Who does the city work for?
Where do people play in cities?
What new inequalities are created in cities?
What are the emergent third places in cites?
What new technologies are built for cities?
How do future scenarios of cities seduce policy makers, planners, and designers?
This blog is where I track my interests in 1.) how people use cities, 2.) how cities use people, and 3.) the spatial production of knowledge that comes out of cities.
Urbanism refers to processes that drive people to live in cities. My idea of Digital Urbanisms refers to processes that drive people to online sociality. I am interested in how Digital Urbanism presents a new geography of constraints and mobilities where the materiality of living in cities and its digital infrastructures are becoming mutually constituted. Being urban is not an outcome, it is a process, and this process now takes place online just as much as it takes place offline.
I spoke about Digital Urbanism in China at SXSW, Sleeping in Internet Cafes: The Next 300 Million Chinese Users.
Digital Urbanism is also a term that architectural theorists use. While architects focus on the form of the city as a digital space, I employ digital urbanism to refer to the people that inhabit the city and are experiencing the shift where everyday urban life is increasingly mediated by digital tools.
I use Digital Urbanisms in the plural because I want to emphasize that there is more than one digital urban future. Also the url for singular Digital Urbanism wasn't available, so that is how I ended up with a domain name in Monstserrat (.ms), which conveniently makes Digital Urbanisms plural!
I write longer thought pieces on Cultural Bytes and Byes of China. I have like 20 other blogs where I put out more silly than thoughtful, you can find the full list on my website.
I curate a reading list on cities and technology that is continually being updated If you have any readings to add to this list that you or another person has written, please let me know!
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SMS Visualization in Amsterdam
I just started looking into Processing.org and I found an interview with Aaron Koblin. Koblin made the beautiful images for Flight Patterns. I just found out about his SMS Amsterdam visualization. It’s really beautiful and useful of social analysis. I wish that this could be done for any area in the world with the press of a button!
Looking through all the work at Processing is really inspiring. Now I just need to find a month to dive into this language.
