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CityLab:
The complex relationship between data and cities

18 May 2016

There's been no shortage of hype about the relationship between cities and data, especially so-called big data. For large numbers of tech companies, cities, and even a growing number of urbanists, data promises to solve all manner of urban problems, from predictive policing to improving traffic flow to promoting energy efficiency. An even bigger potential role for new kinds of data lies in helping researchers and policy-makers better understand how cities and neighborhoods grow and evolve - but only if done right.
Not all data from new sources qualifies as ''big data'', which - as its name implies - refers to truly massive amounts of information. Max Nathan of the London School of Economics breaks down actual big data into three key categories: internet data from sites like Yelp, Twitter, or Google and other commercial data, government-sponsored data collected by cities or towns, and Census and related data.

This article was published online by CityLab on May 18, 2016
Link to article here

Related publications
Mapping Digital Businesses with Big Data: some early findings from the UK, Max Nathan and Anna Rosso, Research Policy, 44(9), November 2015.

Related links
Max Nathan webpage
Urban Programme webpage

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