Where's Diego?

I like how VisionPDX sits in the upper left corner whimpering, "Remember me?"

"Groundtruthing and Crowdsourcing"

Sigh....

Crowdsourcing:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/28/crowdsourcing-enterprise-innovation-technology-cio-network-jargonspy.html

"Groundtruthing" is a new one on me.

And I'm perfectly okay with never running into it again. Ever.

The best part is that they can work interchangably. "Groundsourcing" gives you a nice greenie feel. "Crowdtruthing," though, conjures up images of tea-baggers at Town Halls.

Makes me wanna fro up in my mouf

Hey, they get paid by the syllable and for each neologism.

Planners have a great job - They get to work on something 20 years down the road long after you are collecting your PERS.

It took several tries to download the one pager of over 3 MB. No details for all these fine sounding ideas. Another example of why people get mad about the taxes they pay to the city. Just fix the broken and deconstructed streets, deliver the water and keep the sewer cost down. And get a new, truly dedicated police force. And the fire bureau is a little too self interested also.

Planner1: I want to build more streetcars.

Planner2: Me too!

Planner1: We'd better whitewash it with some groundtruthing and crowdsourcing!

[Groundtruthing and Crowdsourcing]

Planner1: Is it just me or is the public tedious?

Planner2: No kidding! So, you still want to build some streetcars?

Planner1: Yep.

Planner2: Me too!

Steve, you aren't still sore you didn't win the neologism contest, are you?
Heh ;)

Sounds like rough sex being performed by Sam and the greenies on unsuspecting taxpayers and neighborhoods. I'm sure Homer is salivating.

Portland, the year 2035:

The Bureau of Planning, Sustainability, Development, Sewer and Streetcar Finance fire up the machine and review the "Portland Plan". They wince at its general goofiness and myopic "vision", laugh derisively at the hipster fad terms like "crowdsourcing", then set about budgeting for the several billion dollars required to "fix" the problems both ignored and caused by the plan. Meanwhile, those that created it are long gone, or teaching adjunct.

and the staff wonders: "Adams? Who was he? Wait--wasn't he that mayor who felt up the underage teen in the bathroom at City Hall? Yeah, that was him. Wow."

"Fake public involvement" for the new Portland Plan is surely exhibited by the recent City Planners mailer "Who gives a rip what you think? We Do." The 22 questions are leading, plus they do not give answer choices that even begin to cover all the possible common sense answers.

Example; Question 16: In deciding where to live during the next 25 years, which factor is most important to you? a) Walking distance to stores and restaurants; b) Walking distance to public transit; c) Close to where you work; d) Close to quality schools; e) Attractive neighborhood

In "other" I wrote "what the local government philosophy will be and taxes".

Question 9 asks "What is one new thing you are most willing to do to reduce energy use to help combat climate change?" How persumptuous. Do they know if 40%, 50%, 60% of citizens believe we can effectively control climate change? They don't even ask that question. I like one of the choices; "d. Eat more fruit and vegetables".

Out of the 22 questions there is only one pertaining to transportation. A very important topic. But then the survey takes time to ask; "14 With which of these groups are you most involved?"

They'll take the 2000 returned surveys from 576,000 citizens and call it a mandate that; 11 What does your community need most to improve access to health food? e) Support for home gardening.

The Planners will combine this survey with last years Potter's Plan and conclude that the most important issue of all is that "We build a police/fire/emergency training facility in Rainer, Oregon".

Complain all you want, but Pdx has the best planning of any city I've ever been to.

Maybe they've adopted too much corporate-speak but so far their action items seem to have worked well enough.

Portlanders have no idea how good they have it.

Complain all you want, but Pdx has the best planning of any city I've ever been to.

So?

Maybe they've adopted too much corporate-speak but so far their action items seem to have worked well enough.

Give us a few examples, and how you determined that they "worked well enough".

Portlanders have no idea how good they have it.

That's a pretty aphorism, but it's also pretty meaningless. You're reading comments by Portlanders right here, for example.

Grey Duck -

"Groundtruthing isn't a bad idea at all. Out here in the wilds of the far reaches of southwest Portland, along the edges of Mt. Sylvania, and in the canyons of SW 45th and SW Boones Ferry Road, "groundtruthing" is vital.

We have to keep leading the planners, who prefer to stay in their ivory tower at the 1900 Building, out into the streeyts, where they be forced to actiually see, touch, and walk up and down the grades, and look at the storm water erosion, and experience the reality of what is actually on the ground out here.

Sadly, far too often' the two sets of planners at BDS and BPS look at cute lines on a map which purportedly show street locations and access. and those maps have little o0r no relation to reality, showing as they do platted street rights of way running easily up 40 foot high cliffs and ridges.

