| Title |
The city without qualities: Inventing urban computing |
| ID_Doc |
40861 |
| Authors |
McQuire, S |
| Title |
The city without qualities: Inventing urban computing |
| Year |
2022 |
| Published |
New Media & Society, 24, 11 |
| DOI |
10.1177/14614448221122215 |
| Abstract |
Smart city approaches which seek to utilise large-scale flows of urban data have become an exemplar of contemporary geomedia. In this article, I trace the migration of systems analysis and computational modelling from the RAND Institute's pioneering nuclear war scenarios in the 1950s to their application to a broader set of social and urban problems in the 1960s. Focusing on the influential New York City-RAND Institute established in 1969, I analyse the socio-political context of data-driven approaches to urbanism and urban planning. I argue that the data-driven decision-making enabled by urban computing constitutes a critical threshold in terms of who is able to speak with authority about the city. This provides a productive lens for articulating the early history of urban computation with contemporary debates about smart cities and the 'platformization' of urban digital infrastructure. |
| Author Keywords |
Digital platforms; geomedia; smart city; urban computing; urban infrastructure |
| Index Keywords |
Index Keywords |
| Document Type |
Other |
| Open Access |
Open Access |
| Source |
Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) |
| EID |
WOS:000865102100002 |
| WoS Category |
Communication |
| Research Area |
Communication |
| PDF |
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