library. It is an extension to cartopy and matplotlib which makes mapping easy: like seaborn for geospatial.
- Gleam - A plotting library inspired by R-Shiny to create interactive plots.
- Urbansprawl - The urbansprawl project provides an open source framework for assessing urban sprawl using open data. It uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to calculate its sprawling indices, divided in Accessibility, Land use mix, and Dispersion.
- Xarray-spatial - Xarray-Spatial implements common raster analysis functions using Numba and provides an easy-to-install, easy-to-extend codebase for raster analysis.
- Momepy - Momepy is a library for quantitative analysis of urban form - urban morphometrics. It is part of PySAL (Python Spatial Analysis Library) and is built on top of GeoPandas, other PySAL modules and networkX.
- rasterio - Geographic information systems use GeoTIFF and other formats to organize and store gridded raster datasets such as satellite imagery and terrain models.
- TerraVide - TerraVide is an open source python package to process large urban environments mapped with LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data. As of v0.1.6, focuses on tree extraction.
- Dash - Dash is an open source python library for building interactive data visualizations on the web. It enables you to build custom data dashboards using pure Python.
R Packages & Related Resources.
- R Shiny - Create dynamic, web-friendly visualizations of data using R. Additional Information: Shiny Tutorial.
- simplefeatures(sf) - Support for simple features, a standardized way to encode spatial vector data in R.
- ggplot2 - Resource for plotting a wide range of data (useful for visualizing survey data). Additional Information: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.
- tidytext - Go-to library for text mining--often used in tandem with ggplot or other text mining libraries.
- leafgl - R package for fast web-gl rendering for leaflet maps.
- Motif - Describes spatial patterns of categorical raster data for any defined regular and irregular areas. It enables spatial analysis such as search, change detection, and clustering to be performed on spatial patterns.
- Raster - Reading, writing, manipulating, analyzing and modeling of spatial data. The package implements basic and high-level functions for raster data and for vector data operations such as intersections.
- Rgee - Is an R binding package for calling Google Earth Engine API from within R. Various functions are implemented to simplify the connection with the R spatial ecosystem.
- r5r - Is an R package for rapid realistic routing on multimodal transport networks (walk, bike, public transport and car) leveraging the Conveyal R5 routing engine.
- Sfnetworks - Provides a tidy approach to spatial network analysis.
- Stars - Reading, manipulating, writing and plotting spatiotemporal arrays (raster and vector data cubes) in 'R'.
- stplanr - Tools for transport planning with an emphasis on spatial transport data and non-motorized modes including OD data processing and other functions.
- Tmap - Thematic maps are geographical maps in which spatial data distributions are visualized. This package offers a flexible, layer-based, and easy to use approach to create thematic maps, such as choropleths and bubble maps.
- tidytransit - A tidy approach to accessing and manipulating GTFS data, including transit routes, schedules, and stops.
- tidycensus - A tidy approach to accessing data from the US Census Bureau API for manipulation or spatial analysis.
Other coding special projects and/or other resources.
- civic-tech-patterns - Common patterns and anti-patterns for civic tech and civic applications. Additional Information: Provided by Code for America.
- global-indicators - Case study projected dedicated to developing global healthy and sustainable city-indicators collaboration.
Front-end web related packages and resources.
- Bootstrap - Widely-used, well documented library for quick design and customization of websites. Additional Information: Documentation.
- Chart.js - Create simple (or advanced) visualizations of data for web and mobile. Additional Information: GitHub.
- Leaflet - Open-source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps. Plugins available to extend functionality (e.g., storymaps, heatmaps, animation). Additional Information: Quickstart Guide.
- Turf.js - Advanced geospatial analysis for browsers and Node.js. Additional Information: GitHub.
- GTFS-Js - JavaScript library for working with GTFS data. Additional Information: Unlicense: WSDOT.
Resources for planners learning coding and urban informatics.
- Urban Informatics & Visualization-Berkeley - Urban Informatics and Visualization (UC Berkeley CP255) Class Jupyter Noteboom examples. Provides various resources to applied Python in planning contexts.
- Esri's Python For Everyone - This course provides the building blocks you need to use Python. You will create and run scripts using these building blocks, and you can apply them directly inside ArcGIS and to your own workflows.
- Coding for Planners: Up and Running with Python - Planetizen course teaching basics of Python with planning applications through 10 video lessons. Monthly subscription required.
