Evaluating Urban Sensing Within Engaged Planning and Design

Abstract

Civic technology models propose that urban environmental sensing and analysis can inform community-based decision making, but technology-driven planning and design is still subject to systemic challenges including a lack of community trust and local government capacities. This chapter examines the problem of integrating urban sensing into engaged planning and design. The authors assess the outcomes of two planning and design efforts in Virginia, USA utilizing the community-centered urban sensing (CCUS) and engagement platform. Developed by planners, urban designers, landscape architects, and data scientists at the University of Virginia, CCUS addresses the need for actionable information on the urban environment through community-engaged urban data collection and analysis. The cases provide evidence for the importance of engagement around sensing itself. Based on these findings, the authors propose a conceptualization of urban sensing applications that accounts for a range of local contexts from high capacity and trust to dysfunction and mistrust.