Prof Michael Batty
Bartlett Professor of Planning and Chairman, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, EnglandBig Data and Urban Analytics: New Tools for Understanding and Planning the Smart City
The most recent wave of computation in contemporary societies involves the application of new digital technologies to the public domain where the idea of automating the city and its functions has now become central to urban planning. The so-called smart city which is the label used for these collective technologies is based on the embedding of a multitude of passive and active sensors into the built environment which is producing vast quantities of data in space and time through real time streaming. This data is ‘big’ in the volumetric sense and it is also complete in that is rarely related to any sampling of these data volumes. Moreover, it is changing our conception of the city from thinking about urban changes in the medium or long term to the short term and the routine – to the hourly and daily cycle of activities – which in turn is changing the very things that we seek to plan and optimize (Batty, 2016). To an extent this also represents a change in scale for where time scale are very short, spatial scales are also shorter and this the focus is on much more local spatial environments. In this presentation, I will begin with a conceptual model of the smart city, talk about real time streaming and the kinds of sensors that are now being employed to generate new data. I will review the problems and potential of this data and the kinds of model that are need to look at movement and change in the 24-hour city. I will present some examples from our work on transit systems where there is much transit data dealing with real time streaming showing examples in Singapore, London and Beijing, and work on social media for large cities and how we develop portals or dashboards to such examples while also exploring new forms of participation, crowdsourcing and open data that are enriching the data that we have at our disposal. I will conclude with ideas about how the real time city can contribute to our understanding of longer time periods and urban change.Reference: Batty, M. (2016) Big Data and the City, Built Environment, 42, 3, 321-337.
Biography
Michael Batty has worked on computer models of cities and their visualisation since the 1970s and has published several books, such as Cities and Complexity (MIT Press, 2005) which won the Alonso Prize of the Regional Science Association in 2011, and most recently The New Science of Cities (MIT Press, 2013). His blogs www.complexcity.info cover the science underpinning the technology of cities and his posts and lectures on big data and smart cities are at www.spatialcomplexity.info. His research group is working on simulating long term structural change and dynamics in cities as well as their visualisation. Prior to his current position, he was Professor of City Planning and Dean at the University of Wales at Cardiff and then Director of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the Royal Society (FRS), was awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2004 and the 2013 recipient of the Lauréat Prix International de Géographie Vautrin Lud (generally known as the 'Nobel de Géographie'). In 2015 he received the Founders Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his work on the science of cities and the Gold Medal of the Royal Town Planning Institute in 2016.
Emeritus Prof John Holmes
Emeritus Professor, The University of Queensland, AustraliaBrisbane: The River City
For good reason, Brisbane currently identifies itself as The River City, recognising the pivotal role of its tidal-influenced broad river with its sequence of grand meanders in shaping urban structure, circulation systems, residential character, daily living and recreational opportunities. This recent self-designation invites scrutiny on two matters: firstly, the role of the river in shaping Brisbane’s distinctive character and internal structure; and secondly, the extent to which the city’s history can be appraised by recognising three markedly differentiated eras in the city’s relations to its river: the first era being notable for its strong orientation and near-total dependence on its riverine links; the second being characterised by its diminished reliance and increasing neglect of its river; and the third being a reawakening to the value of the river as the prime natural asset in refashioning Brisbane as “The Liveable City” and “The River City”, progressively pursued over the last three decades, most clearly evidenced in the riverside siting of almost all significant cultural and recreational assets. These recent transformations are shown in locationally matched photographs of prime locales in the early 1970s with contemporary views.Note: This is an updated and expanded script from Holmes, J. (1990) “Meanders, reaches, bights and pockets: the influence of a serpentine river’ In: Davie, P., Stock, E. and Low Choy, D. (eds) The Brisbane River: A Sourcebook for the Future. Brisbane: Australian Littoral Society with Queensland Museum.
