Me giving a talk at a Melbourne Open GIS Meetup in 2012.

I am currently (as of late 2014) a full-time PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, in the Architecture, Building and Planning faculty, with the Australasian Center for the Governance and Management of Urban Transportation (GAMUT).

If you're interested in my research, check out my Google Scholar profile, ResearchGate page Academia.edu page, or my page on ImpactStory.

If you want to leave me a message, open a new section on my talk page.

My background re Sustainability, esp Sustainable Transport and Urbanism - and my PhD[edit | edit source]

I have had a long-term interest in working towards sustainable societies more broadly, over recent years I've pursued this particularly in relation to human settlement structure and Urban planning, with the goal of moving towards sustainable cities and regions. In this respect I'm inspired by the long tradition of urban planning with a utopian and progressive tinge, from the likes of Wikipedia:Ebenezer Howard and Wikipedia:Lewis Mumford, thru more modern ideas like Wikipedia:Christopher Alexander's. However, I try to leaven this with a solid dose of pragmatism and critical thinking, and think the best contributions to Planning are a balance of these two perspectives.

My PhD work focuses on how broader societal access to Open Source GIS capabilities and tools such as OpenTripPlanner could support envisioning and developing better Public transport, as part of a more sustainable transportation paradigm. I like to see this work as contributing towards a long-term collaboratively developed informatics platform to support sustainable transportation planning - tentatively called OSSTIP.

This work can also be situated within an emerging discipline and movement called Community Informatics (CI). CI amongst other things is concerned with how new information technology approaches can support better access and participation by communities in decision-making and planning - see the CIRN Wiki. This is also linked to investigating the relevance of ideas coming out of the Open source software movement for governance and planning - see the online book http://co-p2p.mlog.taik.fi/ as one interesting starting-point here.

Projects on Appropedia[edit | edit source]

(My Recent Changes)

Sustainable Transport Principles and Practices[edit | edit source]

I would be interested in working in improving the Transport portal in collaboration with others, especially in the area of Sustainable transport and Urban planning, while I work on my PhD. I see all of these as key areas in moving towards more Sustainable cities in general, in co-operation with personal behaviour changes of the sort ably covered in other areas of this site.

Some aspects of this include:

  • Best practices given current research of public transport, such as Integrated Multimodal Network Planning and Public Transport Prioritisation (there are lots of great web resources to link to here);
  • Indicator frameworks that can help gauge the current (un)-sustainability of a regions' transport system;
  • Issues with current approaches to using computer tools as part of planning for the future of urban regions. In particular limitations of current transport models w.r.t. sustainability, and possible ways of improving these;
  • Ideas, plans and policies that can support cycling as a low-impact form of effective short distance urban transport;
  • Streetscape design (inc. traffic calming) to better support cycling and walking as a practicable mode(s) of travel;
  • Deliberate efforts to land-use planning, urban design and culture to support all of the above in cities - e.g. medium density urban cohousing, and mixed-use communities;
  • GIS and other computer tools to support the above goals;

As someone most familiar with the 'developed' world context of transport in Australian, British and US cities, probably my work would mostly be from this perspective, but hopefully it'll complement the other transport articles here, including those mostly aimed at more resource-constrained and rural transport planning.

The OSSTIP Project[edit | edit source]

I'd see this as corresponding to my main 'project' page on Appropedia related to my PhD, the aforementioned OSSTIP work that's part of my action-research with participating organizations here in Melbourne, which aims to make transport planning more open to citizen engagement and proposals for improvement.

I have set up an Appropedia:Books functionality for the project, to gather together key pages and allow ready export to PDF/ODT - at User:PatSunter/Books/OSSTIP-SustTransportReference.

External Links[edit | edit source]

As a start, some blogs I like in different areas:

Scientific software, open science, S/W in education, S/W in policy debates:

S/W architecture and development practitioners more generally:

Cycling-oriented blogs:

Some exciting new informatics tools or project to support collaborative decision-making about complex issues:

My subpages[edit | edit source]

Appropedia working page helpers etc[edit | edit source]

  • Redirects: #REDIRECT [[Target page]]
  • Stubs: {{Stub}}
  • Interwiki to Wikipedia: [[wikipedia:Topic page]].
  • List of all Interwikis: Interwiki map

Discussion[View | Edit]

Appropedia working page helpers etc[edit source]

  • Redirects: #REDIRECT [[Target page]]
  • Stubs: {{Stub}}

Recent active users[edit source]

30 days of edits

Backing up key pages[edit source]

I'd like to back up some key pages I've made contributions towards offline. User:Chriswaterguy reckons it can be done ... now need to figure out how.

