For more than a century, [Helsinki] has funded its own statistics bureaus to keep data on the population, businesses, building permits, and most other things you can think of. [...]

Helsinki and three of its neighboring cities are now banding together... Through an entity called Helsinki Region Infoshare, they are bringing together their data so that a fuller picture of the metro area can come into view. — citiscope.org

When all stages are completed, the 65,000 people daily who pass through the Hudson Yards’ office towers, residences, shops, restaurants, hotel, public school, and public open space will contribute to a massive stream of data intended to help answer the big questions about how cities of the future should be managed. [...]

“It really started from the question: If we could know anything about the city, what would we want to know and how could we do a better job at measuring the pace of life?” — fastcoexist.com

What is said to be the largest private real estate development in US history is set to become the country’s first “quantified community” as well. Hudson Yards, a 17 million-square foot [...] development on the far west side of Manhattan, will be embedded with technology to monitor environmental conditions, energy production and usage, and traffic flows among its soon to rise towers. The developers are partnering with New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) [...]. — urbanomnibus.net

At the intersection of these two domains – technology and civic life – a small and fascinating sector has been taking root for the last few years. [...]

Together, these types of companies and organizations have loosely come to define "civic tech" – and the potential for a future where technology finally, seamlessly, significantly alters how we relate to government and our neighbors. — The Atlantic Cities

Two academics wondered about the number of swimming pools in the L.A. Basin. They got their answer with computer mapping, but [...] along the way, they discovered something more than just the real-world versions of the iconic David Hockney pool utopias. Their project also proved that two non-experts were able to take a massive amount of freely available data to peek into other people's lives. — Los Angeles Times

DataAppeal’s newest release allows our 3D data-maps to be imported into other 3D modeling and vector-based software programs including AutoCAD, Sketch Up and 3ds Max. — DataAppeal

Superpedestrian, a start-up in Boston, announced on Monday that it has received $2.1 million in financing to help build a wheel that transforms some standard bicycles into hybrid e-bikes.

The product, the Copenhagen Wheel, is a design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology SENSEable City Laboratory. The original goal of the wheel was to entice more people to more bicycles in large cities in lieu of cars by giving them help from a motor. — New York Times

... the next wave of mobile applications do more than that—they collect massive amounts of data about how people live, where they travel and what they want to see in their neighborhoods. And they connect all of that with the officials in position to make decisions.

Apps, in other words, offer potential solutions for two of the trickiest parts of the urban planner's job: sharing data and engaging citizens. — theatlanticcities.com

The world’s largest data center sits in Gothic revival splendor just a couple of miles south of Chicago’s downtown Loop in a former R. R. Donnelly printing plant. I happened to walk past the center a year ago and was impressed by the scale of the building and the serenity of the setting... — blogs.forbes.com