The Future of Cities: Big Data and the Urban Economy

Transcription

1 The Future of Cities: Big Data and the Urban Economy Piyushimita Thakuriah (Vonu) UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, UK October 7, 2015 July 10, 2015 Cities in the 21 st Century Concentrations of innovation and economic growth BUT facing extreme challenges Human and social Environmental and physical Economic adding significant complexities to urban governance

2 Big questions facing decision makers How to operate cities effectively and efficiently How should we evaluate potential consequences of complex social policy change on urban areas What makes the economy resilient and strong how to develop shock proof cities How different cities recovered from man made or natural disasters What interventions are needed for healthy behavior What strategies are needed for lifelong learning, civic engagement and community participation How does one generate hypothesis about historical evolution of social exclusion to impact current day practice Constraints in addressing tough urban problems Resources having to prioritize in making allocations Lack of timely, sustained and agile strategies to change Little incentive to change direction policy choices are predetermined Vested interest by industry and limited meaningful involvement by advocacy groups and citizens Its too hard!! Why? There is lack of high quality information to operate, plan, or evaluate urban strategies Fragmented and siloed information Lack of timely, granular information that gives meaningful insights into contextual peculiarities and local experiences Lack of understanding of value derived from data derived strategies

3 Setting the Stage An explosion of data active Internet users, 3.65 unique mobile phone users, active social media accounts* Governments, business and others collecting data Courtesy ETSI social mobile worldwide 2015/ Big Data A wide spectrum of data: Generated through transactional, operational, planning and social activities not all of which are specifically designed for research Complexities: information management technology, analysis methods, political economy surrounding data, scientific paradigm and epistemological questions

4 Urban Big Data Sensor systems (infrastructure based or moving objects) User Generated Content ( social or human sensors) Administrative data (open or confidential microdata) Private Sector Data (customer and transactions record) Arts and Humanities Data Hybrid Data Sources and Synthetic Data Big Data in the Urban Context Examples Environmental, water, transportation, building management; connected systems; Internet of Things Participatory sensing systems, citizen science projects, social media, web use, GPS, online social networks and other socially generated data Open administrative data on transactions, taxes and revenue, payments and registrations; confidential person level microdata Customer transactions data from store cards and business records; product purchases and terms of service agreements Cultural repositories of text, images, sound recordings, linguistic data, film, art and material culture, and digital objects, and other media Linked data including linkage of survey sensor, census administrative records and simulated data Thakuriah, P., N. Tilahun and M. Zellner (forthcoming). Big Data and Urban Informatics: Innovations and Challenges to Urban Planning and Knowledge Discovery. In edited volume Seeing Cities through Big Data: Research Methods and Applications in Urban Informatics, to be published by Springer. Big Data as DATA/types of data and their characteristics (size, rate of generation, unstructured etc) Big Data as APPROACH/datadriven analysis and decision-making The Big Data Process IMPACT Adoption/ Implementation Value Proposition and Actionable Strategies Knowledge Discovery Data Analytics Urban Data Infrastructure Governance, Advocacy, Activism, Public and Private Leadership Urban Informatics

5 Urban Informatics Analyzing, visualizing, simulating, understanding, interpreting such structured and unstructured data on cities and urban areas: 1) Dynamic resource management 2) Knowledge discovery and understanding 3) Urban engagement and civic participation 4) Urban planning and policy analysis 1) Dynamic Resource Management

6 Connected Urban Big Big Data Systems Data Weather Responsive Traffic Management Centre Fusion of real-time transport & weather data Thakuriah, P. and N. Tilahun (2013). Incorporating Weather Information into Real- Time Speed Estimates: Comparison of Alternative Models. Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol. 139, No. 4, pp Connecting the transport and weather sensor networks Short term prediction of traffic speeds given weather predictions Machine learning models & simulations to evaluate effects of data & forecast inaccuracies Traveller decision support and city management Detecting Events and Disruptions from Big Data e.g., Twitter data Known incident from transportation sensor data Negative tweets tweets posted when there is no incident Positive tweets tweets posted when there is an incident

7 2) Knowledge Discovery and Analysing Social and Economic Aspects of Cities Spatially-segmented Urban Management Strategies Clusters of bus stops showing spatial variations in bus ridership in response to real time bus arrival system Cluster 1 Highest average gains in bus boarding after Bus Tracker launch on routes Digitally savvy, high income areas with high population densities located close to city center Cluster 4 Lowest average levels of boardings after Bus Tracker Areas with low level of bus service usage located far from the city center and with a car culture

8 Integrated Multimedia City Data (imcd) Primary survey of 1500 households in Glasgow and household members (about 3000 persons) Questionnaire based survey transport, education, energy use, ICT use, attitude and personal preferences Sensing survey (GPS and lifelogging use by participants) Significant Information Retrieval for a year (data from various text based and multimedia social data from the Internet, eg social media data) Very High Resolution satellite data and LiDAR data to construct dynamic Digital Surface Model for Glasgow Linking together a number of sensor networks: transportation, emissions, crime detection CCTV, weather etc Potentially link to British Geological Survey (BGS) data on ground conditions beneath Glasgow Activity Locations To model and simulate life in the city and links to behaviours and activities Mobility Patterns Events in the city

9 4) Urban Planning and Policy Analysis Labour Market Accessibility increasingly travel costs estimated with Big Data such as cellular phone, GPS etc, job openings scraped from websites How do patterns of labour market accessibility vary between UK cities? How have these patterns changed over time? What effect did the recession have?

