Useful Planning Tools

Planning Tools
Census Data
HUD Community Planning and Development Maps
HUD/DOT Location Affordability Portal – Location Affordability Index (LAI)
Geography Info
Center for Watershed Protection (CWP): Pollution Calculators
Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS): Online Soils Survey Data
Maryland Environmental Site Design (MdESD): Online and open source SWM ESD spreadsheets
Build a Better Burb: Tools
Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU): Tools
SmartCode: Model Form-Based Code

Open Source Software
SketchUp
ESRI ArcGIS: Explorer for Smart Phones and Tablets CADforum: Blocks and Templates
Software Depot
Gimp
Quantum GIS: Freeware

Townscape Design

"Townscape" is the visual composition of structures within a town that determine its distinctive character. "Design" is the process of conceiving, creating, fashioning and executing a plan.

Townscape Design...
...is a studio of town planners and landscape architects with a passion for, and a devotion to the creation of vibrant, sustainable places of beauty and distinctive character, conceived in concert with traditional placemaking principles and with enduring and lasting value for its citizenry.