The new way of mapping a city. I would like to start by asking you a…
By: Koen Scholten
Tags: Instagram, Mapping, Future, Cities, Social Media

[1](Mapping a City, 2004)

I would like to start by asking you a question. Do you ever share photos when you are on vacation on social media, for example on Instagram? I do, I was in Budapest recently where I posted a few stories and shared photos in front of the famous palace of Budapest. Instagram has only been around for a few years, but cities have been around for thousands of years. In the beginning, cities were built because there was a river with drinking water nearby, or fertile soil around the city. But people really started to look at cities in Roman times. They suddenly started looking at the infrastructure, the architecture and the layout of cities. This was the start of urban management. For urban management you need to be able to understand, read and map a city. The advantage is that this has become much easier in recent decades with the advent of technology.

This article will gives you an insight into the capacities of new technologies when it comes to mapping a city. I do this through 3 articles that are relevant to this topic. I have scientifically substantiated this by dealing with 3 relevant articles and link these articles with my own insights. The three articles that I use are;

- Rose, G. (2014). Visual Culture, Photography and the Urban: An Interpretative Framework, Space and Culture, India, 2(3), 4–13.

- Nadav Hochman Lev Manovich (2013), “Zooming into an Instagram city: Reading the local through social media”, First Monday, Vol. 18: 7.

- The website http://on-broadway.nyc/

Firstly, we discuss the article “Rose, G. (2014). Visual Culture, Photography and the Urban: An Interpretative Framework, Space and Culture, India, 2(3), 4–13.” The research has shown that photograph can be understood as having three main relations with the urban. They can represent, evoke and perform urban places. [2](Rose, 2014)

I would like to use the following photo to explain this further.

[3](Gaypride Amsterdam, 2018)

This photo represent Amsterdam because Amsterdam has always been one of the most free cities in the world. Everyone can be who they want to be. However, this photo does not represent Amsterdam just because of the fact that the gaypride has been organized in Amsterdam for a long time but also for the canals where the boats floats and the typical canal houses. Besides that this photo represents Amsterdam, it could also be that this evokes emotions or thoughts in people. The feelings about the importance that everyone should be able to be themselves. Not only in Amsterdam but all over the world this must be the goal. Thereafter, it’s also possible that this photo perform the urban place. I personally like that, each person read at a photo differently.

Secondly, we discuss the article “Nadav Hochman Lev Manovich (2013), Zooming into an Instagram city: Reading the local through social media”. This article explains all the capabilities of Instagram. Mainly what you can do with all the data you can collect from Instagram. They discussed the Instagram platform as a software artifact, analyzing its interface, affordances and the user experience. They Used large sets of Instagram photos for their case study and showed how visual social media can be analyzed at multiple spatial and temporal scales. [4] (Manovich, 2013)

I will explain this further with the help of an example. Suppose you are a city marketer and you have to investigate the peak hours of the busiest places in the city. In the past you would have to visit these different places and measure the peak hours. Nowadays, through Instagram and all the different functions on this platform, you can easily find out what the busiest places in a city are and see what the peak hours are at the different places. This is just an example of what you can do with Instagram when it comes to mapping a city.

Thirdly, I would like to continue on this topic. concerns my last relevant article namely On Broadway project. This is not really an article but a website where they show you a project they did on the street ‘Broadway’ in Manhattan New York. They show in an interactive installation a representation of life in the 21st Century city. They used 13 different layers in the project, all tuned to locations along Broadway.

[5] (On Broadway, 2017)

When you are on the application you move along the street. You will then see a selection of Instagram photos of each area from left to right and on top of that you will get Google Street view images. At first you only see the extracted top colors of the photos, but the further you zoom in, the more details you see. They also show the average number of taxi pickups, twitter messages with images and the average income for the parts of the city that are crossed by Broadway. To facilitate the use of the application, they have added extra layers with the names of neighborhoods in Manhattan and important monuments. [6](On Broadway, 2017). This project is the perfect example what the capabilities of the daily technologies are regarding mapping a city.

Finally, can you conclude that by the device in your pocket on which you may be reading this article has many benefits for city marketers, municipalities and governments. They can find out so much information without the users of these technologies knowing it. That is perhaps the downside to it, because if city marketers, municipalities and governments can do it, companies can do it too. What do all these companies do with all that ‘personal’ information? Is it ‘personal’ if you use their application? Fortunately, we can always decide for ourselves which applications we use and what we share on them!

References

[1](2004). Opgehaald van Mapping a City: https://www.hatjecantz.de/mapping-a-city-1407-1.html?article_id=1407&clang=1

[2] Rose, G. (2014). Visual Culture, Photgraphy and the Urban: An interpretative Framework, Space and Culture. India.

[3](2018). Opgehaald van Gaypride Amsterdam: https://www.yourlittleblackbook.me/nl/gay-pride-2018-amsterdam/

[4]Manovich, N. H. (2013). Zooming into an instagram city: reading the local through social media. First monday.

[5](2017). Opgehaald van On Broadway: http://on-broadway.nyc/

[6](2017). Opgehaald van On Broadway: http://on-broadway.nyc/