Urban Informatics: Critical Data and Technology Considerations

Cities around the world are investing significant resources toward making themselves smarter. In most cases, investments focus on leveraging data through emerging technologies that enable more real-time, automated, predictive, and intelligent decision-making by agents (humans) and objects (devices) within the city. Increasing the connectivity between the various systems and sub-systems of the city through integrative data and information management is also a critical undertaking towards making cities more intelligent. In this chapter, we frame cities as platforms. Specifically, we focus on how data and technology management is critical to the functioning of a city as an agile, adaptable, and scalable platform. The objective of this chapter is to raise your awareness of critical data and technology considerations that still need to be addressed if we are to realize the full potential of urban informatics.