These are coral polyps, tiny animals that build coral reefs. Coral can grow into many shapes, including shelves, boulders, pillars, branches and cauliflower-like nubs. How these structures emerge is a kind of polyp packing problem. www.quantamagazine.org/the-elegant-...

Are you a city/county government employee? Then come join the Results for America Results Network and discuss evidence-based solutions to help address communities' biggest challenges. resultsnetwork.results4america.org #LocalGovernment #ResultsforAmerica #EvidenceBased @bloombergcities.bsky.social

E-bikes are a legit car replacer! 💙🚲💙

ChatGPT is an awesome tool for preparing facilitation, especially as an experienced facilitator. It helps me brainstorm creative agendas, foresee challenges, draft messaging, train co-facilitators, and wrap it all up…all with the facilitation methods I like. Paired with MiroAI….magic.

IMPORTANT NEW STUDY: Fully flexible parking rules would result in MORE NEW HOMES than legalizing granny flats & larger multifamily buildings near transit combined, even if every new building still included some amount of parking. The #PowerOfParking. @sightline.org www.sightline.org/2024/12/10/p...

Our $13M Boston Acquisition Fund offers low-interest loans to local, mission-driven developers to purchase housing, keep tenants in their homes, and make sure these properties remain permanently affordable.

Paris definitely wasn’t always this way. This is very recent. It wasn’t magic. It just took vision and leadership. Your city could choose leadership too. Great pic via @JBPssx

Just started reading this at lunch (Alaska is 4 hours earlier than East Coast) and it so cool! Thanks US Digital Response and State of New Jersey for this amazing research and work and for sharing it openly for other states and cities to leverage and remix!

2/ A big thank you to these powerhouse panelists, @eyalfeder.bsky.social, Arti Tangri, Carrie Bishop, and Enzhou Wang, who made moderating this session a great experience and shared fantastic insights.

1/ Moderating a great conversation today at the 2024 GovAI Coalition Summit @cityofsanjose.bsky.social and Government Technology. I had the honor of leading a data governance session discussing ethics and best practices for public sector employees on the front lines of integrating #AI and #GenAI...

A good discussion about the #energy future of #Anchorage, #Alaska at the #Assembly retreat on Energy & Infrastructure. I'll be on a panel at 1pm talking about solar & Muni buildings. Happening now at UAA Student Union - muni.org/Departments/... Live feed - www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqlt...

Honored to be named one of @statescoop.bsky.social's 2024 City Executives of the Year, on behalf of the #Anchorage i-team (Ben Matheson & Emily Bokar), Muni IT Dept., Muni employees & partners. #Alaska #LocalGovernment #iteams @bloombergdotorg.bsky.social statescoop.com/list/announc...

IMPORTANT STUDY: “On average, the implementation of 30 km/h speed limits in European cities demonstrated a 23%, 37% & 38% reduction in road crashes, fatalities & injuries respectively. Lower speed limits also yielded environmental benefits.” www.nrso.ntua.gr/review-of-ci...

#GivingTuesday - I'm the co-captain of @codeforanchorage.org and we would love you to consider donating to our #civictech volunteer group - hcb.hackclub.com/donations/st... We have been making projects for 12 years for #Anchorage & #Alaska and funds go to pay for software services, pizza and more.

Building homes - it works.

If you zone it, they will come. Trend in “Attached Accessory Dwelling Units” (planner-speak for housing units like basement apartments) since zoning/parking restrictions were removed (data and graph from new University of Toronto School of Cities report schoolofcities.github.io/gentle-densi...)

Totally agree! Also their is a certain excitement in having an idea and having #GenAI create quick prototypes moments later for you to refine that is very energizing.

A micro-theatre. Love it. Every park could have one.

This should be an informative and interesting show on Wednesday, Dec. 4th. I’ve heard @cmyeaton.bsky.social speak several times and enjoyed her perspective.

“Believe it or not, electric bikes offer more exercise than pedal bikes on average. That fact might sound strange, but the science is clear.” Why e-bikes actually give more exercise than “acoustic”bikes. (but both/either are excellent when it comes to better cities) electrek.co/2024/02/20/w...

Find out what #indigenous land you are on. @codeforanchorage.org collaboration w/ Native Lands Digital - native-land.ca land.codeforanchorage.org

Apply for Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities (BASC) Innovation Teams - Experiment - #GenAI podcast fed job descriptions & overview - www.brendanbabb.com/experiments/... Job Listings - publicinnovation.jhu.edu/about/career... Not reviewed by @publicinno.bsky.social #LocalGov #iteams Apply!

More cool stuff out of the @boston.gov!

Please enjoy this animation of peak hour MTA subway service (by u/mtdfan)

Reviewing our first year of data about e-bikes in the Bluebikes public bike share system. e-bikes get used much more frequently and people travel farther on them. Those things are workhorses.