Far too many "planning tools" like walkscore give what can most charitably be called "inaccurate" answers out here, predicated upon assumtions that all rights of way connect and that all trips are made in a straight line, as the crow flies manner.

That is far, far, far from the reality on the ground.

So I defend "ground truthing". As a Neighbor Association chair, I've dragged innocent planners around this area more than once on the proverbial "three hour tour", making sure they bring their pretty flat maps with them. They often return to the 1900 Building in shock at the discrepencies between the records on which they premise their planning and the reality on trhe ground.

"Crowdsourcing" I don't understand and have no brief favoring or opposing.

But "groundtruthing" is important to neighborhoods which want to get a handle on, and real input concerning, planner fantasies.

But "groundtruthing" is important to neighborhoods which want to get a handle on, and real input concerning, planner fantasies.

I hear you. but I wouldn't call that "groundtruthing"--if for no other reason than you can't verify what you're planning to do, only what exists or has been done. urban planning, by its nature, is an abstract, qualitative exercise. You can't go out and "groundtruth" what you're proposing or strategizing, though you'll often hear of surveys and statistical hand waving that supposedly does just that.

In other words, planning at the level of the "Portland Plan" (that is, long range strategic planning) by its very nature defies "groundtruthing". Which is what makes it so dangerous, so often wrong, and mostly consisting of strategies that fix previous planning problems.

And "groundtruthing", actually spelled "ground truthing", does have a meaning in various earth sciences. It means field checking your facts or assumptions. That's not how planning works, long-range. Planners plan long range, then move on to other things. the outcomes are almost never "groundtruthed" against the original plan.

Killfile, I've lived other places too and the difference is that those cities often adopted absurd goals related to increasing the tax base and creating better schools, etc. Very unproductive! Portland is on to something with this groundtruting and crowdsourcing thing.

At least it's somewhat less complex than this... http://bit.ly/8bBHbS

Nonny, I agree that "groundtruthing" would be a good thing. But like you working many decades in neighborhood politics, we have tried "groundtruthing" many times and it mostly fails.

An example is when the Planners began their environmental zoning mapping of Portland in the late 80's. They did it from aerials. When the complaints came in about how reality was much different than the maps there was first city denial.

Then like this example we got city environmentalists to finally come out to a site they determined was "environmentally sensitive" and needed saving. The sloping site had a ditch on uphill side at the street edge. It had a few bullrushes growing because in the winter months there was water in the ditch because the city never cleaned the drain under the street to flow to the lower side. It was their proof that it was a wetland sensitive site and needed saving even though it was zoned for multiple housing. Even with "groundtruthing", they kept the environmental designation-no building.

The cost to implement more COP "groundtruthing" isn't worth it when it seldom has worked before. It's because "AGENDA" precludes "groundtruthing".

It's like "crowdsourcing". If we regard the Portland Plan survey they sent out as a genesis for public input, it's another Sam Scam.

Lee -

An interesting data point regarding the survey. It is on line, and a responder can complete and submit the survey as many times as she/he wants. There is no lock out for multiple responses on line from the same address.

That raises three issues:

First, a dedicated group could seriously "tilt" the perceived public reesponse.

Second, it suggests that the survey has little to do with solicitation of opinion but instead is designed to drive publicity and awareness of the ongoing exercise.

Third, and most depressing, it suggests that to the planning staff, actual public opinion, positions and input are irrelevent. It is another exercise in what Jack accurately describes as "fake public participation" andf the very Stalinist planning crowd will tell you what you want and hpw and where you will live.

Very discouraging, but not the slightest bit surprising.

What is laughably called "strategic planning" in most corporate and government settings is instead simple group masturbatory fantasizing where the in-group, whether suits or recent baristas or crusading reporters hired as planners get to sit around and fapfapfapfapfap about their "visions."

Several things distinguish actual strategic planning from the masturbatory pipe dreams. The most important of which is a strong emphasis on making sure that the goals are meaningful and realistic in light of the known and plausible external forces at work. Anyone claiming to do urban planning at the city scale must be considering not just how many people might be here but also how much energy will be available for each and how environmental constraints will affect those people (and the value of investments made without consideration of those constraints).

Portland plans for its future like George W Bush planned for what was to happen after US forces captured Baghdad: i.e., with complete ignorance of the larger forces at work.

I regret that I can't comment on the PDF. Because I have a dial-up connection to the internet, it has been impossible to download what must be a sizeable image file.

We need LINKsourcing as well!

