Urbanism on Track

Most research focuses on the technological possibilities and problems of using tracking devices. Little attention is paid to the questions to what extend and in which manner knowledge developed through the use of new tracking technologies might influence spatial design and planning decisions. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond the collection of positioning data sets to the delivery of information and knowledge derived from these data. The Urbanism on Track expert meeting and book take that challenge with its chances, directions and limitations to explore how urban design and planning can embrace tracking technologies, particularly considering that recent studies on public space show urban designers ill capable of estimating the use of space (e.g. Golicnik 2005). So the opportunities to develop a learning loop with indicators and diagnostic tools in urban design and planning that can deal with contemporary urban complexity are present. Of course, spatial planning studies looking for such indicators is nothing new, but tracking technologies could complement these low-tech studies or replace traditional data collection methods such as travel diaries in time-use (my paper in submission “Detecting air travel to survey passengers on a worldwide scale” is an evidence of that).

The content and references of the 7position papers of the expert meeting provide a first glimpse in the ways to develop knowledge through the use of new tracking technologies (see particularly Klaasen, I.T. (2004) Knowledge-based Design: Developing Urban & Regional Design into a Science, Delft University Press, Delft – joining my observations on the urban microscopes and telescopes and the lack of science of what we see). I particularly found intriguing Monica Wachowicz‘ framework to representing different nature and sources of knowledge about people in motion. For instance she categorized movement metaphors of a spatial planning process in: the movement-as-trajectories, movement-as-journey, movement-as-activity, movement-as-urban forms (i.e. considering the constraint by urban forms – something that could be explored in New York)

Courtesy of Monica Wachowicz. Figure 1 illustrates the proposed multi-tier ontological framework, in which a successive set of tiers refine the steps of GKDD process, which are named as sampling, relating to a geographic context, discovering patterns, generating new insights, and confronting them with previous background knowledge. Therefore, five Tiers have been defined as Reality Space; Positioning Space; Geographic Space; Social Space; Cognitive Space.

References:

Golicnik, B (2005) Urban landscape between design practice, usage and reseach. Conference Life in the Urban Landscape. International Conference for Integrating Urban Knowledge & Practice Gothenburg, Sweden. May 29 – June 3, 2005

Relation to my thesis: a good set of references to bring more my paper on urban attractiveness, if it ever gets rejected. Also very useful for the “future work” section of my dissertation.