Mapping where Edmonton’s kids live and learn

On Friday evening, an interactive map I worked on with Edmonton Journal education reporter Sarah O’Donnell went live. Sarah’s first story based on the data was published in the paper today. Here’s our introduction to the project:
With five schools closing in Edmonton’s core and nine new suburban schools opening in September, education reporter Sarah O’Donnell [...]

Civic Smart Card coming to Edmonton?

At today’s Executive Committee meeting Councillors will discuss a report on Smart Card Solutions, the result of an inquiry Mayor Mandel made back in February. You might remember that the Transportation & Public Works Committee had approved a recommendation that ETS implement a smart card solution. But why should ETS be the only ones to [...]

Social Media and the City

We’ve all heard the stat: more than half of the world’s population now lives in cities and towns. Wellington E. Webb, former mayor of Denver, is credited as saying “The 19th century was a century of empires, the 20th century was a century of nation states. The 21st century will be a century of [...]

Edmonton City Centre Airport closure delayed

Back in July, City Council voted in favor of phased closure for the City Centre Airport. The first runway (16-34) was scheduled to be closed by April 30, 2010, but today Council voted to delay that until October 2010 so that the Rexall Edmonton Indy can be held next year (only Councillor Batty voted [...]

How far beyond the city does Edmonton Stories reach?

The winners of the Edmonton Stories contest were announced by Mayor Stephen Mandel on Tuesday at City Hall during the lunch hour. About 50 people attended the public event, not including the large number of City employees who were present. Nearly all of the City Councillors were on hand as well, a strong show of [...]

West & Southeast Edmonton LRT Route Recommendations

This afternoon Edmonton Transit announced its recommended routes for West and Southeast LRT lines. The routes “work towards the Transportation Master Plan’s vision to expand LRT service to all sectors of the City of Edmonton by 2040.” Back in June, City Council approved the LRT Network Plan, which identifies how the LRT system will be [...]

Visualizing Edmonton’s Municipal Development Plan

The Municipal Development Plan (MDP), also known as “The Way We Grow”, is the City of Edmonton’s strategic land use plan. You can think of it as the implementation of the City Vision for the next ten years (along with its sister document, the Transportation Master Plan). The next public hearing on the draft MDP [...]

Transforming the City of Edmonton IT Branch

On Friday the City of Edmonton’s IT branch held its first ever IT Vendor Open House. The event was a big success, with dozens of local technology professionals stopping by throughout the day. Attendees had the opportunity to learn more about how the IT branch does business, and about some of the initiatives and projects [...]

Idea Zone Edmonton

Idea Zone is the City of Edmonton’s new system for open innovation. It’s one of their first attempts at leveraging a crowdsourcing model, and it represents a shift in the way the City tackles large problems. Perhaps more importantly, I think Idea Zone is another small step toward becoming an Open City.
I was first [...]

Foundations for an Open Edmonton

Today at BarCamp, I led a discussion around building an open Edmonton. Inspired by the great things happening in Vancouver, I wanted to stimulate the discussion here. I started with two fundamentals:

The City of Edmonton must have the desire to be an open city.
The primary audience is the Creative Class of Edmonton, the secondary [...]

Edmonton Stories

The City of Edmonton just launched a new campaign called Edmonton Stories. The goal of the campaign is to offer citizens an opportunity to share their stories about Edmonton with one another, and with people around the world. These stories will then be used in targeted marketing to attract labour and visitors to the [...]

Edmonton’s State of the City Report 2008-2009

The City of Edmonton recently released it’s State of the City report for April 2008 – March 2009. It includes a summary of “civic programs and services delivered to meet the goals of City Council, representing the priorities of all Edmontonians.” Also included is a message from Mayor Mandel, information on the City Vision, the [...]

Edmonton’s New Downtown Plan

The City of Edmonton unveiled a draft of its New Downtown Plan this week, an overhaul of the Downtown Redevelopment Plan that was first created back in 1997. There were information displays setup in various places downtown, including at the City Centre Farmer’s Market today.
I quite like the marketing for the plan. Dark, bold [...]