- Introduction to Urban Informatics - Planetizen course teaching the basics of big data processing, analysis, and visualization. Monthly subscription required.
Software and platforms for planners and those interested in the built environment.
Software, tools, and platforms that employ models that draw inferences from data or generate data that have specific utility for urban planning applications. The American Planning Association's Technology Division authored an open letter identifing the neet for ethical use of these tools.
- ChatGPT - ChatGPT is an advanced language model designed to generate human-like text responses and engage in conversational interactions. Additional Information: Act Like a Planner.
- Anthropic - Anthropic provides access to a class of advanced large language models called Claude designed to provide human-like text responses and engage in conversational interactions.
- University of Oregon, AI Software List - A blog cataloguing existing AI resources compiled by university researchers and local policy experts.
- OECD AI Policy Observatory - OECD AI Policy Observatory provides a platform for resources on applications, poicy implications, and literature regarding Artificial Intelligence.
- LM Studio - This free for personal use software enables users to download large language models and run them locally within a desktop chat interface.
- Tune Studio - Playground for software developers to finetune and deploy large language models.
Software, tools, and platforms that help planners understanding the economic impacts of decisions, from fiscal impact analysis to employment forecasting.
- Remi - REMI is a leading provider of state, local, and national macroeconomic policy analysis models.
Software, tools, and platforms intended to aid environmental planning or climate adaptation & mitigation planning.
- Climate Mapping For Resilience and Adaptation - Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation (CMRA) integrates information from across the federal government to help people consider their local exposure to climate-related hazards. People working in community organizations or public agencies can use the site to help them develop equitable climate resilience plans to protect people, property, and infrastructure. Additional Information: CMRA Assessment Tool
- iTree - Quantifies the benefits and values of trees around the world. Is based on peer-reviewed, USDA Forest Service Research.
- HAZUS - FEMA's Hazus Program provides standardized tools and data for estimating risk from earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, and hurricanes. Risk assessment resources and tools from the Hazus program are always freely available and transparently developed.
- Temperate - This user-friendly tool was developed by Azavea in partnership with ICLEI USA, with the primary purpose of facilitating a data-informed adaptation planning process in small-to-midsize communities with little to no devoted resources to plan for climate change impacts.
- City Energy Analyst - A series of open-source tools for the analysis and optimization of urban energy systems.
- EPA WARM Model - EPA created the Waste Reduction Model (WARM) to provide high-level estimates of potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, energy savings, and economic impacts from several different waste management practices.
- ENCORE - United Nations sponsored resource intended to explore dependencies on and impacts to our worlds stores of natural capital.
- LEARN - This interactive web mapping tool was developed to help communities in the USA estimate the local greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of their forests and trees.
- NatureServe Explorer - NatureServe is the definitive online guide for information on over 100,000 rare and endangered species and ecosystems in the Americas.
Software, tools, and platforms for geospatial visualization.
- ArcGIS - This platform is a geographic information system (GIS) for working with maps and geographic information maintained by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI).
- QGIS - This open source GIS suite allows users to create, edit, visualise, analyse and publish geospatial information on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD and mobile devices.
- CARTO - CARTO is a world leading Location Intelligence platform, enabling organizations to host & use spatial data and enable analysis for more efficient delivery routes, better behavioural marketing, strategic store placements, and much more.
- kepler.gl - Kepler is a data agnostic, WebGL empowered, high-performance web application for geospatial analytic visualizations. Additional Information: API Reference.
- flowmap-blue - Create geographic flow maps representing your data published in Google Sheets. Visualize numbers of movements between locations (origin-destination data).
- ScapeToad - ScapeToad is a cross-platform, open-source application designed to adjust the size of polygons based on some attribute. Use a shapefile as input and output to generate cartograms, geometries whose sizes are distorted based on data.
- Heavy.AI - Geotemporal enabled high performance database capable of doing GPU accelerated queries.
- BlenderGIS - BlenderGIS is a free and open-source add on for Blender which allows users to explore, query, and visualize data directly through Blender's GUI.
- Felt - A web based mapping application that enables multple users to colloboratively edit and view in data in real-time.
Software, tools, and platforms designed to create digital replicas of our world, render urban scenes, and immerse stakeholders in 3D digital environments to illustrate potential designs or alternative futures.
- Arkio - Arkio is a new cloud-based collaborative spatial design software that allows planners, designers, and stakeholders to create 3-D models of buildings and neighborhoods over VR and other devices.
