Launched in October 1994, Cyburbia is the oldest continuously operating urban planning-related Web site on the Internet. Cyburbia serves as an online community, portal and virtual “third place” for planners, allied professionals, planning and urban studies students, elected and appointed officials, and others with an interest in shaping and improving the built and natural environment of their communities.

Cyburbia differentiates itself from other planning sites by its strong sense of community and participant-driven discussion culture. Cyburbia allows otherwise far-flung planners to build professional and personal relationships without the limits of geography.

The Cyburbia Forums is the largest planning-related discussion forum on the web, with nearly 400,000 posts as of May 2008. The Cyburbia Gallery is a growing collection of user-contributed, presentation-ready photos, maps and renderings related to planning and the urban environment. Cyburbia also includes Buzz, which aggregates hundreds of planning and urban-related blog, news and podcast feeds; PlanningWiki, a user-contributed virtual encyclopedia of planning; a hierarchical directory of planning-related Web sites; and regularly updated Post of the Day and Site of the Day features. An op-ed and book review column and Blog of the Day feature will soon be added.

Cyburbia was free of commercial advertising from the time it was created until October 2005, when Google Adsense banners were first displayed. Adsense income is very low. Sponsorship revenue is needed to pay for bandwidth from increasing traffic, server upgrades, software licensing and upgrades, and promotion so it can continue to grow and thrive.

Banner advertising

 Cyburbia media kit/sponsorship rate sheet (.pdf, 200K)

Sponsors of Cyburbia will enjoy exclusive ad placement on a page: one well-positioned 468x60 pixel banner in a visually prominent location, with no competing advertising.

Banners must be a .jpg, .gif or .png file under 40K. Design should be tasteful, and any animation subtle. We can create a banner for you for a small fee.

Advertising should be relevant to the target audience: working planners, planning students, and those involved in shaping the built environment. Cyburbia will not host pop-up, pop-under, floating, interstitial, Flash or Java-based ads.

Job listings

With a large audience of planning professionals and students, Cyburbia is the ideal venue for advertising job vacancies. Post a highly-visible job listing for only $20. Active Cyburbia Forums participants may post job listings at no charge.

Job listings appear in the Cyburbia Forums, with links to the most recent listings appearing on the front page of the site.

Announcements

Spread the word about an upcoming conference or event, RFP or press release for only $20. Active Cyburbia Forums participants may post announcements at no charge.

Announcements appear in the Cyburbia Forums, with links to the most recent announcements appearing on the front page of the site.

Why advertise on Cyburbia?

• You’ll be helping to support a Web site that has served the planning community for nearly 14 years.

• Cyburbia is among the most frequently visited English language planning-related Web sites.
• Cyburbia is among the top results of Google and Yahoo search engine results for “urban planning” and many other planning-related terms.
• Cyburbia users are mainly working professional planners, those in allied professions who work closely with planners, members of planning boards and committees, and planning students. Cyburbia is not an “armchair planner” or skyscraper fan site.
• The function and features of Cyburbia have very little overlap with planning-related news sites, professional organization sites, and blogs.