Introducing the Digital City Audit (DCA) Project Martin Dodge ([email protected]) Practical 4, Friday 29th October 2004 .

Introducing the Digital City Audit (DCA) Project

Martin Dodge([email protected])

Practical 4, Friday 29th October 2004

http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/cyberspace

3011: Geographies of Cyberspace

The emerging ‘digital city’ - remaking urban space and

cyberspace

“By the year 2050, everything around us will be some form of computer. … As planners we are accustomed

to using computers to advance our science and art but it would appear that the city itself is turning into a

constellation of computers.”

Michael Batty, ‘Computable City’ (1995), http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/casa/melbourne.html

Objectives of the DCA• getting you thinking about the diversity of infrastructure in the

streets around us. think about how people are using the infrastructure

• what is the geography of cyber infrastructure at the micro scale? how is it distributed?

• who owns urban cyberspace?• how dependent is city life on cyberspace? how vulnerable are

people if something goes wrong?• you will be contributing useful baseline data on geographies of

cyberspace • team working skills and project management• surveying skills• mapping, design/graphics, extending website building skills

What is the DCA project?

• a group project for the practicals after reading week

• survey and map all the visible digital infrastructure in the local urban environment

• work in teams of 3/4 • 1 x practical carrying out a detailed street survey• 2 x practicals to do mapping and make a website• 1 x presentation of your findings• this forms the assessed course work and is a

compulsory part of the course. It is worth 50%

Assessment of DCA project• based on the performance of the group and your individual activity

in the group

• fieldwork attendance : 10%• practical attendance : 10%• website and presentation : 40%• individual report : 40%• ------------------------------------------------• total : 100%

• you all write an individual report summarising the work of your group and your own interpretations

• maximum 1,500 words• submission of this report is Wed. 12th January 2005

Time schedule of the DCA

• Friday 29 Oct. : this introduction• Friday 5 Nov. : DCA fieldwork• [Reading Week]• Friday 19 Nov.: DCA mapping• Friday 26 Nov.: CCTV control centre visit• Friday 3 Dec.: DCA mapping / website• Friday 10 Dec.: presentation your DCA

findings

Things you need to audit• 1. phone boxes - ordinary phone boxes; broken phone boxes;

new broadband/email phone boxes (they have a keyboard); info kiosks

• 2. bank ATMs• 3. CCTV security cameras• 4. traffic cameras (CC, speeding, red-light)• 5. satellite dishes (small Sky ones on side of buildings, also

bigger white telecommunications dishes on roofs)• 6. microwave dishes on roofs• 7. mobile phone antennas on roofs• 8. digital bus information screens• 9. Any other obvious digital technology

What does this stuff look like?

• typical mobile phone antennas, tall, thin

• typical microwave dishes

Types of cameras to look out for

typical fixed, doorway monitoring camera

panning & swivel cameras

cameras inside dome

CCTV camera spotting• try to get as detailed and accurate survey of

cameras as possible• survey 4 key criteria :

– position (x,y location, plus height)– type (fixed, movable, dome, with light)– purpose (door way monitor, car park, street)– ownership (according to the type building they are

mounted on)

– plus any evidence of warning signs? what do the signs say?

Cyberspace is all around us

• Its very easy to ignore local environment

• not just ground level. look on lamp posts, on walls, in door recesses, above street height,

• look up - stuff high on buildings, on roofs• note, we are only surveying public space• obviously we can’t tell where all the stuff is

underground• think about the relationship between infrastructure

and local environmental settings and social geography of the area

Urban environmental context• think about the the type of streets

• is it retail, residential, commercial• what is the traffic level (vehicle, pedestrian)?• does it feel safe? any signs of graffiti / vandalism?• any ‘high tech’ buildings, any businesses offer wifi

access

Ethnography of technology use

• focus on mobile phone use• try to note the types people and where they are• are they waiting, on the move. alone or in a group• also, do you see anyone using a phone box?

