Data Action: Using Data for Public Good

by Sarah Williams

Overview

How to use data as a tool for empowerment rather than oppression.

Big data can be used for good, from tracking disease to exposing human rights violations, and for bad, implementing surveillance and control. Data inevitably represents the ideologies of those who control its use; data analytics and algorithms too often exclude women, the poor, and ethnic groups. In Data Action, Sarah Williams provides a guide for working with data in more ethical and responsible ways. Williams outlines a method that emphasizes collaboration among data scientists, policy experts, data designers, and the public. The approach generates policy debates, influences civic decisions, and informs design to help ensure that the voices of people represented in the data are neither marginalized nor left unheard.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262545310
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	09/20/2022
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Sarah Williams is Associate Professor of Technology and Urban Planning at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, where she is also Director of the Civic Data Design Lab. Trained in geography, landscape architecture, and urban planning, she was named one of the Top 25 Leading Thinkers in Urban Planning and Technology by Planetizen and 2012 Game Changer by Metropolis Magazine. Her designs and visualizations have been widely exhibited.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Using Data Action ix
1 Big Data for Cities Is Not New 1
2 Build It! Data Is Never Raw, It's Collected 51
3 Hack It! Using Data Creatively 89
4 Share It! Communicating Data Insights 137
5 Data as a Public Good 187
Conclusion: It's How We Work with Data that Really Matters 213
Acknowledgments 223
Notes 227
Bibliography 251
Index 273

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Data Action—a perfect fusion of historical framing, critical reflection, and how-to instruction—powerfully demonstrates how collaborative, methodologically pluralistic, reflective, and publicly responsive modes of data design can incite civic change.”
—Shannon Mattern, Professor of Anthropology, The New School; author of Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: 5000 Years of Urban Media
 
“There is nobody who understands the theory and practice of engaged civic data visualization better than Sarah Williams. Her reflective, absolutely fearless guide to the complexities of knowledge and power in this often-thorny domain distills her decades of experience into a single, indispensable volume—a pure gift to the aspiring practitioner.”
— Adam Greenfield, author of Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life
 
“Data Action is a much needed, accessible guide to our complex digital world. Writing with clarity, Williams curates both appalling and inspiring examples to move us to act.”
— Annette Kim, Director of SLAB, Associate Professor at the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy
 
“Sarah Williams is an urbanist and a designer—and Data Action asks about the ways in which we can use data to reshape urban space. Some of them are not so good. For those interested in the history of the interactions between urban planning and spatial data, for better and for worse, this book tells a compelling story. You will learn to stand your ground and insist that data be used responsibly in making cities and urban life better. For Williams, this is a matter of the utmost ethical and political urgency, of action. So, she weaves her own design work and breathtaking maps into a complex history of geographic information systems, a field that needs to be reckoned with if we want to take action. Williams performs this reckoning with didactic precision and fresh design strategies that demand our attention.”
—Laura Kurgan, Professor of Architecture and Director, Center for Spatial Research, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University

Editorial Reviews

The work is accessible and uncomplicated. Readers will not get the sense that Williams is sitting alone in an armchair musing about her thoughts and generating ideas in isolation, but rather that her boots have been on the ground and her passport stamped. The narration is honest and transparent—Williams seems to know you’re busy, too—but inspiring for planners who find themselves hesitant to try something new. We need such encouragement.
Finally, this work is useful for the planning profession and discipline, especially for those who think algorithmic bias and data production issues are confined to Silicon Valley and are searching for a bridge to translate the power issues behind tech and data into urban planning terms. It is appropriate for urbanists, imaginative planning practitioners, academics, and students, and with its glossy pages, heaps of color figures, and landscape layout, the coffee table will enjoy it as well.”
— the Journal of the American Planning Association

“Data Action—a perfect fusion of historical framing, critical reflection, and how-to instruction—powerfully demonstrates how collaborative, methodologically pluralistic, reflective, and publicly responsive modes of data design can incite civic change.”
—Shannon Mattern, Professor of Anthropology, The New School; author of Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: 5000 Years of Urban Media
 
“There is nobody who understands the theory and practice of engaged civic data visualization better than Sarah Williams. Her reflective, absolutely fearless guide to the complexities of knowledge and power in this often-thorny domain distills her decades of experience into a single, indispensable volume—a pure gift to the aspiring practitioner.”
— Adam Greenfield, author of Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life
 
“Data Action is a much needed, accessible guide to our complex digital world. Writing with clarity, Williams curates both appalling and inspiring examples to move us to act.”
— Annette Kim, Director of SLAB, Associate Professor at the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy
 
“Sarah Williams is an urbanist and a designer—and Data Action asks about the ways in which we can use data to reshape urban space. Some of them are not so good. For those interested in the history of the interactions between urban planning and spatial data, for better and for worse, this book tells a compelling story. You will learn to stand your ground and insist that data be used responsibly in making cities and urban life better. For Williams, this is a matter of the utmost ethical and political urgency, of action. So, she weaves her own design work and breathtaking maps into a complex history of geographic information systems, a field that needs to be reckoned with if we want to take action. Williams performs this reckoning with didactic precision and fresh design strategies that demand our attention.”
—Laura Kurgan, Professor of Architecture and Director, Center for Spatial Research, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University

From the Publisher