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Reconstructing Real Cities in Google Earth
An anonymous reader writes "NewScientistTech has an article up on the way 3D models of real cities are being uploaded into Google Earth to help town planners and architects envisage their designs. Researchers at the University of Arkansas have developed a method for rapidly mapping building, which they are using to reconstruct the rapidly-expanding town of Fayetteville. The researchers say tools like Google Earth and Sketchup could eventually help ordinary citizens get more involved in urban development."
Disclaimer: I am a city planner.
There's an old saying, "if you like the view, buy it". Why shouldn't the owner of the property have the right to develop THEIR property? It's tough to face that as a neighbor, I know, but the issue is that citizen interaction must come before the step in the process where you got involved (which, unfortunately, is the step most people choose to get involved because it is when projects affect them the most). If you had been successful at stopping approval of a proposed development, the developer can simply take the project to circuit court and have the Planning Commission's actions overturned because it would most likely be arbitrary.
Rather, one must get involved at the Comprehensive Plan stage and at the formation of the documents that guide the proposals. Zoning regulations that dictate land uses, open space requirements, density, height and setback issues, etc. I'm sorry you have to live next to something you don't want to have to live next to, but that property owner had a right to use his property, too.