Big Data and Urban Governance

Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which big data is involved in the rise of smart cities. Mobile phones, sensors and online applications produce streams of data which are used to regulate and plan the city, often in real time, but which presents challenges as to how the city's functions are seen and interpreted. Using a socio-technical approach, we offer a critical evaluation of the types of data being used in urban governance and their advantages and drawbacks in comparison to previous information systems. Using examples from New York and Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, we demonstrate how big data can both illuminate and obscure our understanding of urban development. We outline methodological considerations for the use of such data, offering conclusions towards the development of a critical urban data science.

City Data Plan: The Conceptualisation of a Policy Instrument for Data Governance in Smart Cities

“…At the same time, he points out that data can also be used to negate the existence of these problems, with the effect of consolidating urban inequalities that persist in the real city. This position is supported by other recent works [22,29,36] highlighting the manipulation of data as the effect of having the resources to influence the data collection and analysis process and the opportunity to benefit from the data manipulation directly.…”

“…The governance of data produced and used in cities is a topic still underexplored. Earlier studies focused on investigating nature, limits and applications of data-driven actions in urban governance [2,14,[22][23][24][25][26], or rather how the access to data can inform better governance decisions and policies. Critical perspectives on smart cities constitute an essential complement to these earlier studies for exploring in-depth the hidden concerns related to data availability and governance of data, going beyond the aspects related to a data-driven urban governance.…”

Mobile Phone Data for Urban Climate Change Adaptation: Reviewing Applications, Opportunities and Key Challenges

“…Current applications and potential opportunities offered by mobile phone data are thus unparalleled for both understanding population characteristics and dynamics in time-sensitive disaster situations, and supporting the elaboration of long-term urban planning strategies and tools. However, the drive towards planning and managing the city via this type of information may also promote a technocratic, top down mode of urban governance, which assumes that any aspect of a city can be measured, monitored, and treated as a technical problem that can be solved based solely on technical solutions [65]. This poses a concern for urban governance in the sense that, using mobile phone data for urban adaptation should also be considered as a vehicle for promoting the improvement of planning systems, institutional functioning, and data management protocols themselves [6,24].…”

“…Among these are the establishment of dedicated climate units in city administrations, either within a specific relevant department (e.g., natural resources management office or environment office) or as a cross-sector organization (e.g., mayor's office) [66]. Yet, using mobile phone data among an exclusively centralised setting calls for paying greater attention to the social control mobile phone data offers [67], the potential limitations of standardized data management protocols in some urban settings [65], as well as the over-reliance on a single mode of operationalization in urban planning and disaster risk management.…”

Datafication, development and marginalised urban communities: an applied data justice framework

“…These include: improving its efficiency by enabling decisions and results to occur more quickly and/or more cheaply; and improving its effectiveness by enabling decisions and results that are better-informed, more objective, more transparent, and better-able to meet citizens' needs (Samarajiva, Lokanathan, Madhawa, Kreindler, & Maldeniya, 2015;van Veenstra, Esmeijer, Bakker, & Kotterink, 2014). But alongside this have been concerns about datafication of the city (Baud, 2016;Kitchin, 2014a;Privacy International, 2017;Taylor & Richter, 2015;Townsend, 2013): procedurally that initiatives are not being implemented right; instrumentally that the promised results are not being achieved; ethically that data rights are not being respected; and critically that there are problematic distributive impacts. The main critical concerns are that urban datafication is associated with growing inequality; especially, in developing countries, with the exclusion or adverse incorporation of those who are already marginalised within the physical city, such as those living in slums and other forms of informal settlement (Donovan, 2012;Pfeffer & Verrest, 2016).…”