Biography
John Holmes was Professor of Geography from 1971 to 1995. In retirement, he continues with an active research and consultancy programme touching on: land tenures and property rights regimes in Australia’s rangelands; future resource directions in the tropical savannas, including contested futures for Cape York Peninsula; redirections in rural land ownership, land use and land markets tied to the multifunctional rural transition, evidenced by the emergence of consumption and protection values, contesting the former dominance of production values; and flux within the discipline of human geography. He is Chair of the Wildlife Land Fund which manages three properties for conservation values.
A/Prof Jay Johnson
Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Geography and Atmospheric Science, University of Kansas, USAHeeding the Call of Place: To Speak, To Create, and to Teach
Biography
JAY T. JOHNSON is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Geography and Atmospheric Science at the University of Kansas where he also directs the Center for Indigenous Research, Science, and Technology. His research focuses on Indigenous peoples' cultural survival, particularly in the areas of resource management, political activism at the national and international levels, and the philosophies and politics of place that underpin the drive for cultural survival. Much of his work is comparative in nature but has focused predominately on New Zealand, the Pacific, and North America. He and collaborator Soren Larsen have a book forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press entitled, Being together in place: Indigenous coexistence in a more-than-human world.
Prof Antonia Layard
Professor of Law, University of Bristol, EnglandScales of Brexit
Biography
I am a Law Professor working at the University of Bristol on the legal context of place-making, with a particular emphasis on how property law and other legal rules construct cities and 'the local' (even when we're unaware of this).My writing brings together law and geography to make one central point: that places are more than property. It suggests that we need a better understanding of laws of place and to think about how we imagine and enact public space. In my work on localism, I aim to deconstruct different understandings of 'the' local, while still reflecting on the very strong desire by many to belong to place.
This research underpins my teaching in Land Law, Planning Law and Environmental Law. My work webpage is available here. The research projects outlined here have been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as well as the University of Birmingham (2012-2013) and the University of Cardiff (2003-2012).
Prof Jo Little
Professor in Gender and Geography, University of Exeter, EnglandEveryday Geographies of Love and Fear in the Rural
In this paper I wish to contribute to critical geographies of love through a focus, somewhat paradoxically, on the experiences of those living with domestic violence. As noted by others, despite a now firmly established interest in emotions, geographers have given little explicit attention to the detailed performance of relationships of love or to their spatiality. Drawing on work with survivors of domestic violence, I argue that responses to fear can not be separated from the everyday routines and expectations of love in localized sites of body, home and community. I show how understandings of the rural and of gendered behaviour in the family contribute to the entanglement of love and violence and to the construction of ‘survivors’ emotions and bodies as chaotic and contradictory. In the paper I focus in particular on the ways in which an inability to separate love, violence and fear is reflected in the (lack of) mobility of victims and perpetrators of intimate violence.Biography
After completing BA (Wales) and PhD (Reading) degrees in Geography Jo lectured in rural planning at the University of the West of England. Since 1994 she has taught Geography at Exeter University where she is currently Professor of Gender and Geography. She has researched widely in issues of gender and sexuality in rural areas in the UK, and also worked on projects in New Zealand and Australia. She has developed work on the body in relation to geographies of health and fitness, focusing particularly on women’s running. Her current work is on domestic violence and fear in rural communities. Jo was Head of Department for 2 years from August 2011. She currently co-edits Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, one of the leading Geography journals.
Prof Jonathan Nott
College of Science & Engineering, Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Studies, James Cook University, AustraliaPolicy and Coastal Management – is the one size fits all approach adequate?
