Datafication of urban spaces is often deployed in a top-down manner by cities and corporations as lead actors. How are social inequalities perpetuated in this process, and how could this be avoided?

Many data-driven projects, mainly those labeled “smart cities,” unfold in a top-down manner, spearheaded by municipal agencies and tech companies. They lack meaningful citizen input, with public attention only peaking in the wake of major scandals. Expanding civic participation and having a diverse representation of publics in these initiatives is crucial. 

That said, we must also recognize that inequalities are not merely a byproduct of data-driven or smart city projects. Much of the datafication in urban spaces relies on exploiting social inequalities. Smart technologies transform every socio-political concern underlying socio-economic injustices into a computing problem. Municipal agencies and tech companies leverage extant disparities rhetorically to justify interventions and materially to develop and refine hardware/software. Despite seemingly good intentions, many of these techniques and tools end up enabling a more efficient classification and ranking of the already-minoritized communities and neighborhoods. Consider fraud-detection technologies, for instance, where ensuring social security for the most vulnerable is reduced to an optimization problem for public funds and repeatedly harms minoritized groups.  

While challenging the top-down approaches is essential, we should also question the fundamental logics and techniques guiding each data-driven initiative. We need to review in what ways these initiatives expand racialized surveillance, privatize public resources, and extract from civic knowledge.  

How do infrastructures matter for citizens?

I love studying infrastructures because they profoundly impact people in mundane and spectacular ways. Think about how electricity, public transportation, water, or the internet shape the rhythms of daily life. And imagine the mix of excitement and trepidation we feel when a new road or bridge project is introduced in our city. Between the ordinary and the extraordinary, infrastructures also encapsulate the ideals and injustices of the past while holding promises for the future. While citizens may not always consciously think about these elements when flipping a light switch or walking an extra block to catch the bus, their everyday urban experiences are tied to the past and the future through these systems. Finally, infrastructures provide a fascinating lens to understand how rights, resources, and aspirations are distributed and endure in social life. Both as a citizen and researcher, I turn to differentiated access to infrastructures if I want to understand the socio-political landscape of any place.  

How should knowledge about infrastructures be communicated and what role can journalists, researchers or public officials play?    

Thinking about how to convey knowledge about infrastructures, it is essential to attend both to the politics and poetics of infrastructures, as anthropologist Brian Larkin suggests. These socio-technical systems always operate on multiple levels simultaneously, so challenging their apparent fixity in urban life is also crucial. Focus on revealing the historical legacies, discriminating practices, and biased assumptions embedded in infrastructures. Make visible the people, institutions, aspirations, and choices involved in designing, maintaining, and repairing these systems.  

Journalists, researchers, and public officials should document the impact of infrastructures when they break down and even when they appear to be working (and for whom). Human stories illustrating the role of different infrastructures and our varied access to them help us better understand how they animate everyday experiences, opening up possibilities for some while exacerbating challenges for others.