Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to explore urban visibilities and invisibilities in terms of the physical, digital, less tangible, and ambient in relation to the need for new methodologies and approaches in understanding and designing for smart cities. This chapter seeks to shed light on the interweaving of elements in urban environments informing methodologies for smart cities. The research literature for urban methodologies and approaches in the context of visibilities and invisibilities is explored in this chapter for smart cities and regions. Using an exploratory case study approach combined with an explanatory correlational design, placemaking and attuning to urban spaces are investigated as proxies for InVisibilities and the ambient.
Top1. Introduction
Van Es and De Lange (2020) advance datawalking as a research method to address “invisibility, loss of context and access to data and its infrastructures” claiming that it “offers a much-needed anchoring of data as material and situated, and constitutive of everyday life.” The study of smart cities has everything to do with daily life and Mehl and Connor (2012) provide a guide for studying many aspects of daily life, including several articles on the importance of thinking in terms of “real-world” explorations. As such, this chapter seeks to identify and explore methodologies in support of research and practice in smart cities that take into consideration invisibilities and visibilities. Such methodologies draw upon the emerging dimensions of invisibilities and visibilities as presented in this work, together with the nature of relationships identified between these dimensions such as transparency, translucence, awareness, attuning, infrastructures, and information and communication technologies (ICTs), to name a few. This chapter is guided by the use of an exploratory case study along with an explanatory correlational design where data are collected through the use of multiple methods including survey and in-depth interviews. The significance of this chapter pertains to the approaches identified for understanding smart cities in relation to visibilities and invisibilities providing important insights as well as the potential for developing ambient inquiries. This chapter makes a contribution by a) extending the research literature for invisibilities and visibilities in smart cities from a methodological perspective; b) evolving approaches and methods for inquiries into visibilities and invisibilities in smart cities and regions; and c) formulating a conceptual framework for methodologies accommodating spaces for visibilities and invisibilities in smart cities. As such, the main objective of this chapter is described below.
Objective: The objective of this chapter is to explore methodologies for cities and urban regions pertaining to visibilities and invisibilities as InVisibilities in conceptualizing ambient approaches for understanding and working with smart environments. As such, the key research question posed is – Why does ambient methodology matter for cities, the urban, and smart cities?
Top2. Background And Overview
Crutzen and Hein (2009) identify several types of invisibility in the context of artificial intelligence (AI), as “mental, physical, and methodical” where “invisibility management could enable situated veiling and unveiling.” Gavalas et al. (2017) identify methodologies associated with smart cities in the context of wireless connections and mobile computing based on the need for “novel methods of management” in support of sustainability. In the context of smart cities and smart citizens, Dembski et al. (2020) identify the need for approaches in urban planning “to cope with urban complexity” while accommodating “participatory and collaborative processes to empower citizens.” Van Es and De Lange (2020) emphasize the centrality of attentiveness in the datawalking method “to data infrastructures making them visible for critical scrutiny and reflection.”
2.1 Definitions
Definitions are presented here for key terms used, based on the focus of the literature reviewed and the research conducted in this chapter. Additional terms with definitions, as articulated by this work, are included in the Key Terms and Definitions Section at the end of this chapter.
Ambient Methodologies: This work advances ambient methodologies as approaches for the study and implementation of smart cities, taking aware people and aware technologies into consideration.
InVisibilities: The practice of InVisibilities as conceptualized in this work highlights approaches to working with the interwoven, interconnected, and interdependent nature of invisibilities and visibilities in smart cities and regions.
Urban Methodologies: Urban methodologies are extended in this work to conceptualize smart cities and regions as encompassing understandings of both people and technologies as smart, while accommodating spaces for enhancements, enrichments, and augmentations.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Visibilities: Visibilities refer to physical and other visible urban elements and infrastructures.
Attuning: Attuning refers to the concept or quality of being attuned and aware as it applies to people on the one hand, to technologies on the other, within physical and digital spaces and networks.
Ambient Spaces: Ambient spaces refer to more adaptive conceptualizations in support of awareness in relation to people and awareness-enabled and enabling technologies informing urban design involving the physical, digital, augmented, and the like.
Ambient Visibilities/Invisibilities: Ambient visibilities/invisibilities refer to urban elements accommodating more aware people and awareness-enabled technologies encompassing the physical, the digital, and the less tangible.
Smart Cities: Smart cities are urban areas and regions characterized by more aware and engaged people, interacting with each other and aided by the use of more awareness enhancing technologies for a wide range of purposes from communication to design to atmospheres to mobility to livability, to governance, to data generation and use for learning and informed decision-making.
Invisibilities: Invisibilities refer to urban elements that are rendered invisible or that may present as intangibles.
Ambient Methodologies: Ambient methodologies refer to more adaptive approaches to exploration of awareness in relation to people and awareness-enabled and enabling technologies encompassing the physical, digital, and less tangible, while being attentive to ambiences, atmospheres, augmentations, emotion/affect, and the like.