Marna ParodiThe maps of the living neighborhoods – a study of
Genoa through social media
PechaKucha Night Genova Vol. 5April 19, 2013@ La Claque
The author
I am neither an urban studies scholar nor a social media expert, just a user of both.
One day, I was walking in my city and reading my Twitter feed when I found out about Livehoods.
Tonight I’m here at PechaKucha to show you why it caught my attention
Proposal
• To export to Genoa “Livehoods”, an urban computing research project started in 2012 by Carnegie Mellon University
• Livehoods analyses data generated by city residents through smartphones (via Foursquare) and creates thematic maps that not always coincide with the municipal boundaries, but often better match the perceptions people have about their environment
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The Livehoods project
“The character of an urban area is defined not just by the types of places found there, but also by the people who make the area part of their daily
routine” (*)(*) J. Cranshaw, R. Schwartz, J. Hong, N. Sadeh, “The Livehoods Project: Utilizing Social Media to Understand the Dynamics of a City”, in Proc. of the 6th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM-12), Dublin, Ireland, June 2012.
Livehoods and Foursquare
One of my daily routines, is to check-in with Foursquare, as I did tonight, right in this theatre
Foursquare allows users to do a mobile check-in to an existing
venue or to create a new venue chosen among several
categories
Livehoods and Foursquare
You usually let your friends know where you are and you might also like to meet other people who share your habits
And you can compete with yourself or others, in order to gain mayorships and badges
(gamification)
Livehoods and Foursquare
You can use Foursquare to enhance your
business
You can use and develop applications to do
analytics
Sometimes both purposes are interconnected
The Livehoods projectThese devices are “changing how we interact
with each other and the environment, the city. On the other hand, using these devices and their applications we’re creating data that helps us better understand the city” (Cranshaw, 2012)
Cities are densely populated and have a spatial sociocultural variability, they have neighborhoods
The Livehoods project
Cities are complex and neighborhoods provide a sort of order in the chaos of the city, they create
boundaries and bonds
They provide a sense of territory
They are centers of commerce and economic development
They give cultural identity to the people that live there
The Livehoods project
Neighborhoods develop naturally but are also shaped by political and community forces and
organizations.A structured and sometimes static approach is necessary for municipal governments to have a point of reference or future objective.
But neighborhoods can evolve fast:“moving elements in a city, and in particular the people and their activities, are as important as the stationary physical parts.” (Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, 1960)
The Livehoods project
Neighborhoods are interiorly defined in
mental maps by their residents:
“we are constantly engaged in the
attempt to organize our surroundings, to
structure and identify them.” (Kevin Lynch,
The Image of the City, 1960).
Livehoods can help, “to find automated ways of discovering this local cultural knowledge and to actually be able to build these cognitive maps
from data.” (Cranshaw, 2012)
The Livehoods project
Livehoods reveal how the people and places of a city come together to form the dynamic and individual
character of local urban areas
The patterns of people check-ins determine the shapes of Livehoods.
If many of the same people check-in to two nearby locations, then these locations will likely
be part of the same livehood
Related livehoods
Once data are aggregated into clusters, you can also measure the relationships between each livehood
It is interesting to search the maps for related livehoods and find out the behaviors that generated this link
Livehoods - evaluation
3 outcomes, checked against the perceptions of the residents:- one municipal
neighborhood is split into several livehoods
- one livehood spills across the boundaries of more municipal neighborhoods
- municipal neighborhood and livehood match
Livehoods - evaluation
Split patterns often show the different demographics or different functions that operate in a certain areaSpilled patterns typically reveal areas that are in transition, or borders that are in fluxCorresponding patterns indicate the strong influence municipal borders and geography have over local social interactions
It would be interesting to see a Livehoods map of the Fiumara area and the surroundings, 15 years after the start of the urban requalification project
Livehoods in Genoa: Fiumara
Livehoods in Genoa: Fiumara
This project is one of the most important urban renewal intervention in recent years:
administrative center, sports hall, public park, car parks, movie theatre and entertainment center,
residential use buildings
Some of the Fiumara Foursquare venues
Livehoods in Genoa: Fiumara
Lower penetration rate of smartphones and fewer tech-savvy habits can be a severe limitation in this project
On the other hand, social mobilization can be obtained using incentives, giving a purpose to the game (monetary rewards, entertainment, social recognition)
Fiumara according to the designers
Fiumara as lived by the people (simulation)
• are they one and the same?
• why do people go there?• who hangs around there?• what are its actual
borders?
Livehoods in Genoa: Fiumara
• Geographic boundaries?
• Demographic (age, census)?
• Development and resources (investments, businesses)?
Livehoods in Genoa: Fiumara
What factors can shape the Livehood(s) found in the Fiumara area and its surroundings?
Genoa first European city on Livehoods?
Only 8 cities are currently (April 2013)
mapped on Livehoods, all of
which are in North America.
Let’s vote for Genoa on the
Livehoods Facebook question page (*) and let’s start a project!
(*) Livehoods poll on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/questions/249090495209410/