Nonny Mouse, I realize the potential of completing the survey as many times as you want online. This happened as well in Potter's Visioning Quest last year.

As you probably have experienced in years past before the advent of online surveys, the many times that a group of planners and citizens have "stuffed the box" at your neighborhood meetings.

Then there is the additional fixing of results by the "paid staff" and all the "paid employees of interested parties, companies" that attend the repetitious meetings on a same issue that participate in filling out surveys or placing black dotes on five subject matters on a board to show what people attending feel.

They also sign in numerous times through all the "planning sessions" and each time are counted as another "citizen input"........"CoP reached out to 5500 citizens", while maybe 1000 really participated.

That is why I promote a vote on important issues. The vote can't be "fixed" so easily.

When it comes to comment and meetings, the city routinely reaches out to select neighborhoods and to property owners, not to renters. Renters are the poor relatives who are almost never invited to the table. This means that the low income are not adequately represented in planning, whether it be for a situation where their apartments are being turn down for a condo or luxury apartment or a plan involving the revamping of their neighborhood.

As far as asking for input, I continue to point to the simple examples of the naming of the downtown fareless light rail zone (City already had three names chosen and ended up going with one of those three choices), and the naming of the new elephant (all the public could do was vote for one of three pre-chosen names, rather than nominating a unique name as we did with Packy). Sounds like small stuff except that this is SOP on larger projects. I don't think anybody was asked to propose sensible names for Randy's "Loo" or even if they wanted such fancy public potties rather than retrofitting those we already had.

As far as I am concerned the architects who designed the 6-story condo-that-didn't-happen, which was to replace our garden apartments came up with the stupidest nonsense term of the decade to describe an artsy amenity -- a "fractured courtyard." They won an architectural award for this inappropriate, looming structure . . . and it was never built.

Throughout the entire application and appeal the people living on the property never received one piece of communication from the city regarding hearings affecting where they lived and their neighborhood. We had to find out about it by talking to property-owning neighbors and searching the internet.

Because I have a dial-up connection to the internet, it has been impossible to download what must be a sizeable image file.

Try this:

http://bojack.org/images/psychobabble.jpg

Thanks Jack. Many will recall that this isn't the first time a "Portland Plan" has been developed. The two I recall most vividly are the the historic Olmstead Plan (emphasis on park system) at the beginning of the 20th century and the 1950s plan that involved bringing transportation guru Robert Moses in as a consultant. His plan can be seen in the stacks of the Central library; it was rejected when enough citizens reacted with horror to the crosshatching of Portland with numerous freeways (ala New York).

This new colorful, weirdly organized - Inputs? (sic) - document provides little detail . . . not even what the "9 action areas" are . . . merely suggesting that what will assuredly be sustained is the livelihood of consultants.

merely suggesting that what will assuredly be sustained is the livelihood of consultants.

And graphic designers.

Classic Jack Bogdanski post!
Tells the whole story!

Soooooo much planning to do. Helps explain why Portland needs to increase the city employee workweek to 4 days.

And here, folks, is an example of what I meant by "statistical hand waving" and other such stuff.

http://wweek.com/editorial/3606/13475/

What's this? Bike commuting is *falling*?

But look carefully at how Adams spins it in an article a few months ago:

Our small investment in bicycling infrastructure and education are paying off in a big way," Adams said. "Once again the data backs up our belief that when Portlanders are given a safe, convenient alternative to driving they will get out of their car and onto a bike.

And what is Mayor Facebook's confidence based on? From the same article:

the survey data are consistent with a rising number of cyclists the city auditor's office has counted on the four most bike-accessible Willamette River bridges.

It's based on people standing and counting bikes crossing four bridges in downtown Portland. That's it. That's all.

And again, read these two recent article excerpts, and compare:

Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey data showed 6.4 percent told the survey that they bicycled to work in 2008. This makes Portland No. 1 in bicycle commuting among the 30 largest cities in the country, the mayor's office said. The percentage of walkers and transit users also rose.

Transit users and walkers rose? Put aside the comic absurdity of how they determined more people were walking, and consider the transit claim. Then:

Portland-area bus and MAX light rail ridership fell 8 percent in July, compared with a year ago, the TriMet transit agency said today.

Folks, both of those last two quotes are from oregonlive, from September and August of this year. That's right: even though Trimet poitned out tnat ridership continued to decline, the mayor's office claimed a month later that it *rose*.

This is the kind of obfuscation and unreality-based "groundtruthing" that planning is often based on. You'll have to be willing to dig deeper to piece it together, but it's there--and folks, you're paying for it.

Where's the "groundtruthing" and "crowdsourcing"?