10 Real Estate Data*** Listings for Glasgow Link to Sales data Land registry Sentiment mining of letting agent language (create thesaurus) Linkage to wider set of urban indicators *** This approach is indicative only and experimental,and subject to agreement with data owner. Detecting Changes to Land-use, Physical and Built Environment Immense need for integrated set of tools & technologies for urban data management BGS Clyde Valley Bedrock Geology linkage to social science data to study environmental justice VHR Longitudinal Satellite data & 3D Modelling Detecting Changes in the Built Environment Urban and Regional Planning and Policy Models + Data Science Approaches

11 Spatial Urban Data System (SUDS) Geographical database on UK s largest built-up areas and settlements; Inputs: census, surveys, sensors, social media, specialised data programmes Processes: simple processing to complex urban models and simulations Outputs: Simple to complex indicators describing cities and communities (eg, transport accessibility, PM 2.5 emissions, fuel poverty, walkability etc) Started with: ISO 37120: categories 72 total; economy, education, environment, etc, starting with England and Wales (output areas) Aspirations: small-area estimates (within Data Protection Act) and longitudinal, with common geographic identifiers Open Source GIS (GeoServer) Portal to access SUDS Indicators Java-based software server that allows users to view and edit geospatial data. Using open standards set forth by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Access levels will vary depending on depending on spatial resolution, data owner and licensing requirements - some through open data portal, many likely through secure access

12 3) Urban Engagement, Civic Participation and Data Entrepreneurship Minecraft System (current) Interactive Tools for Cities Urban Engagement, civic participation starting with children!

13 Open Data Initiatives Open Data initiatives driven by open government strategies, reflecting accountable and transparent government, collaborative government, and innovative government Governmental data should be accessible for everyone to use and to republish without copyright or other restrictions in order to create a knowledgeable, engaged, creative citizenry Open Data Initiatives and Civic Hacking* Reasons for being involved in using Open Data Portal and in Civic Hacking To promote urban engagement and improve To improve social inclusion by strengthening access to information To improve own knowledge of data, programming and development To generate employment opportunities and improve resume * Survey currently underway Percent who agreed

14 Emerging Information Users Urban Digital Infomediaries 4 Major Groups with 10 Urban Digital Infomediaries Thakuriah et al (2014) Emerging Urban Digital Infomediaries and Civic Hacking in an Era of Big Data and Open Data Initiatives Traditional Urban Data Users Planning organizations Operational agencies Research organizations and universities Consulting firms General-purpose ICT Infomediaries Smart City Companies Multiple-service ICT Companies Urban Information Service Provider Infomediaries City Information Services Location-Based Services Location-Based Social Networks Urban Open and Civic Data Infomediaries Open Data Organizations Civic Hacking Organizations Community-Based Information Service Organizations Independent and Open Source Developer Infomediaries Independent App Developers Open Source Developers Smart and Connected Cities to Future Cities Related Concepts: U-City Pervasive Urban Spaces Etc. M Naphade, G Banavar, C Harrison, J Paraszczak, and R Morris. Smarter Cities and their innovation challenges. Computer, 44(6):32 39, June 2011

15 Big Data Challenges Technological and Methodological, yes, but equally importantly.. Challenges Characteristics Theoretical and epistemological Political economy 1) Understanding metrics, definitions, and changing ideologies and methods to understanding urban 2) Determining validity of approaches and limits to knowledge from data driven approach 3) Deriving visions of future cities and the links to sustainability and social justice 1) Data entrepreneurship, innovation networks and power structures 2) Value propositions and economic implications 3) Data access and governance framework 4) Privacy, security and trust management 5) Responsible innovation and emergent ethics Potential New Metrics and Motivations Impacts, outcomes, costeffectiveness, return oninvestment, efficiency, equity, Social interestingness, exploration and urban discovery, inclusiveness, sharing and engagement; augmented mindfulness for self awareness

16 Big Data and the Future of Cities: 5 Themes in the Way Forward Data Systems Building and sustaining urban Big Data Infrastructure Analytics specialized knowledge discovery, operational and planning solutions Capacitybuilding Entrepreneurial strategies, workforce development New norms of digital literacy requirements - Understanding digital exclusion, consumer awareness and rights Raising and responsibilities awareness and making value case for data-derived decision-making - deriving policy & planning implications Innovations for sustainable and socially just cities Partners

17 What we do Build Links among Cities, Local Governments, Businesses and Universities through Data Run a national data service to facilitate urban research Outreach/KE UBDC Portfolio Data Products Data Service Research Training Disciplines Urban Social Science + Data Science Urban studies, planning & policy Statistics Economics Computer science Education Geography Mathematics Civil engineering