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Thinking Through People: The Potential of Volunteered Geographic Information for Mobility and Urban Studies

Place of residence in a «residential factory,» pathway to work on a weekday in July, and place of work for study participant «Amusa,» an employed woman in her late thirties (clockwise from top left). © Lindsay Blair Howe, ETH Zurich

Lindsay Blair Howe
2021

Despite the ‘mobility turn’ in urban studies, there is surprisingly little research into the role people’s everyday movements play in driving urbanisation processes.

As this paper discusses, one reason this has not occurred is because understanding this relationship requires both quantitative and qualitative knowledge, including geospatial locations and patterns as well as why people choose to move the way they do.

Few studies employ mixed methods to this end; instead, many quantitative approaches focus on the use of big data and many qualitative approaches remain focused on sites themselves rather than the movements between them. This methodological gap can preclude operationalising findings and proves particularly detrimental when research is conducted into areas with high levels of poverty and inequality. In response, this paper presents a mixed-methods approach to studying urbanisation, using volunteered geographic information (VGI) to map regional-scale movements in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR). Exploiting the potential of smartphone technology, this methodology operates at the interstice of quantitative and qualitative research, describing both macro-scale mobility patterns and the micro-scale decisions behind them. Using the case study of the GCR, it highlights movement as a strategy for those living in poverty, who can utilise the entire region as a resource to subvert entrenched inequality. ‘Thinking through people’ suggests that a new ontology of categories describing urbanisation processes in terms of movement could connect empirical research into poverty and inequality to theory, and be used to create an epistemology of the urban from below. Thus, this paper contributes to advances in urban studies methods as well as to debates on urbanisation, relational poverty and socio-spatial inequality.

One week mapping the movements of all thirty participants in the first VGI smartphone study in the greater Johannesburg area from 8 July – 14 July 2015. Modes of transportation are indicated by polyline colors; primarily visible are green for vehicular transportation and blue for walking. The home locations of the participants are indicated with orange dots. © Lindsay Blair Howe, ETH Zurich
One week mapping the movements of all thirty participants in the first VGI smartphone study in the greater Johannesburg area from 8 July – 14 July 2015. Modes of transportation are indicated by polyline colors; primarily visible are green for vehicular transportation and blue for walking. The home locations of the participants are indicated with orange dots. © Lindsay Blair Howe, ETH Zurich

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This article has been published in the following newsletter edition:

52 | Dezember 2021: Risiko / Risk

  • Towards the Unfinished – Dynamic Design for Landscapes at Risk
  • Mountain Forest Ecosystem Services at Risk
  • Investing in Water Supply Resilience Considering Future Uncertainty and Management Flexibility
  • Irrigation Commons: What Lessons for Sustainable Risk Mitigation?
  • «The NSL provides a great platform.»
Kurzmeldungen
  • Co-opolis: The Collective Production of the City
  • NSL Forum: Pandemie? Mitten im Klimawandel. Was bedeutet das für die räumliche Entwicklung der Schweiz? Ein Dialog.
  • Gründung upZ (urban publics Zürich)
  • Verkehrs-Pricing im Feldversuch
  • Urban Transformation Project Sarajevo (UTPS)
Publikationen
  • Thinking Through People: The Potential of Volunteered Geographic Information for Mobility and Urban Studies
  • disP 57/2, June 2021
  • Robotic Landscapes – Designing the Unfinished
  • Fest, Flüssig, Biotisch. Alpine Landschaften im Wandel
  • Ride Comfort Assessment for Automated Vehicles Utilizing a Road Surface Model and Monte Carlo Simulations
  • Urban Design in the 20th Century: A History
Aktuell

Chairs

Prof. Dr. Bryan T. Adey
Prof. Dr. Kay W. Axhausen
Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete
Prof. Maria Conen
Prof. Dr. Francesco Corman
Dr. Jennifer Duyne Barenstein
Prof. Teresa Galí-Izard
Prof. Dr. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey
Prof. Dr. Guillaume Habert
Prof. Dr. David Kaufmann
Prof. Hubert Klumpner
Dr. Anastasios Kouvelas
Prof. Freek Persyn
Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid
Prof. Milica Topalovic
EiR PD Dr. Joris Van Wezemael
Prof. em Dr. h. c. Günther Vogt
ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE

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