Pat, not sure if it helps at all, but I've seen various software (such as zim) that runs a 'wiki' on a desktop computer. It might then be possible to just export the pages you want and then view them on a pc for backing-up purposes. I'm not sure how well this works, but it might do what you want it to do. Joeturner 03:32, 21 May 2013 (PDT)

Ah, thanks Joe. Well, I actually find the Book functionality really cool - it could be useful for others rather than me I imagine. I did find that on the page of the saved book there is an "Open in Book Creator" button which is useful as well. --PatSunter 03:38, 21 May 2013 (PDT)

Links to useful discussions at Village Pump and others re Appropedia history, missions, plans[edit source]

Welcome![edit source]

Hi Pat, good to have you here. Hope you have a good experience here and find Appropedia useful, personally and for your transport project, and we look forward to learning from you.

Let me know if you have questions or feedback or need any help. --Chriswaterguy 16:52, 8 October 2012 (PDT)

Hi PatSunter,

Welcome to the Appropedia wiki! If you need a general wiki-tutorial, see the main help page (or the more in-depth one on WikiEducator).

Check your preferences. It's a good idea to verify your email address and turn on email notification - then you'll be notified when you get a message on your talk page, or when any page on your watchlist, is modified. You may want to upload a photo or information about yourself to your userpage (which is at User:PatSunter).

If you have a particular interest or project in mind, go ahead and start it! If you have questions or suggestions, the best place to leave them is at our community discussion page, which we call the Village pump - you should get a fast response. Or, feel free to leave me a note on my talk page if you have further questions, need help finding your way around, have a cool idea for a project, or just want to chat. If you just want to know how things work here, check out Appropedia:Policies and Appropedia:FAQ. We're a relaxed and friendly bunch though, and you can also just pick things up as you go.

Glad to have you here!

--Chriswaterguy

Thanks[edit source]

Hi Pat,

Thanks for your great contributions here. I agree with your sentiment at Sustainable transport. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to assist you. --Lonny 01:50, 14 November 2012 (PST)

Thinking about Appropedia and a Cities Portal[edit source]

I guess this is a 2-part post and suggestion for response:

  • (A) An initial proposal for "Cities" or an equivalent (e.g. Sustainable Cities) to be in the left sidebar of "Areas" on the Appropedia site.
  • (B) An effort to clarify the hierarchy of pages in that area that already exist.

Starting with (A) ... I think the case for this is the much-quoted statistic that in the last couple of years demographers think that > 50% of the global population would be urbanised (http://web.archive.org/web/20090209221745/http://www.iht.com:80/articles/ap/2008/02/26/news/UN-GEN-UN-Growing-Cities.php).

I realise a focus on Cities is a fair way from much of the historic focus of the Appropriate Technology movement on rural communities. But I suggest given the above, a holistic approach to Appropriate Development and Sustainability globally should take cities as one of the major starting points and focus areas. Note, I'm not suggesting Appropedia should be Pro cities - in fact I agree that in many cases putting effort to improving the quality of life & sustainability of rural and village residents is important to slow urbanisation and support traditional cultures etc. BUT cities will continue existing, and in both the developed & developing world there's pressing needs for more sustainable & appropriate approaches to provision of life's needs & goals in urban regions.

I see there is already "Construction" in the list, but I think "Cities" as a category would emphasise more holistic integration of this with some other categories - e.g. transport, social life, community planning approaches in more urban settlements.

Which brings me to (B), relevant pages.

I notice that https://www.appropedia.org/Cities currently redirects to the "Built environment" page, which also has its own category.

Then there is the high-level page "Sustainable cities", which also has a Category, and "Sustainable city living", which doesn't have a category but has a (nicely done) Portal page.

I think its worthwhile clarifying the relationship between these pages and possibly re-factoring ... e.g. perhaps a new Cities top-level Portal and category, closely linked to the Sustainable cities page.

Does anyone have any opinions/views on all of this?

I guess one of my rationales is not just a wish to organised current info better, but make it more appealing for other people worldwide working on sustainable cities / urban design to get involved, if the landscape of pages better matches how people are educated in urban planning & urban design schools.

--PatSunter 00:59, 21 May 2013 (PDT)

Links to interesting pages about Appropedia's role, future directions, etc[edit source]

I made some comments recently on Appropedia:Strategic planning/Strategic plan 2013-2014, see the talk page.

Links to nice example pages/categories of using Appropedia in a university course (Service Learning)[edit source]

Table of New Pages, Users etc[edit source]

(Copied from proposed Appropedia:Contributors' homepage).

