In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

On my morning commute I read about Betaville - "an open-source multiplayer environment for real cities, in which ideas for new works of public art, architecture, urban design, and development can be shared, discussed, tweaked, and brought to maturity in context, and with the kind of broad participation people take for granted in open source software development."

From what I read it seems to provide a platform for any interested party to provide a model of their urban design and see how it fits within the surrounding environment. It also supports discussion and collaboration between parties so potentially multiple iterations of a design can be undertaken (at a low cost) before the formal planning and design process begins. It can take models from tools such as Sketchup and Maya.