- InCitu - InCitu is an AR platform designed to support urban planners in the analysis and visualization of urban data by representing scale models of buildings, affordable housing, mixed-use development, parks, and bridges.
- Polycam - Polycam is a mobile application that allows planners to scan and digitize objects and places from the real world for use in 3-D models, making photogrammetry easy with the use of their smartphone's camera.
- Spatial - Spatial is a highly collaborative web, mobile, and VR application planners use to create immersive co-experiences and spaces in environments including the Metaverse.
- Spectracities - Spectra is an open source VR and mixed reality platform that allows planners and designers to combine physical placemaking and digital worldbuilding to reimagine the city making process, from single projects and infill development to large-scale immersive environments.
- TwinMotion - TwinMotion is an easy to use real-time visualization software that creates offline renderer-quality images, animations, and panoramas, together with interactive 360° videos and VR presentations built on Unreal Engine.
- Unity - A powerful and popular cross-platform game engine for creating 2D and 3D interactive experiences and games.
- Unreal Engine - Epic Games Unreal Engine is a XR engine that allows planners to not just create visualizations, but create immersive environments that gamify community involvement, decision-making, and the planning process.
Software, tools, and platforms intended to help assist with planning management and adminstration. This includes software for permitting, development review, digital plan development, and other planning management tasks.
- Encode Plus - Software to help modernize planning and zoning ordinances and streamline county or municipal code and by-law management.
- MyGovernmentOnline - Digital government solutions for permitting and in-office processes designed by government for goverment (provider is technically a public agency).
- Digiplan - Provides software for fully integrated electronic plan review and intake processes.
- OpenGov - Cloud solution to power every permit, license, and inspection with user-friendly workflows.
- GeoCivix - A user friendly citizen access, plan review, permit, and inspection solution built to drive efficiency, organization, and communication.
Software, tools, and platforms intended to aid with public engagement and outreach activities.
- bangthetable - Provides access to a platform that centralizes community engagement, making it easy to capture, analyze, and report on city-wide engagement through one single platform.
- Metroquest - Comprehensive community engagement platform, providing surveys, games, and interactive maps to engage the public around planning issues.
- PollEverywhere - Provides the ability to generate polls and questions for interactive engagement on multiple platforms.
- GeoComment - Allows the City staff, citizens and stakeholders of governance to interact digitally and offer meaningful inputs into the decision-making processes at all stages of project development through a map enabled platform.
- NJTPA Engage - Database of 300 + public engagement tools, techniques, and software. Searchable on multiple levels.
- Ushahidi - Open-source crowdsourced mapping tool with the aim to empower communities around the world to tackle their own problems by collecting citizen input.
- Social Pinpoint - Social Pinpoint is a proprietary digital public engagement tool that allows users to give feedback and share their inspirations through interactive maps, surveys, participatory budgeting exercises, and idea wall forums.
- Hello Lamp Post - Hello Lamp Post is a proprietary text and SMS-based on-street public engagement tool that uses physical signage and mobile devices to get citizen feedback, improve wayfinding, promote local events and services, or provide creative educational content.
- Maptionnaire - Provides map-based tools for designing questionnaires, collecting survey data, and conveying information.
- SurveyMonkey - A cloud-based survey tool that helps users create, send and analyze surveys. Users can email surveys to respondents and/or embed them on their websites and social media profiles to increase response rate.
Software, tools, and platforms to assist with urban design and similar creative applications in built environments. This includes 3D modeling tools, rendering, and different XR applications.
- CityEngine - CityEngine is advanced 3D modeling software for creating huge, interactive and immersive urban environments in less time than traditional modeling techniques. The cities you create using CityEngine can be based on real-world GIS data and the procedural rules that can help quickly create streets & buildings.
- SketchUp - Easy to use interactive 3D modeling software for planning and design applications. Supported by a rich asset library for creating neighborhood designs.
- Rhino - This is a commercial 3D computer graphics and computer-aided design application software. Rhino has had multiple plug-ins built on top of it including Grasshopper and the Urban Network Analysis toolbox to enable complex modeling and analysis.
- Adobe Creative Suite - Adobe's collection of 20+ desktop and mobile apps and services for photography, design, video, web, UX, and more. Popular products include Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and others.
- GIMP - GIMP is an open cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and more operating systems.
