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When I worked as a corporate consultant, I had access to all sorts of enterprise software packages that wouldve been cost-prohibitive to most people, but that didnt stop me from trying out free programs. Especially if it meant I could dabble in someone elses area of expertise without getting permission for a software seat license. If youre an armchair urbanist or moonlight as a community activist, you know how important it is to maximize your impact with limited time. Ive been there, Im still there, and I can help. Theres a treasure trove of free web tools online related to urbanism. I dont know of anyone using all of these all the time, but I use some of these every week. Use these resources to demonstrate expertise in your amateurbanism work. Amateurbanism is not a dig at people who arent working professionally in planning, design, or engineering. As someone who gets paid to plan and implement great street networks for all ages and abilities, I want amateur urbanists to be equipped for conversations and presentations about creating happy, healthy communities. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} Google Maps Many earthlings have used Google products, and the satellite views and street views are great ways to ground a conversation about project sites and travel routes. I find that a lot of people dont realize Google Maps has drawing tools, so you can illustrate proposed locations for community gardens, protected bike lanes, festival street closure areas, etc. This is ideal for location-based projects. Google Earth Google Earth brings in the 3D visualization of terrain and buildings. You can model things like where a new playground structure could fit in a park, granny flat additions in backyards, or simulate the changes brought by a proposed rezoning. The measurements also help with space planning. OpenStreetMap Anyone can add overlooked details like accessibility obstacles, safety concerns, parking availability, EV charging infrastructure, and much more to OpenStreetMap. This is a great tool to engage your email list, organization members, or friends. Your team can generate maps that reflect your knowledge and pro-community bias. Envision Tomorrow This is a scenario planning tool funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It models the impacts of growth and development scenarios on factors like land consumption, transportation habits, greenhouse gases, and affordability. If youre comfortable with Google Maps, youll be fine here. You might use Envision Tomorrow to analyze or critique a zoning ordinance, downtown revitalization plan, or transportation plan. Walk Score Youve probably heard of the site that evaluates neighborhood walkability based on proximity to everyday destinations. (They also include bike and transit scores.) This helps assess site accessibility when reviewing development proposals to advocate for community needs like locating affordable housing near transit. But its also a great conversation starter at a county or city level. Realtors love this reference and so should you. Streetmix Streetmix is collaborative street design between residents and city planners. You can model traffic-calming measures, sidewalk expansions, and storefront space. If its a great neighborhood street idea, its designable in Streetmix. highway lighting versus pedestrian lighting sharrows versus bike lanes multiuse paths versus sidewalkbike lane combos right-sized vehicle lanes versus deadly-sized vehicle lanes I cant overhype Streetmix. They make it shockingly simple to expose the silliness of Departments of Transportation (DOTs) while inspiring alternatives to the same old junk infrastructure. Canva Canva turns you into a professional designer. Their templates, graphics, and text options are more than youll ever need for slide decks, reports, social media content, and memes. Use Canva for outreach campaigns, events, ideas, and causes. In fact, stop reading this post, open Canva, and make something. SketchUp SketchUp is a powerful 3D modeling tool, but does have a learning curve. Ive seen it used for park proposals and streetscape ideas for public meetings. But my favorite is when developers use it to illustrate the not-too-scay density of commercial buildings and multifamily housing. UrbanSim If youre comfortable with GitHub and coding, then UrbanSim might be a playground for you. The models begin with detailed data about a region, and then estimate and validate interconnected model components. Public agencies and consultants use this to model how land use policies and transportation changes could impact housing affordability, environmental sustainability, traffic patterns over time, and more. The core platform is open source. Its a higher learning curve, but I thought it was worth including. All right, go out there and digitize your urbanism ideas. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
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In 2025, if youre still relying on spreadsheets and sheer willpower to manage your budgetwhat are you doing? Tightening the purse strings is now in vogue as concerns about tariffs, inflation, job security and market volatility prompt many to pare back their spending, increase their savings, and, naturally, post about it on social media. These days, if youve trained your algorithm well enough, a cursory scroll should be enough to curb any lingering shopping impulses. In 2024, loud budgeting encouraged people to be unapologetically vocal about their financial goals. Earlier this year, everyone started revenge saving, a counter to the revenge spending that took off post-pandemic. No Buy July, is the latest, catchier, iteration of the no-spend challenges that have been around for years. The idea is simple: use the money youd spend on takeaway coffee and other small indulgences to pay down debt, build up savings, or reach some other financial goal. Bonus points if you post about it on social media for added accountability. If youre truly masochistic, one creator recently went viral for sharing another controversial budgeting technique. Recording myself saying things I wanna impulse buy instead of buying them, read the videos closed captions. The goal? To save money and make me hate myself. This one is yet to catch on. Theres a reason so many people are turning to saving challenges to hold each other accountable right now. Saving money is challenging at the best of times. For some, its easier to say Im doing No Buy July than I cant afford that coffee right now. The trends aren’t all talk. The U.S. personal saving ratethe percentage of disposable income saved after taxes and spendinghas risen to 4.5% in May, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. That is slightly down from 4.9% in April, but up significantly from 3.5% in December. The uptick coincides with growing anxiety, with a recent Santander Bank survey reporting 40% of Americans are more worried about emergency savings than at the start of the year, with 50% concerned about a recession and 53% about inflation. At the same time, the average length of unemployment is now over five months, one month longer than it was last year . The popularity of these saving challenges isnt simply a case of people jumping on the latest trend. It reflects many Americans economic reality. The Consumer Price Index has shot up by 24% since 2020. Moreover, prices don’t look like they’ll drop anytime soon. As President Trump barrels toward his latest tariff deadline, the overall U.S. tariff level is now the highest its been since the 1930s and while prices have been largely stable, they are projected to increase. In this economy, if a viral saving challenge keeps you on track with your financial goals, in for a penny in for a pound.
