You can watch the forty-first Parlour LAB here!

In this session we explored how data is reshaping our built environment, and what the social, spatial, and ethical implications are of designing cities with data.

The key message from speakers is that technology is a tool, with both opportunities and challenges, but it must be grounded in context - historical, social, cultural, and political - to ensure that tool is used positively and does not add disadvantage or marginalisation. Some more points are:

Smart is one ideology driving city making approach
To make it more equitable utilise bottom up data collection, co-produce data and analysis, and ensure the data and its collection is grounded in context
Be specific about how much data is collected and why (so it is not over-collected, or certain populations are not overly surveiled)
Data-driven city making looks different in different parts of the world. In India, look to NGOs for how they use data for empowerment and inclusion. There are also interesting examples of citizen led, democratic data use in Barcelona and Dublin