CNU.org comes alive

New interactive site provides a wealth of information. The CNU website, CNU.org, went through a transformation at the end of April. It now has a new look and contains many times more information than ever before. The new site is designed to become the central repository for information about new urbanist development, events, and practitioners. The new site allows all CNU members to add information about themselves, about their projects, and about upcoming events. It has an imagebank where members can post images related to New Urbanism. A new “requests for proposals” area allows both CNU and public agencies to post RFPs. The dynamic, ever-changing site includes a constantly updated news clippings service, linking readers to urbanism-related articles from around the world. A job board allows CNU members to post job listings for public viewing. There are other dynamic, interesting websites related to land development or planning in general, notably the Urban Land Institute's members-only ULI.org and the public Planetizen.com. However, CNU.org is the only such site with an agenda to promote New Urbanism. For newcomers to New Urbanism, the site includes an introductory tour, in Flash format. This tour is a powerful tool for educating clients, constituents, and neighbors. The expanded bibliography provides 18 different booklists, depending on a person’s special interests. The “In the News” section provides links to hundreds of news articles pertaining to New Urbanism. And “CNU Update” provides links to an archive of articles from the CNU pages in New Urban News. CNU.org provides a valuable archive of research about New Urbanism. Under CNU Reports, users will find presentations from the last several Congresses, all of CNU’s research reports, and the Charter in several languages. Member Directory A central part of CNU's mission is to help our members network with one another, and to provide member names to the press, to potential clients, and to the public at large. The new site fulfills this mission with its interactive member directory. The new site lists all members who choose to be listed. Even unlisted members are able to use the website for membership management, including renewing memberships and changing addresses. CNU is doing everything it can to provide a public service while protecting members’ privacy. Users can search for members based on various criteria — name, location, and expertise. The site comes back with a list of members who fit the criteria, including whatever contact information and biography the member has provided. Project Database To prepare for the site’s opening, CNU used interns and contractors to research details on the 300 projects in the annual New Urban News list of new urbanist projects (see New Urban News, Oct/Nov 2000). We collected at least basic information about, and photos of, every project. We have incorporated most of the information we collected into the site, though we still have a backlog of photos to post. Now that the site is “live,” we hope that users will post updated information about projects, and more photos. Tough decisions await about what to post, and what not to. For example, there are hundreds of excellent infill projects that fulfill the Charter that have never been put on the New Urban News list (of neighborhood-scale projects). There are dozens of hybrid new urbanist projects that New Urban News excludes from its list. Conversely, there are projects on the list that fail to fulfill some Charter principles, such as links to regional transit or locally relevant architecture. CNU has yet to make a hard and fast policy about what projects will be listed in the database. We are leaning toward posting more projects, rather than fewer, and including enough description and commentary to clarify how each project succeeds and fails at fulfilling the Charter. The commentary and criticism will most likely come from our six Task Forces. Keep an eye on the website and CNU’s Task Force Report for information on how to get involved. Image Bank New Urbanism succeeds on its looks. For successful charrettes, presentations, and books, new urbanists need to have pictures of what the work looks like on the ground. To support these efforts, CNU has a huge photo library. At last, a small piece of it is viewable at CNU.org. Over time, we intend to upload thousands more images, to provide a clear idea of what new urbanism looks like. The site includes images of neighborhood plans, charrettes, rural landscapes, and built developments. These images are for use by members and others in the promotion of New Urbanism. Most images are available only in low-resolution, web-friendly formats, but as members upload their own images, they are able to provide contact information for purchasing print-quality pictures. Some images also have hyperlinks to high-resolution images. Searching for images is easy. They can be sought by a set of predefined keywords, or by project. Though the interface is not as refined as some imagebanks on the web, this one is remarkable in that it is searching only among images that have some connection to New Urbanism. People interested in helping CNU with further research should check out the “Task Forces” and “Initiatives” areas of the site. They outline CNU's ongoing research efforts, and offer guidance for people who want to help out. Keeping Up-to-Date Elsewhere on the site, users will find a wealth of information about events, jobs, and RFPs connected with New Urbanism. The site provides an up-to-date calendar of new urbanist events. Of course, members are able to add their events to the list. A job board announces openings; members are able to post jobs for free. And where the public can post RFPs of interest to new urbanists, only CNU members may read the RFPs on the site. Throughout the site, members are invited to enter information about their own events, projects, articles, books, and job opportunities (see sidebar). Please take part in this wonderful resource, so that the world can have a truly complete compendium of information about New Urbanism. The site was built by Stoneground Solutions, a San Francisco-based web consulting firm. CNU appreciates their generous provision of in-kind services in the development process. u