Will MIT’s new–and FREE–open-source, city-building urban network analysis (UNA) software (for ArcGIS 10) be the panacea for the “70% of today’s [global] urban growth /1/ occurs outside the formal planning process[?]. If nothing changes, the inefficiencies, pollution, and misery of modern dysfunctional cities may become the norm. Avoiding that future just became a bit easier with the launch of the Urban Network Analysis, an open-source software released by MIT. Taking a cue from social networks and mathematical network analysis methods, the City Form Research Group’s program calculates how a cities’ spatial layout affects the way people will live in it.”
Check out the Fast Company article; read about and download the UNA Toolkit; check out MIT’s City Form Research Group that produced the toolkit;
Notes:
Rapid Urbanization and Mega Cities:The Need for Spatial Information Management, Research study by FIG Commission 3.