You should check out my friend, @lanefab.bsky.social low-carbon house designs and more. And he is a really nice guy.

"if you unsubscribed by mistake" I HAVE NEVER UNSUBSCRIBED BY MISTAKE it is always 10000% intentional

A cool project I worked on w/@codeforanchorage.org, created in collaboration w/Native Lands Digital that lets you enter your city or zip code and learn what #indigenous land you are on. Also a FB Messenger bot - www.messenger.com/t/LandAcknow... land.codeforanchorage.org

Thanks for sharing this real world data - Bryn

A) I love #Clippy references - B) A good example of what I have been thinking about. Making agents for residents to navigate government services. Privacy & security needs to be figured out, but having an agent watch you apply for SNAP & advise you on next steps to succeed. C) Fix the damn website

Public library energy is the best energy. Like here is all the knowledge we could find, it's been meticulously organized and vetted and it will cost you nothing today, welcome to the absolute pinnacle of human civic evolution, feel free to pull up any bean bag chair you like

Info on #Anthropic's new Model Context Protocol that could be a first attempt at a Lingua Franca for #GenAI #Agents to talk to data, APIs, Servers and other resources. www.anthropic.com/news/model-c...

Being an #iteam (#Innovation Team) director is my favorite & most rewarding job ever. If you live or want to live in #Akron, #Ohio you should look into this Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities i-team Director job. @bloombergdotorg.bsky.social #LocalGoverernment jobs.jhu.edu/job/Akron-i-...

This looks pretty promising from #Claude and #Anthropic. I need to try some experiments. Model Context Protocol for talking to GitHub, Servers, Databases, APIs.

#Anthropic releases Model Context Protocol ( #MCP ) A framework that allows Claude to run servers, effectively turning the Claude app into an API. Quickstart tutorial @ glama.ai/blog/2024-11... Available online MCP servers @ github.com/modelcontext...

HOUSING THE HOMELESS SAVES MONEY IN FINLAND: “a recent study showed the savings in emergency healthcare, social services & the justice system totalled as much as €15,000 a year for every homeless person in properly supported housing.” It works AND it saves money. www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/...

Denver gave people experiencing homelessness $1k/month. A year later, nearly half had housing. They also had fewer ER visits, nights spent in a hospital, and jail stays. The report estimates that this reduction in public service use SAVED the city $589k. www.businessinsider.com/denver-basic...

There are 1.5 million adults in NYS who have some college credits but no degree. Our new @nycfuture.bsky.social report urges state leaders to create a new program, SUNY Reconnect, to help these adults re-enroll at SUNY & get over the college finish line. nycfuture.org/research/its...

Great example of govt doing things better: Michigan created a "pizza tracker" so you can see the progress of your benefits application. Led to ⬇️14% in calls to support staff civilla.org/stories/appl... h/t @brendanbabb.bsky.social

Bluesky's firehose is a treasure trove of public data for researchers and developers, and it's completely free. Check out our developer docs: docs.bsky.app

Did a very Alaskan thing today, and walked out to see a dead whale that washed up in Anchorage.

If your city’s bike network is safe & connected, people of all ages & abilities will use it, including people in motorized wheelchairs. Everyone deserves freedom of mobility & to get around in the ways that work best for them. Cities need to ensure that’s possible.

Really enjoyed taking part in The Opportunity Project for Cities cohort this year. Love building cool, impactful solutions for local residents. Particularly those that help people apply for public benefit programs. www.govtech.com/gov-experien...

With a nod to inspiration from @brendanbabb.bsky.social I went ahead and fed our muni code into a GPT. I've been meaning to do this since AML last year. Check it out! chatgpt.com/g/g-673edae0...

This looks amazing! Sign up today, before you forget during the holiday haze. #AI #GenAI #Safety

The first City of Boston curbside EV chargers are now live in Charlestown helping "garage orphans" go electric ⚡⚡⚡ . Meet the diverse, local team that's installing the chargers and training up Boston's green jobs workforce.

Avoid the Noid - #Civilla and the Michigan Health and Human Services department are working on the often talked about in #localgovernment, Pizza Tracker for X. In this case for benefits in Michigan. Awesome work! civilla.org/stories/appl...

Excited to dive into this more, but #Instacart providing a #SNAP screener could help drive eligible people to apply for SNAP. #FoodSecurity www.instacart.com/company/pres...

🚲 One of my fave city innovations I must ramp is how Transport for London & GoogleMaps are working together to make #cycling safer. Because of this, today you can choose a safer, low-traffic route across the city. Here's how this amazing #collaboration happened... 🧵 1/6 tfl.gov.uk/info-for/med...