Project Background :: Research Challenges

 

While I set out to do a broad analysis of planning information on the internet, it quickly became clear that many of the issues I was tackling are not singular to the planning profession.  As fascinating as it is to envision an organizational structure for the entire internet, I decided to focus, for the purpose of the semester-long project, on an understanding and organization of Urban Ecology websites for planning students and professionals. Even within this more defined scope, however, there are a number of overarching themes that challenge our ability to conceive of an “ideal” urban ecology website:     

 
SCOPE
OVERLAPPING AUDIENCES :: Professionals, academics and the public can all benefit from information about Urban Ecology, however their needs and level of familiarity with the subject matter are not equal.
 
OVERLAPPING PROFESSIONS AND SUBJECT MATTER :: Planning, policy, law, design, engineering, hydrology, climatology, geology, etc. are all at play in Urban Ecology projects. How do we prioritize or balance these elements and perspectives?

 

AUTHORSHIP
WHAT HAPPENED TO CRICISM ? :: There is an alarming lack of analysis and criticism in all the design fields; often the only people writing are designers themselves. Particularly within planning and even more so within Urban Ecology, an understanding or evaluation of a project after time has passed is crucial in determining its success. 

EXPERTS vs. AMATEURS :: Who can we trust for information? Must we question the validity of everything we read online? What biases should we watch out for? Is there a benefit to sifting through layers and layers of potentially inaccurate information?

CONSISTENCY OF INFORMATION :: Some of the websites that reference urban ecology projects have taken on “in-house” analyses of their own.  Editing and filtering of information is necessary, but at the same time raises the issue of intellectual property rights and limits the quantity of information that can be distributed. How can we balance the desire for free information access with the need for knowledgeable and/or authoritative analyses?

 

INFORMATION TYPE
Information about Urban Ecology can be extracted from three very different models:

SPECIFIC PROJECTS (case studies)

PUBLICATIONS (books, articles, essays, reports)

ORGANIZATIONS

 

INFORMATION STRUCTURE
Due to the complexity of overlapping information within Urban Ecology, materials should be organized in multiple ways to increase accessibility and search-ability:

CATEGORIES/SUBTOPICS :: There are many types of projects that are beginning to be understood as belonging to Urban Ecology – urban forestry, brownfield redevelopment, watershed conservation, groundwater subsidence, air quality improvements, etc. – and the simple assembling of projects and articles into these categories is extremely helpful in defining what qualifies as Urban Ecology. (See the Ecological Cities Project diagram for reference.)

KEYWORDS :: Assigning multiple keywords to a case study or article allows it to appear in a number of categories rather than limiting it to one “subtopic.” (Note the keywords for the following article on Planetizen.)

SEARCH ENGINES :: What would we do without Google! Particularly if we know of a particular project or article and want more information, we’ve got to be able to type in a name or location and find what we need.