The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
Technologies we use to
understand the city are changing
the very things we seek to
understand
Michael Batty
Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
CASA-UCL
m.batty@ucl.ac.uk
@jmichaelbatty
I want to thank the organisers for taking
the risk of inviting me – I am very
pleased to do this, as much because
Doreen and myself go back to a time in
the late 1960s when we were doing
similar things
Let me tell you a little about this as it
lies very much in the origins of the
digital
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
We worked on land use models,
transport, spatial interaction and these
were only possible because of
computers
What few of us realised, although it was
pointed out to us many times, was how
‘universal’ digital computation was and
would become
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
The philosophers said it: Turing said it,
Vannevar Bush said it; of course the
captains of the computer industry said it
was garbage – but computers were
destined to be everywhere
They are now. And at every step on this
long and winding road, they have
revealed unexpected applications. We
should not expect otherwise.
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
Of course in the long view, what we are
seeing is the transition from a world
based on energy to one based on
information. In fact our current cities, in
my view, are just a way-station on the
path to a very different future, one
which we stand astride.
This is very much a phase transition in
the best sense of physics.
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
This is background so let me make
three points that pertain to the matter of
this session – sentient cities.
• First, I don’t think cities are becoming sentient – we may
be becoming more sentient as we use ICT but not cities per
se. I am not a believe in strong AI.
• Second, the idea that cities will become more sentient as
we connect up is rubbish. One of the great myths of the
smart cities movement is that there are countless ways of
integrating diverse data and networks. I will show you an
example that there probably can never be seamless
linkages
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
• Third, the city is certainly being changed by ICT and this is
changing our focus, how cities functions, and of course our
models and the way we might use them.
It is changing our focus on how we study urban dynamics
from the long to the short term and it is enhancing our
interest in dynamics in general. There are many links here
with what I mainly do which is work on the social physics of
cities
So let me begin by telling you the problems an pitfalls of
integrating all this stuff and in doing so refer to the idea of
the sentient city from social media and much else
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
Smart Card Data
Oyster Card Taps
Tap at start and end of train journeys
Tap at start only on buses
Accepted at 695 Underground and rail
stations, and on thousands of buses
991 million Oyster Card taps over
Summer 2012 – this is big data
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
Some videos from the big data
Oyster Gives up its Pearls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sAugcb2Qj4
Pulse of the City https://vimeo.com/41760845
Particular Events: Weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays
Entry at Camden Town (10 Mn. Intervals)
Entry at Arsenal (10 Mn. Intervals)
400
900
Weekday
Saturday
Sunday
300
Weekday
Saturday
Sunday
800
700
200
600
Number of Events
Number of Events
100
0
−100
500
400
300
Events
−200
200
−300
−400
−500
100
Nightlife
0
−100
2am 4am 6am 8am 10am 12pm 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm 12am 2am 4am
Time of Day
2am 4am 6am 8am 10am 12pm 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm 12am 2am 4am
Time of Day
Entry at Bayswater (10 Mn. Intervals)
Entry at Bank (10 Mn. Intervals)
150
1000
Weekday
Saturday
Sunday
Weekday
Saturday
Sunday
800
100
600
400
Number of Events
Number of Events
50
200
0
−200
0
−50
−400
−600
Work
−100
−800
−1000
2am 4am 6am 8am 10am 12pm 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm 12am 2am 4am
Time of Day
−150
Tourism?
2am 4am 6am 8am 10am 12pm 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm 12am 2am 4am
Time of Day
Tube, Overground and National Rail Networks in London
where Oyster cards can be used
New York
London
Paris
Moscow
My third point is about dynamics and
how new digital data is making us
conscious of key issues on a diurnal
and less cycles.
There is so much changing in the city due to computer and
new communications that we need an urgent attack on the
ways modern cities work and function. As I said on the
Facebook page, form is now pretty disconnected from
function, and cities are covered in multiple networks, many
of them invisible.
So there are enormous problems of measurement due to
invisibility and there are enormous issues pertaining to
privacy. I could go on … but back to the forum …
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015
Thank You
Michael Batty
Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
CASA-UCL
www.complexcity.info
m.batty@ucl.ac.uk
@jmichaelbatty
The 7th Doreen Massey Annual Event: Digital Geographies, March 2015