There are major geographic differences between coastal environments in the Australian tropics and sub-tropics. The State of Queensland covers both of these environments but these distinctly different regions are not adequately recognised within the State’s coastal management policies. Instead a one size fits all approach has been adopted to cover issues such as coastal erosion and the formulation and mapping of coastal erosion prone areas. The northern half of the State is bordered on its eastern side by the Great Barrier Reef resulting in a generally low wave energy regime. In contrast the State’s southern half experiences much higher wave energy conditions. This along with the higher prevalence of tropical cyclones in northern Queensland result in different styles of coastal erosion between the two regions. Yet the State has adopted an approach for estimating coastal erosion originally developed for coasts bordering the North Sea. The recent mapping of coastal erosion prone areas and the relatively substantial number of private dwellings, tourism and infrastructure facilities that now fall within these zones might have legal and social implications in the future. Recognising and Incorporating these relative geographical differences would help to improve these policies and approaches to managing this extensive coast.Biography
Professor Jonathan Nott is Professor of Geoscience, College of Science, Technology and Engineering, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia. He has held appointments at Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University) and the Australian National University. Professor Nott is a Member of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Australian Quaternary Association and formerly member of the National Committee for Quaternary Research Australian Academy of Science. Professor Nott undertakes research into extreme natural events such as river floods, tsunamis and tropical cyclones and specializes in post-event surveys both in Australia and overseas. He also specialises in reconstructing long-term natural records of these extreme events. These records provide a more realistic guide to the long-term behaviour of these hazards and can be used as a basis for estimating their return intervals and for risk assessment. Prof Nott has published many articles on these topics in international refereed journals and has provided the first detailed review of the techniques involved in reconstructing these long-term records in his book ‘Extreme Events’ published by Cambridge University Press in 2006.
A/Prof Gregory Simon
Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Denver, USAThe Rise of Disingenuous Nature: Characteristics, Causes and Consequences
In what many have described as a ‘post truth’ world riddled by a dizzying barrage of fake, and illusory information, a disturbing trend has emerged: within contemporary environmental governance, the utility of information to advance political beliefs, cultural biases and economic ideologies has become increasingly more important than preserving the veracity of the environmental information itself. Motivated by this current climate of instrumentalist obfuscation that has deep historical roots, this paper illuminates several inaccurate explanations of environmental change, and the stealthy yet influential – and oftentimes outdated and biased – sensibilities, values and epistemologies that undergird them. To make this argument, the concept of “disingenuous nature” is introduced. Disingenuous nature refers to the misaligned and oftentimes ineffective management practices and resulting biophysical conditions that emerge from environmental knowledge distortions and erroneous environmental narratives.Biography
Dr Gregory Simon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver. Dr Simon also holds Affiliate Faculty positions in several programs at the University of Colorado Boulder. He spent two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and has subsequently held visiting scholar positions at Stanford and UCLA. His research and teaching pursuits examine forms of social-ecological vulnerability in the context of profound economic, governance and environmental change. His current National Science Foundation funded projects are located in the American West and India. Among other professional appointments, Dr Simon is the Environment and Society Section Editor for the journal Geography Compass. He served as the Chair of the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers and has also been a Core Advisor to the United Nations Foundation. His most recent book is titled Flame and Fortune in the American West (2016) and is published with the University of California Press.
Prof Matt Zook
Professor and Director of GIS Initiatives, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, USAAttentional Social Media: Mapping the Spaces and Networks of the Fashion Industry
This presentation examines the spaces of the global fashion industry through its most fundamental attribute, the ability to gain attention. Utilizing a novel indicator of how fashion attention manifests -- social media -- we map the spatial contours of this key metric and examine the networks which bind this global industry. Paralleling what has been shown in other studies we find that the fashion industry attracts attention globally on social media but the geography of this attention is uneven across the industry, industry function and space. More novel is the ability of this research to examine subsets of the attentional dimension of the fashion industry -- attention to creatives, business management and marketing -- and how these clusters of attention interconnected between places. As such, this work represents a strategy for future research within cultural economies to study not just the location of creativity but how attention to this creativity differentially extends across space, connecting certain cities and sub-locations of cities, while bypassing others. Such an analysis also represents a means to study the spatiality of demand -- particularly within cultural economies -- to help balance some of the productionist and supply side bias in economic geography.Biography
Matthew Zook is a Professor of Economic and Information Geography at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. His interest centers on the impact of technology and innovation on human geography. For the past several years he has studied how the geoweb (particularly the practices surrounding user-generated data) and understanding where, when, and by whom geo-coded content is being created. He studies the interaction of code, space and place interact as people increasingly use of mobile, digital technologies to navigate through their everyday, lived geographies. His research blog floatingsheep.org is dedicated to mapping and analyzing user generated information about places to provide one glimpse of what the “internet” knows about particular places. He is the Director of the The DOLLY Project (Data On Local Life and You) is a repository of billions of geolocated tweets (and other social media) that allows for real-time research and analysis. He served as a Fulbright Scholar at Tartu University (Estonia) in 2013-14 and the State Geographer for the Commonwealth of Kentucky (2015) is spending the 2016-17 academic year visiting the University of Auckland.
