DigitalTownPlanning.net is a website documenting my personal interest in selected aspects of urban planning with a general focus on examples of good urban design, legislation, spatial planning and planning applied tooling. It is not intended to be a comprehensive resource and readers are advised to independently verify topics such as legislation.

For over a decade, I explored digital tools on my other site, cloudydatablog.net. While that site had a specific focus on database tools, I’ve long wanted to write more specifically about town planning and applying digital tools to town planning. I have copied some posts from cloudydatablog.net to DigitalTownPlanning.net.

I plan to look particularly into spatial databases, digital mapping, and open-source tools like PostgreSQL with PostGIS, GeoServer, and QGIS but I will also being using it as a personal reference on planning related subjects such as legislation, policy and urban design good practice which can be difficult to keep up to date on. Any views or opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer or any affiliated organisations.

AI and this site

The point of the site is a reference for reflection and review with as few restrictions on how I use it as possible. I use Artificial Intelligence regularly as a tutor and research assistant either to clarify syntax code or to learn from but I largely use it to accelerate my ability to learn or to research topics as such it is used in a similar capacity to Google search. I have been writing my thoughts down on my sister site cloudydatablog.net for years prior to AI ( lets call pre-AI everything prior to 2022) and find the process of writing useful in knowledge consolidation and reinforcement. Where I have used AI to research or write code I will indicate this.

I find AI particularly useful in creating deterministic solutions that I then check and document (eg Creation of mapping applications using javascript libraries). By documenting it here I have a record for myself as much as anything else of what was created, when , its stability and its reliability. In general though AI is definitely really helping me break down road blocks I have had in previous ideas and is vastly increasing the speed with which I am solving problems.