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The Digital Urban Fabric: Affordances of Connectivity and Datafication

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Wiring the Streets, Surfing the Square

Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

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Abstract

This chapter investigates the affordances that support the aspect of INTERACTION/COMMUNICATION, from which public space is performatively constructed. The connectivity, afforded by digital technologies, that supports interaction and communication, is mirrored by practices of filtering of connectivity and information, through which urban citizens curate their public presence. This theme is discussed in the context of the ascendancy of the crowd as a composite urban actor, as exemplified by protests and activism in public spaces. When mediated by digital technologies, interaction and communication generates data, that is the foundation of a new stratum of economic and political life.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Web logs (blogs) and other modes of digital dissemination make available a wider range of perspectives and opinions than had previously been available to those in public space, even as the reliability and rigor with which these messages are controlled is reduced, which can be expected to inform interaction and behavior.

  2. 2.

    Granted that data does not circulate: signals circulate, requiring an encoding and decoding at either end, and of course that these signals are also present in the physical world, but it is in this encodedness that they withhold themselves, while existing in a medium in which they can be endlessly manipulated and calculated. Indeed, this also reinforces the Network Society idea, that the in-between is a space of flows, while meaning is only ever made at the sending and receiving nodes.

  3. 3.

    As of this writing, current apps that allow individuals to monetize their data include Worldquant / Data Exchange (data.worldquant.com) and Measurable Data Token (mdt.io)

  4. 4.

    The International Open Data Charter, ratified by seventeen governments in 2015, has as its first principle that governmental data should be “Open by Default,” establishing access to data as a public right. These city, state and national governments primarily represent Latin American localities. The signatories are the municipal governments of Buenos Aires in Argentina; Minatitlán, Puebla, Veracruz and Reynosa in Mexico and Veracruz in Uruguay; the Mexican states of Morelos and Xalapa; and the countries of Chile, Guatemala, France, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, South Korea, the United Kingdom and Uruguay.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Timothy Jachna

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Jachna, T. (2021). The Digital Urban Fabric: Affordances of Connectivity and Datafication. In: Wiring the Streets, Surfing the Square. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66672-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66672-9_11

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