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fringe

fringe

Cyburbian
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While Cyburbia was down I logged onto a forum called Planetizen.

Anybody else here? It is pretty good. More like a news posting.
 
I've never participated in any forums like Planetizen, although I've been to the site and read some articles, etc. I'm not sure of any others, I've never really looked for them. Our local APA chapter in Utah has added a "Forums" section for members to ask questions and post information, etc. So far it hasn't really taken off.
 
fringe said:
While Cyburbia was down I logged onto a forum called Planetizen.

Anybody else here? It is pretty good. More like a news posting.
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I have a subscription to Planetizen Courses, though the content ranges from "bleh" to "very good." Good for CM credit, though.
 
ursus said:
I've never participated in any forums like Planetizen, although I've been to the site and read some articles, etc. I'm not sure of any others, I've never really looked for them. Our local APA chapter in Utah has added a "Forums" section for members to ask questions and post information, etc. So far it hasn't really taken off.
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I have been judging the Utah APA chapter DeBoer awards for three years now.

Jim
 
Planetizen is more of a planning news blogging site. It's a couple of years younger than Cyburbia, and it's the founder's full-time job. (Mine, meanwhile, is looking for work, writing a constitution and bylaws for a future non-profit Cyburbia organization, and struggling to keep my head up.)

There's the Reddit /r/urbanplanning subforum, but it's focused more on trendier Millennial- and Generation Z-centric urban issues; mainly, sprawl, transit, and housing in large HCoL cities. Some at /r/urbanplanning think we're a bunch of disgruntled old planners, others think it's a good resource for career advice and more nitty-gritty everyday issues. You're not going to find a discussion on the rationale for subdivision performance guarantees or rooftop mechanical equipment screening on /r/urbanplanning.

There's also general urbanism/skyline forums; SkyscraperCity, SkyscraperPage, and Urban Planet. They're primarily city and tall building fan sites, with a focus on individual development projects, and only a little bit of planning discussion. They inspired a bunch of more localized spinoffs, like Urban Ohio, NYC Nimby, and Urban Toronto.

In the past, when Cyburbia has been off the air, I've made temporary forums. Depression kept me from doing that this time. It's also why I'd like to find a way for Cyburbia to be self-sustaining, without a single point of failure.
 
I sort of gave up on Reddit because of that sub's lack of interest and/or unwillingness to discuss topics and perspectives that are relevant to actual practitioners working in the actual industry. That, and just handing over decades worth of experience so that a publicly traded corporation like Reddit can harvest it to feed LLMs. They can have their niche - r/urbanplanning for the urbanism enthusiasts and junior planners, this site for the seasoned and more managerial types. IMHO
 
Cyburbia's the real deal for people who actually work as planners. Reddit is too theoretical and generally very urban or only housing-focused. I missed it when it was down and I'm glad it's back. I'd like to see more people find it, and i love the idea of giving it a life of it's own.

I thought about having thousands of Cyburbia.org stickers printed up and handing them out at APA?
 
The problem with r/urbanplanning is they want shiny heavy rail, ban cars, and good development w/o jumping through bureaucracy and politics. The audience is brash, but they meant well and want to contribute to the field. The Discord part of r/urbanplanning is rather chill, pragmatic, and understand the politics. Buses aren't sexy, but they move a lot of people around with the current population density of a metro region. Let's try BRT for now...

Does Cyburbia have their own Discord?
 
MacheteJames said:
I sort of gave up on Reddit because of that sub's lack of interest and/or unwillingness to discuss topics and perspectives that are relevant to actual practitioners working in the actual industry. That, and just handing over decades worth of experience so that a publicly traded corporation like Reddit can harvest it to feed LLMs. They can have their niche - r/urbanplanning for the urbanism enthusiasts and junior planners, this site for the seasoned and more managerial types. IMHO
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Yes r/urbanplanning is NUMTOTed out with lots of randos who don't work in the discipline. Its fun for sh!tposting. The LLMs can search the web and find this anyway, its a lose/lose :p
FunkBrothers said:
The problem with r/urbanplanning is they want shiny heavy rail, ban cars, and good development w/o jumping through bureaucracy and politics.

Does Cyburbia have their own Discord?
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See above, that right there is NUMTOTery ;)

I wish we had a Discord. Myself and @joscoffee seem to be the youngest active posters here (we were born in the early 90s and did forums as teens, hence familiarity with the medium). I would love it if we could crossover with a Discord and try and get some smart Zoomers over here.
 
The Terminator said:
Yes r/urbanplanning is NUMTOTed out with lots of randos who don't work in the discipline. Its fun for sh!tposting. The LLMs can search the web and find this anyway, its a lose/lose :p

See above, that right there is NUMTOTery ;)

I wish we had a Discord. Myself and @joscoffee seem to be the youngest active posters here (we were born in the early 90s and did forums as teens, hence familiarity with the medium). I would love it if we could crossover with a Discord and try and get some smart Zoomers over here.
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I like discord as well- not quite a replacement for this but a pretty robust platform (our local YIMBY group uses it so I'm there most days lurking).
 
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