- Inkscape - Inkscape is vector-based, open graphic manipulation tool often used as a counterpart to GIMP.
- TestFit - TestFit features algorithms and co-creation tools help developers, architects, urban planners and more to solve hotel, parking or multifamily building site plans in seconds.
- Delve - Delve uses generative design and AI to reveal the very best options for your project priorities and site design metrics.
- Enscape - Enscape is an easy-to-use rendering software that produces quick, realistic and customizable rendering images for urban design and architectural visualization. The tool integrates well with commonly used 3D modeling softwares such as Rhino, SketchUp, etc.
Software, tools, and platforms intended to assist general urban planning tasks and processes.
- ArcGIS Urban - ArcGIS Urban enables planners and design professionals to publish living plans and collaborate across teams with a web-based 3D application that supports scenario planning and impact assessment.
- UrbanFootPrint - Web-based planning tool serving curated urban, environmental, and economic data to urban practitioners and equipping them with the analytic capabilities to plan and improve communities faster, better, and at lower cost.
- UrbanCanvas - UrbanCanvas Modeler is a web-based platform designed for planners and modelers to generate long-range, small area socioeconomic forecasts using UrbanSim to inform Regional Transportation Plans.
Software, tools, and platforms intended to assist with transportation planning tasks and processes.
- Remix - A platform to empower cities to plan the best possible transportation system — from public transit to safer streets to ever-increasing new modes of mobility. Remix provides tools to edit & test GTFS, generate multimodal streets, and explore relevant data.
- Streetmix - A collaborative civic engagement platform for urban design. Design, remix, and share your neighborhood street with Streetmix.
- A/B Street - Edit streets and intersections, explore the effects through traffic simulation on all modes, and use the resulting visualizations to communicate a proposal. Apache licensed, runs anywhere with OpenStreetMap, and works on the web or as an offline download.
- Space Syntax - Spatial & Network Analysis software is available to professional practitioners and academic researchers for commercial and non-commercial use.
- ITHIM - Integrated Transport and Health Impact Model (ITHIM) refers to a range of related models and tools developed to perform integrated assessment of the health effects of transport scenarios and policies at the urban and national level. This page points to different literature, R code, and US specific resources.
- OpenPath - Continusous travel survey platform from NREL that collects trips and data via a smart phone app backed by a server and leveraging automated data processing.
Collections of planning related literature, information aggregators, or similar resources.
Resources pertaining to AICP certification test preparation, continuing education, and other resources.
- AICP Get Certified! Webpage - The American Institute of Certified Planners's (AICP) offical resource repository that provides details on eligibility, registration, and preparation. Important dates for upcoming AICP "Certification Cycles" are also listed.
- AICP Exam Prep. Webpage - Details the AICP's "Five-Step Approach" for exam preparation and lists resources/materials to help you succeed on the AICP exam.
- APA Knowledge Base - APA's Research KnowledgeBase connects APA members to curated collections of topically related resources — including plans, regulations, model codes, guides, articles, reports, and multimedia files. Each collection provides commentary and thematic groupings of resource records with bibliographic information, short descriptions, and links to the resources themselves.
- PlanningPrep - A free web-based study resource to help planners prepare for the American Institute of Certified Planners' certification exam. As of summer 2021, the site contains 1668 practice questions and 12 practice exams.
- APA Florida Exam Prep Webpage - Comprehensive collection of study materials compiled by APA Florida. APA members can also email Henry Bittaker at the address given for access to recordings of exam prep and practice question study sessions led by him.
Resources linking to peer-reviewed journals or federal research aggregators of interest. These are not specific papers, but their curators.
- NCHRP - The National Cooperative Highway Research Program is developed on the basis of research needs identified by chief administrators and other staff of the highway and transportation departments, by committees of AASHTO, and by FHWA. Topics of the highest merit are selected by the AASHTO Special Committee on Research and Innovation (R&I), and each year R&I's recommendations are proposed to the AASHTO Board of Directors, the National Academies, and FHWA.
- TCRP - Sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration, the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) serves as one of the principal means by which the public transportation industry can develop innovative near-term solutions to meet demands placed on it. The TCRP has an established reputation for providing useful reports and other tools to help public transportation practitioners solve problems and inform decision makers.
- TFResource - A collection of best practices for travel demand forecasting and travel survey methods.
