Big Data: The Engine to Future Cities—A Reflective Case Study in Urban Transport

In an era of smart cities, artificial intelligence and machine learning, data is purported to be the ‘new oil’, fuelling increasingly complex analytics and assisting us to craft and invent future cities. This paper outlines the role of what we know today as big data in understanding the city and includes a summary of its evolution. Through a critical reflective case study approach, the research examines the application of urban transport big data for informing planning of the city of Sydney. Specifically, transport smart card data, with its diverse constraints, was used to understand mobility patterns through the lens of the 30 min city concept. The paper concludes by offering reflections on the opportunities and challenges of big data and the promise it holds in supporting data-driven approaches to planning future cities

Safer cities for women: Global and local innovations with open data and civic technology

This chapter proposes a cyclic process for improving urban safety for women using Open Data together with civic technologies such as the unique ‘SafetiPin’ app and a purpose-built city dashboard. Safety is a difficult performance criterion to measure at the scale of the local neighbourhood and street. Much existing data is at the metropolitan scale rather than fine-grained local scales. Further, the data is often gender biased and underestimates the scale of crimes such as sexual harassment. This chapter examines the challenges involved in localising global approaches to urban safety with reference to a case study in Bogota. Statistical analysis and a city dashboard, using Open Data and open source technology, are developed to provide insights into the links between different urban metrics and gender balance in Bogota.Scott Hawken, Simone Z. Leao, Ori Gudes, Parisa Izadpanahi, Kalpana Viswanath, and Christopher Petti