It has always been difficult to obtain and interpret turbulence data within urban areas because of instrument system limitations and because of the difficulty of making representative measurements. But such information is useful in understanding and modeling intra-urban dispersion. As part of a collaborative research program with the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, a portable turbulence measurement system has been used to obtain turbulence data within the built-up central portions of two cities. Both sites (parking areas) were selected because they are relatively open and not within the immediate wake cavity region of any individual building, but they are immersed in the combined wakes of several buildings for certain wind directions. The system uses a commercially available omnidirectional 3-D sonic anemometer to measure fluctuations in the wind velocity components and air temperature. The instruments are mounted on an in-house designed large aluminum tripod, placing the sensors about 2.5 m above the local surface. Raw data and 30-min averages are recorded on a laptop computer. The system is battery powered, highly portable, and quick to install. A similar system was installed at a rural site near each city for comparison; the rural sites generally also included measurements of sensible heat and water vapor fluxes to aid in characterizing ambient meteorological conditions. In this paper, the sites and measurement system are described, and an analysis of some urban turbulence data is presented.