- Planning Advisory Service (PAS) - The Planning Advisory Service (PAS) is the American Planning Association's (APA) flagship research brand which is responsible for the following publications: PAS Reports (quarterly), PAS Memo (bimonthly), and PAS QuickNotes (bimonthly). Current publications and archives of previous issues are available for free download for APA members.
- Policy Guides - Policy Guides represent APA's official position on critical planning issues and arm planners with the tools to advocate for policies that create great communities for all.
- Repository and Open Science Access Portal (ROSA P) - Provides access to a range of full-text current and historical documents from the National Transportation Library. Resources are available from all modes of transportation as well as related disciplines such as climate change research.
- Automated Decision-Making and the Law Clearinghouse Project - The aim of this clearinghouse project thus is to highlight seminal and impactful articles focused on issues of AI Decision-Making and the law.
Websites and news resources for urban planning, the built environment, or communities.
- Planopedia - Organized by the Planning News aggregator Planetizen this mini-planning encyclopedia explores various urban planning concepts and terms.
- ULI - ULI is the oldest and largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use experts in the world.
- Streetsblog - Blog for news related to walking, biking, and transit.
Podcasts touching on the built environment or communities.
- Talking Headways - The Talking Headways podcast is a weekly podcast about transportation and urban design.
- 99% Invisible - 99% Invisible is a sound-rich, narrative podcast about all the thought that goes into the things we don't think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.
- APA Podcast - American Planning Association's podcast with interviews and discussions on planning topics going back to 2010.
- Strong Towns Podcast - The podcast explores how we can financially strengthen our cities, towns, and neighborhoods and, in the process, make them better places to live.
- The Urban Planner's Podcast - This podcast is for urban planners, urban planning students and those interested in the topic of urban planning.
Other types of planning data & technology resources. They are a good source of inspiration to contribute to this repo for example, but we don't need to duplicate efforts.
This page is registered as an awesome-list, but similar GitHub repositories can be listed here. These are managed curations of resources that relate to different topics.
- awesome-transit - A collection of transit data tools and resources.
- micromobility-tools-and-resources - A collection of micromobility tools and data resources.
- awesome-sustainable-technology - A curated list of open technology projects to sustain a stable climate, energy supply, and vital natural resources.
- awesome-gis - Awesome GIS is a collection of geospatial related sources, including cartographic tools, geoanalysis tools, developer tools, data, conference & communities, news, massive open online course, some amazing map sites, and more.
- awesome-agriculture - Open source technology for agriculture, farming, and gardening.
- awesome-geojson - GeoJSON utilities that will make your life easier.
- ai-collection - Review of the generative AI landscape including tools/utilities.
These are other aggregators that bring together different planning related tools, software, data, and related resources.
- Urban Computing Foundation - Accelerating open source and community development that improves mobility, safety, infrastructure, traffic, and energy consumption in connected cities. Additional Information: Landscape.
- Data.Gov - United States federal repository of data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, and more.
- Harvard Dataverse - Harvard Dataverse is a repository for research data. It contains a wide variety of datasets spanning the sciences, many with public domain dedications.
- Civic Tech Field Guide - Similar to this repo, a collection of resources of the Civic Tech Field Guide have been crowdsourced by civic tech practitioners from over 100 countries around the world.
- The Nexus - The Nexus examines the potential impacts that new mobility, autonomous vehicles, e-commerce, and other innovations will have on cities and communities and catalogues various resources and tools related to them.
- Data Standards Directory - This open directory of data standards aggregates known data standard examples and features a taxonomy on how to understand their application.
- Digital.Gov - Guidance and resources on building better digital services in government.
If you don't have a GitHub, but have a resources that falls into the categories below you would like to contribute try putting the information in this Google Sheet here. We will look at incorporating it into the repository pending review. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfGp_XC5V-uIzafsVBhR4xKX9YhgNOz22w84Sg0zo0ONDdV4w/viewform?usp=sf_link
We are actively looking for contributions from those interested in urban planning and technology. To find out more, visit the Contribution page to see our recommended format. For large contributions, file an issue first. The advantage of contributing to the repo in this manner is that your addition to this shared resource will be recorded.
Similar to other resources aggregators, this repository is released into CC 1.0. We do not require citation, but in order to generate more contributions for and understanding of this resource we do appreciate sharing this repository or citing it where appropriate.
If you do cite this repository you can as:
urban-and-regional-planning-resources. (2020) APA Technology Division. Taken from: from https://github.com/APA-Technology-Division