Magazine

Mark Gorton revolutionized file sharing when in 2000 he introduced Lime Wire, a computer application most often used for swapping music mp3s. With a similar goal of improving efficiency and community, he developed the Open Planning Project (TO PP), an organization that aims to assist both urban advocates and governments in an interactive urban planning process. Now a robust, multifaceted entity, TO PP includes the Livable Streets initiative (a reported blog, films about city streets and social networking forum) and tech tools such as GeoServer, open-source software that allows users to edit and share geospatial data.

Tell me about the many pieces of TOPP.

We’re trying to find out how digital tools can be useful for community organizations. Right now, we are working on transportation and land-use planning software for governments. Livable Streets is the “beta” for our civic engagement software. And then we have longerterm goals, like open-source government and transit reform. We’re working on getting government to adapt open-source software as a cost-savings device, but more importantly to enable best practices to be embedded in software and to have those shared around. The idea is that over time there [will be] a broad array of software with lots of functionality in the public realm for cities to adopt as they’d like.