W4. Quantified Community: Hudson Yards – Pinelopi

– On Kontokosta K., “The Quantified Community and Neighborhood Labs: A framework for computational Urban Planning and Civic Technology Innovation”

The key feature of the Quantified Community (QC) seems to be that of scale. Kontokosta is repeatedly emphasizing on its importance to demonstrate that, as opposed to previous urban scale smart projects, time and resources are not squandered, social and political aspects are considered and citizens are an integral part of decision-making. Notably, the QC is understood as a hybrid of urban-scale Smart City initiatives and the “Quantified Self” movement (pp2) to overcome the problem of ‘low-resolution’ evaluation criteria of urban policies and design (pp4). In the words of Kontokosta, data acquired “voluntary (…) could also be used to understand links between the neighborhood/community conditions and personal health outcomes of residents” (pp7, my emphasis). Aren’t there ways to gain insight on behavior patterns other than directly monitoring bodies themselves?

– on Mattern S., “Instrumental City: The View from Hudson Yards circa 2019”

Mattern touches extensively on the material expression of ‘smartness’, identifying three key issues. On the one hand, fundamental urban processes are being dematerialized, hidden away and thus, ‘forgotten’ by citizens (pp5). The physical infrastructure that profoundly sustains the instrumental city is to be observed through “a deceptively clean, shallow interface” (pp13) – not unlike the screen-filled control rooms in Songdo. On the other hand, the build environment becomes an architectural product that appears to perform according to the branded identity of the district (pp5) in a ‘form follows data’ manner (pp6).

Considering the above, it seems that the instrumental city embodies the opposition of depth vs. surface: while its digital infrastructure mediates multiple levels of urban processes, it remains out of sight for the citizens and it is merely represented as an interface – a surface of control. The build environment is also developed along these lines, offering little or no insight on the parameters that constitute it. Shouldn’t the smart city be primarily about transparency and accessibility? Could contrasts like this be resolved in the future, or are they part of the smart problematique by default?