WUF10: To leave no one behind, urban areas need cleverly conceived digital instruments!

In terms of understanding, the “Urban Environment & Social Inclusion Index” is a tool that has been developed by the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness at Yale and Data-Driven Lab at the National University of Singapore. It uses OpenStreetMap to correlate factors that show how environment is linked to inequality, for example, where poorer areas have less trees, and thereby also are less resilient to climate change impacts.

In London, an online tool has been developed called “Greenkeeper”. It provides an inventory of what activities parks accommodate and rates their amenities. Developed by economists, it seeks to evaluate the economic costs and benefits of green infrastructure, to help argue for the value of open space, though it rates quantities rather than qualities, like design.

Design is a feature of the incredibly innovative BlockByBlock tool that uses the gaming engine and interface of Minecraft to allow users to design informal public spaces. Tested all over the world, amateur designers, often children, use the software to develop designs that have been built, putting design in the hands of residents using a fund technology accessible to all, encapsulating the UN motto “leave no one behind”.

Julian Raxworthy
Honorary Associate Professor, ATCH (Architecture, Theory, Criticism and History) Research Centre, School of Architecture, University of Queensland