Dr Adele Pavlidis
Griffith University, AustraliaFay Gale Memorial Lecture: Making ‘Space’ for Women in Sport: An Agenda for Australian Geography
From change rooms, to board rooms, sport fields to dance halls, sport happens somewhere – it is inherently spatial. While Australian geographers continue to make significant social and cultural impacts through a focus on spatiality, one area which has yet to be fully developed is the geography of sport. The work that has been undertaken on sport in rural communities, surfing (Waitt, 2008) and sport events (Waitt, 2003) has been hugely influential. Yet despite these contributions there is still considerable work to be done. Sport is an arena where geographers can, I argue, make broader, and importantly, bolder contributions. In fact, I contend, a concern with spatiality gives geographers a unique and critical insight into sport and its manifestation across scales from that of the global to the local.Much has been written about sport in the national Australian imaginary (Cashman, 2002). As Rowe notes, ‘Australia is a nation that is renowned for its attachment to sport…it is officially described as a sporting nation in its institutional and cultural – especially media – apparatus’ (2016, p. 3). At the same time masculine norms of sport culture, representation and management often go unquestioned. Women entering previously male dominated spaces contend with various structural and cultural barriers to entry and despite the increasing visibility of women in sport there remain a range of policies and practices (from the grassroots to professional levels of sport) that keep women out. Sport is one area of social life where learning to ‘lose’ is valued, however at present the concept of ‘sportsmanship’ remains gendered masculine.
Issues of mental and physical wellbeing and social exclusion are also entangled in notions of ‘sport’. Sport is used in schools, clubs, at local, national and international sites, as a tool for development, for ‘empowerment’, and for social inclusion and integration. Yet research in this area is often gender blind.
This lecture will focus on two current examples, the inaugural AFL Women’s season, and the forthcoming 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games to examine the ways ‘space’ is being made for women in sport. Drawing on interviews with women who play sport at grassroots and elite levels, together with ethnographic data, I will examine how these spaces are co-constitutive of practices and forms of subjectivity. I will demonstrate that who it is possible to be – ‘healthy’, ‘strong’, ‘butch’, ‘tough, ‘sexy’, ‘hot’, ‘winner’, ‘loser’— is dependent on the spaces that support various practices and identities. Moreover, I will explore how the interconnections between spatiality and subjectivity in the arena of sport are also inflected by relations of class, ability, race and sexuality.
In this way I will outline an agenda for a geography of sport in Australia – one that attends to gender, and indeed, bodies and affect (Pavlidis and Fullagar, 2014). Sport is central to our Australian cultural imaginary – our climate and geography, the allocation of public funding and facilities. In pursuing an agenda for a geography of sport in Australia key questions of identity and belonging can be opened up and new frontiers explored.
Biography
Dr Adele Pavlidis is an interdisciplinary sociologist working at the nexus of women and sport. Her PhD from Griffith University was conferred in 2013. Her first monograph (Routledge, co-authored with Simone Fullagar), entitled Sport, Gender and Power: The Rise of Roller Derby (2014) is a feminist exploration of the power relations in roller derby and an analysis of the ways power and affects shape the sport and the subjectivities of those involved. Her second monograph (2017, Palgrave, co-authored with Simone Fullagar and Wendy O’Brien) explores the feminist biopolitics of depression and recovery. Drawing on feminist perspectives of organisations, affect and emotion, and identity, Dr Pavlidis has also published her work in internationally reputable journals in the fields of sport and leisure. She is currently working on a project that examines the changing nature of sport competition as women’s participation in diverse contexts becomes more visible through mainstream, alternative and social media.Prior to Adele’s graduate studies she worked in the community sector as a youth worker, predominantly in crisis accommodation and alcohol and other drug services.
