Abstract
As a central component of the smart city, sensor infrastructures locate and measure a wide range of variables in order to characterise the urban environment. Perhaps the most visible expression of the smart city, sensor deployment is a key equity concern. As new sensor technologies and Big Data interact with social processes, they have the potential to reproduce well‐documented spatial injustices. Contrary to promises of providing new knowledge and data for cities, they can also create new gaps in understanding about specific urban populations that fall into the interstices of data collection – sensor deserts. Building on emerging data justice debates, specifically considering distributional, recognition, and procedural forms of injustice, we conceptualise and analyse sensor deserts through two case studies, Newcastle's Urban Observatory (UK) and Chicago's Array of Things (USA). Open sensor locations are integrated with small‐area, socio‐economic data to evidence the demographic configuration and spatialities of sensor deserts across each city. We illustrate how the structural processes via which inequality is reinforced by smart agendas manifest as uneven social and spatial outcomes. In doing so, the paper opens up a new conceptual space in which to consider what it means (not) to count in the smart city, bringing a demographic perspective to critical debates about smart urbanisms.
Highlights
More data are being produced than ever before, with approximately 90% of the data available today generated during the last two years
Due to the wide geographical scope of the Urban Observatory (UO), we focus on the Local Authority (LA) of Newcastle upon Tyne which is composed of 175 Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) and contains 657 of the sensors deployed to date
In this paper we set out a framework for conceptualising sensor deserts – “ existing” places and people on the ground, within cities, for whom sensor knowledge is not produced
Summary
More data are being produced than ever before, with approximately 90% of the data available today generated during the last two years. Systematic lack of measurement in certain areas impacting on those with least voice, often most exposed to urban challenges Lack of diverse representation in the design of smart cities Reification of data emerging from incomplete sensor coverage and subsequent modelling. It is likely that procedural inequality will arise as some groups will be less able than others to mobilise around it – including people with low internet use or literacy levels (Alexiou & Singleton, 2018), areas with high levels of political disengagement or transient populations and limited agency for change (Burrell, 2016), or deprived populations with less time and resources. This is especially problematic when smart cities are left to fill the gap left by cuts to public services
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