Experiential Data for Urban Planning

Abstract

Ubiquitous and context-aware mobile devices, by enabling location-based services and media platforms, are increasingly influencing the ways in which we interact with urban space. These technologies are not only functional but also expressive in nature: they mediate unique types of engagement with the urban environment through new interactive interfaces and representational forms. The adoption of such technologies in cities reflects the evolution of cities themselves, from simple forms to highly complex organisms. Cities, which that began in ancient times as were perhaps little more than skeleton and skin, providing walls, floors, and roofs for shelter and protection, have transformed over time. They went from relying primarily on the intelligence of their inhabitants to operate, to depending on highly mechanized infrastructures with the introduction of engines, pumps, mechanically powered vehicles, heating and ventilation systems, plumbing, fuel and electrical systems, and so on. Cities continued their evolution through the dawn of what might be called the city's ``electronic nervous system,'' with the development of telegraph, telephone, and radio communications systems and eventually the ``artificial nerves'' that are created by electronic control systems.