Newest Articlesmore Newest Talk pagesmore Newest User Pagesmore Newest Categoriesmore
  1. Better Farming Series 18: Bananas/7/si
  2. Better Farming Series 18: Bananas/6/si
  3. Flush toilets/hi
  4. Straw bale construction/ko
  5. Thermal curtains/ko
  6. Tidal power/zh
  7. Agriculture Development in India/es
  8. Computer vision based real-time 3D printing analysis/2010-2000/en
  9. Yoghurt Production (Practical Action Brief)/id
  10. Fashion Revolution Encyclopedia/en
  11. Gabions/es
  12. Silver
  13. Alkaline versus rechargeable batteries/id
  14. Solar energy/mr
  15. Open source gym and fitness equipment/es
  16. Deforestation/es
  17. Passive solar design/id
  18. Hydrogen as fuel/hi
  19. Plastic bottle strip 3D printer project/es
  20. Kalanchoe/es
  1. Talk:ALL-SAFE/Research and Awards
  2. Talk:MOST News
  3. Talk:Paris news/2016-2017
  4. Talk:Re-birth Bricks in Action (Tolocar)
  5. Talk:3D Printed vat for SLA printer
  6. Talk:Engr215 RCEA educational boxes
Newest Category talk pagesmore
  1. Category talk:Medical care
  2. Category talk:Humboldt Bay Eco-Hostel and Center for Sustainable Living
Newest Appropedia talk pagesmore
  1. Appropedia talk:Contact
  2. Appropedia talk:List of academic citations
Newest User talk pagesmore
  1. User talk:Bohdan
  2. User talk:Tadesa Alemayehu
  1. User:Tadesaa
  2. User:Amanda
  3. User:Tadesa Alemayehu
  4. User:Kelpie
  5. User:Saimumhossain
  6. User:Kowalski
  7. User:GMinjarez
  8. User:Treadgold
  9. User:Spf26
  10. User:Baronson
  11. User:Bohdan
  12. User:K8parrilla
  13. User:EliseC
  14. User:Ezbu1570
  15. User:MathAbscissa
  16. User:DrakeNewell
  17. User:Long-Potato
  18. User:Tmurasko
  19. User:Erinmohr
  20. User:Othmanoslo
  1. Category:Caribbean Climate Adaptation Strategies Through Sustainability
  2. Category:Engr215 Introduction to Design
  3. Category:GIZ
  4. Category:How to
  5. Category:A People’s Food Policy
  6. Category:MOST news
  7. Category:Micro-livestock
  8. Category:Sheffield
  9. Category:Humboldt Energy Independence Fund
  10. Category:HEIF
  11. Category:Humboldt energy independence fund (heif)
  12. Category:Humboldt Energy Independence Fund (HEIF)
  13. Category:SELF-Training
  14. Category:V-Y Advancement Flap
  15. Category:Colostomy in Newborns
  16. Category:STARS - Cervical Cancer Screening and Treatment
  17. Category:Z-Plasty
  18. Category:Orthoplastic reconstruction
  19. Category:Guía para productos de conocimiento y mapeo de soluciones
  20. Category:Digital sustainability guide for tech practitioners

TODO: document proposed 'public transport informatics' initiative?[edit source]

To keep track of discussions with User:Aaron and others on this? --PatSunter (talk) 23:22, 14 March 2014 (PDT)

https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Content_Initiatives/Proposals

re Hi and Open CO2 project[edit source]

Hi Pat, thanks very much for making contact, the links to some of your articles and expression of interest in Open CO2 type stuff. I'm currently ploughing through getting SCA location type pages ported (nearly got halfway, but still over 150 to go!) but will eventually get onto some SCA topic articles which will include some on transport and I'll be sure to let you know as and when I do. Thanks again for saying Hi and best wishes for all your brilliant transport related work. Philralph (talk) 02:00, 15 March 2014 (PDT)

Your 2021 impact stats are right here![edit source]

Let's recap.png

Hi Patrick! We thought you may want know that your top performing pages so far are:

  1. Transport (11 932 page views) Update!
  2. Open Source Transport Informatics tools (3 986 page views) Update!
  3. Sustainable cities (3 932 page views) Update!
  4. Sustainable transport (3 000 page views) Update!
  5. General Transit Feed Specification (2 698 page views) Update!

Overall, your impact has been of 52,475 page views, woozaa!

Also, your user page has received 971 visits! People are interested in knowing more about you, edit your user page to tell the world what you've been up to.

Thanks for your contributions and for making Appropedia great, have a merry green Christmas!!

The Appropedia Team

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