DCA survey areas - 8 groups

each group gets a different area

Size of your survey area

• 1/4 km square chunk of Bloomsbury

• detailed printed base maps on the day of the survey to mark up

Optional - take some photos

• if someone in your group has a digital camera and would like to take photos for the DCA survey

• can used on your groups’ website • of course, you’ll need to note where the

photos were taken and what they show

Some fieldwork guidance• most of Bloomsbury is pretty safe, but be alert & wary• stay on public streets. do not go into any buildings or

onto private land (e.g. court yards, beer gardens)• wear warm clothing, be prepared for rain • stay together at all the times• carry your UCL id. If asked, tell people politely you are

doing a small survey for a geography course• if you get any hassle, make a polite excuse and walk

away• don’t trip over or walk into a lamp post; don’t get

arrested; don’t fall under a bus

Rest of this practical• form into teams and signup on the sheet

• assigned a survey area

• read and sign the risk assessment form

• then working in your team, undertake a range of fieldwork preparation, gathering background information

Fieldwork preparation• download the base map for your area• think about how to do the street survey, in particular the

coding scheme you will use during the fieldwork and labelling the map to go on the web

• evaluate some CCTV mapping projects• look for any traffic cams or webcams in your study area• try to find any ATMs in your study area• see if there are any mobile phone masts in your study area• check out pollution data websites for local area• look for useful contextual socio-economic data on Bloomsbury• try to find a aerial photograph of your study area

Download base map

• I suggest you choose one person in the group to use their WTS account to kept DCA materials for map-making and the website

• once you’ve been assigned a survey area, go to www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/cyberspace/digital_city/

• download the files tx.png and tx_big.png, where ‘x’ is the number of your area

• note, large printed versions will be handed out next Friday, at the start of the fieldwork

CCTV camera mapping projects

Evaluate CCTV mapping schemes

• go to:• NY Surveillance Camera Players -

www.notbored.org/scp-maps.html

• Amsterdam map - www.spotthecam.nl

• Institute for Applied Autonomy, iSee interactive map for Manhattan (‘Routes of Least Surveillance’) www.appliedautonomy.com/isee/ [use IE, not netscape for this site]

Take a read of this guidewww.notbored.org/map-making.html

BBC London's Jam Camswww.bbc.co.uk/london/travel/jamcams/

• try out this site,• are they any traffic cameras in the survey area?

Safety (speed) camerashttp://www.lscp.org.uk/swf/locations.asp

• try out this site,• are they any speed cameras in the survey area?

‘Real-time’ visual monitoring of London from

cyberspace• webcams (near-real time)– personal (fun); tourist promotional; business promotional;

traffic cams

• some sources to look for cams in central London try to find webcams in

the Bloomsbury area– www.londonwebcam.com– www.bbc.co.uk/webcams– www.camvista.com– can you find any more (Google??)

Any ATMs in your study area?• Use the ATM Locator,

www.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?client=link

• VISA ‘Find a cash machine’ www.visaeu.com/main.html

Sitefinder, an interactive map of mobile phone antennas www.sitefinder.radio.gov.uk

• see if you can find any mobile phone antennas in your survey area. they are shown as little blue triangles

• who owns them? how high are they?

• be sure to look for them when you do the fieldwork

Contextual data sources• what might be the relationship between cyberspace

infrastructure and other socio-demographic characteristics? E.g. is there more CCTV in ‘rich’ or ‘poor’ areas?

• there are quite a number publicly available (free) sources on the web that might be useful

• but need to think at what spatial / temporal scales is the data collected and released?

• do any of these sources provide data specific enough to your team’s survey area?

• think about how you might incorporate some of this data into your DCA website?

• UpMyStreet provides useful socio-economic and geodemographic data for small areas. searchable by postcode (www.upmystreet.co.uk)

Find an aerial photograph for the area

• from www.multimap.com and GetMapping

Pollution and noise data• some sources to look for pollution in or

around Camden. try them yourself– www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/home.asp

– www.londonnoisemap.com/

Digimap data? Anyone remember this from last year