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E-Commerce
When Kendrick Lamar and his longtime creative and business partner Dave Free launched pgLang in 2020, it was under the banner of an “at service company” for creatives. It was an enticing, if somewhat mysterious, modus operandi that led to inquiries in droves. However, the pgLang team quickly realized they didn’t have the infrastructure to offer their services broadly. In the beginning, there were more internal projects including producing Lamar’s music videos and concerts, as well as a smattering of brand work with the likes of Cash App, Chanel, Calvin Klein, and Gatorade. But they didn’t have the bandwidth to operate at scale.Five years later, they do. Project 3 is a new venture within pgLang designed to expand creative resources for businesses. And under the umbrella of Project 3, sits Project 3 Agency, a full-service agency providing creative direction, content creation, production services, brand design and strategy. The creation of Project 3 Agency was powered in large part from the acquisition of international creative studio Frosty, a frequent collaborator of pgLang’s over the years. “For us, it was like, how do we build foundational structures for the business so [we] can last longterm versus trying to do too much at once and being bogged down,” says Free, cofounder of pgLang, on the five-year road to Project 3. “And as we developed [pgLang], we didn’t want to alienate ourselves from commercial business. We wanted to figure out a way to walk hand-in-hand with these companies and give them information, but also learn as we’re working with these companies.” To be sure, pgLang has already been producing work for brands. In fact, they scooped six Cannes Lions Awards, including Independent Agency of the Year, in 2023. While pgLang can be considered the parent company overseeing and aligning all external ventures under a unified vision, the creation of Project 3 and Project 3 Agency allows the teams to direct their focus solely toward other companies. And in those efforts, they feel uniquely positioned to fill a void in the creative agency industry. We see brands now, and one mistake can have you questioning your existence or the audience questioning your purpose, says Cornell Brown, an executive at pgLang and Project 3. For us, there is a confidence that we can bring to this. We have tentacles in so many places: touring, music, when we’re creating merch, when we’re creating artwe have so many inputs that there’s a confidence that comes from seeing all of that around you. Both Free and Brown see Project 3s superpower in helping brands rediscover or, in some instances find for the first time, their true story and purpose. That ethos is baked into the name of the company as Project 3 is a nod to the three pillars of storytelling: the beginning, middle, and end. Brands who will utilize us best are gonna be the ones who aren’t coming for a one-off campaign, Brown says. They’re coming to us to realign strategy and to align them with their purpose. We were seeing companies we admired, but the storytelling was lackluster, Free adds. And a lot of it is because the agency motto became a turnover business of more, more, more. Sometimes that’s great, you need that. But [the storytelling] also has to help people. It has to change the world. It has to latch onto people. Free notes theres no desire for infinite growth with Project 3. He wants the company to scale, but at a pace that puts quality well over quantity to ensure the work aligns with their purpose and integrity. That’s gonna be the marker of how successful this can be because I just don’t see us doing anything with anyone, Free says. We are definitely going for a more premium approach. The goal, as Free explains, is to give brands a foundation for longterm success. When I look at a brand, I’m not thinking about how to get them to the next quarter, he says. I’m thinking about how to get them to the next 10 years. I’m trying to make the best thing that they’ve had that becomes reference material for all the companies. [Image: Project 3] When pgLang launched in 2020, it was very clear there was a desire to have roots across the creative spectrum. Were going to touch every facet of culture, Free says. Theyre starting with Project 3 to build up the commercial side of their business, and to learn from the brands they work with (how they function, why they make the decisions they do, etc.) which can inform other aspects of where pgLang will expand nextthe graphic above providing perhaps a hint of at least how many areas pgLang and Project 3 may go into. We know the trajectory, Free says of pgLangs future. But it’s going to take time, and we’re going to give every piece its own space in its own light. Right now the agency is the foundation that helps set the standard for these other services that we’re going to offer.
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E-Commerce
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