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| "Chicago: City of Big Data" chicagoarchitecture.org |
Welcome to a new week. I was checking the page view count today and I saw we're at 12,385. I'm thinking we can do 15,000 page views by then end of summer, what do you think? Moving on, today's post is about big data as the new frontier in historic preservation. This is the subject of a March 4, 2014 post by Mike Powe for the Preservation Leadership Forum. As part of today's post I want to mention the "Chicago: City of Big Data" exhibit currently up Chicago Architecture Forum Atrium. What is "Big Data" and what can it do for historic preservation?
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| Big Data Exhibit Landon Bone Baker, architect landonbonebaker.com |
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| "Chicago: City of Big Data" dashboard dataconomy.com |
Let's first define what the term Big Data means. Mr. Powe defines the term using a 2012 New York Times primer on the topic which suggests that Big Data is "a meme and marketing term, for sure, but also shorthand for advancing trends in technology that open the door to a new approach to understanding the world and making decisions." To illustrate the point about how much data collection has grown, Mr. Powe cites an estimate published in Foreign Affairs which stated that in 2000 only 25% of information was digitized; currently less than 2% is not digitized. This is a huge reversal. Even as bottomless quantities of data are being processed, right now, for private gain, Mike Powe argues that Big Data potentially provide great benefit for the public. In the United States, for example, government agencies are releasing information for public and commercial interests in every sphere of the public sector.
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| Cover to MyHistoricLA preservation.lacity.org |
How can Big Data enhance historic preservation efforts? The answer is Big Data can help gather catalogs of historic resources, lead to smarter preservation polices, and engage a wide spectrum of the public with information about the nature of their towns and cities. Mr. Powe then give us an outline of how we can use Big Data to support preservation:
1) The world of Big Data allows us to develop and implement new survey tools that use smartphones and tablets to catalog resources. In Los Angeles, the Office of Historic Resources, a division of the Department of Planning, is conducting a citywide survey called Survey LA which involves photographing and documenting resources using tablet computers and smartphones. Residents are encouraged to participate by collecting the information and uploading the information directly into a citywide database that will eventually be completely mapped and searchable. In Muncie, Indiana Donovan Rypkema and Cara Bertron of PlaceEconomics are using a pilot analytic tool called ReLocal. Here, teams of volunteers collect property information using mobile devices, describing the condition of the building and neighborhood. Once all the data is put together, the ReLocal data was used to create a strategy with recommendations for fostering stable and sustainable communities throughout Muncie.
2) Big Data creates new opportunities to demonstrate how older buildings support sustainability and vitality. Many large American cities recently began mandating public disclosure of energy use in buildings. The information that came out concluded that older buildings performed as well or better than newer buildings in terms of energy usage. The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Preservation Green Lab provided empirical support for the oft-quoted Carl Elefante aphorism, "the greenest building is the one that already exists. Now here's the data to support it.
3) Big Data can used to present information about the historic resources of communities in novel, alluring ways that engage large public audience. During the last year, city maps presenting the age of buildings have captured a great deal of attention over the web. Publications such as
The Atlantic Cities, the Wired MapLab blog, Gizmodo, Curbed, New York Magazine, and so on have published articles highlighting maps of cities' historic development. It's fascinating to look at historic maps of New York or Chicago and see how those cities have grown and changed over the last fifty or hundred years. Wired MapLab blog has even provided a step-by-step guide for readers interested in creating a building age map of their hometown.
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| Grid map blog.preservationleadershipforum.org |
Like anything, Big Data has its limits. At the macro-level, the information collected from real time sources can help a city see general trends and draw correlations between measures. What Big Data can't do is help us comprehend why things are the way they are. Causation is more difficult to discern than basic correlation and coincidence. Next, there is the issue of accuracy. When faced with reams of informations, it's common to disregard the fact that some of the data may be missing or wrong. When focusing in on a large dataset, you still need to check the veracity of the information on ground. Last, Big Data can be a powerful tool for informing discussions but the job of interpreting the information still requires creativity, patience, and knowledge. Regardless of how huge the dataset is, it takes a real amount of dedication and persistence to make the data mean something and make a difference.
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| Chicago "Big Data" chicagotribune.com |
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| blogs.loc,gov |
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