Rob Kitchin

"Reading this book is your first step to becoming a competent human geography researcher. Whether you are a novice needing practical help for your first piece of research or a professional in search of an accessible guide to best practice." "It is designed to guide the reader through the complete research process, whether it be a one day field study or a large dissertation project, from the nurturing of ideas and development of a proposal, to the design of an enquiry, the generation and analysis of data, to the drawing of conclusions from the results, and the presentation of the findings. The book provides a broad overview of the theoretical underpinnings and explores some of the main research methodologies currently being used in contemporary human geography."--BOOK JACKET.

"Traditionally, data has been a scarce commodity which, given its value, has been either jealously guarded or expensively traded. In recent years, technological developments and political lobbying have turned this position on its head. Data now flow as a deep and wide torrent, are low in cost and supported by robust infrastructures, and are increasingly open and accessible. A data revolution is underway, one that is already reshaping how knowledge is produced, business conducted, and governance enacted, as well as raising many questions concerning surveillance, privacy, security, profiling, social sorting, and intellectual property rights. In contrast to the hype and hubris of much media and business coverage, The Data Revolution provides a synoptic and critical analysis of the emerging data landscape."--Excerpted from publisher's description.

The idea behind the book is to ask what would it be like to live in a city administered using the business model of Amazon (or Apple, IKEA, Pornhub, Spotify, Tinder, Uber, and more), or a city where critical public services are delivered by these companies?

"There is a long history of governments, businesses, science and citizens producing and utilising data in order to monitor, regulate, profit from, and make sense of the urban world. Recently, we have entered the age of big data, and now many aspects of everyday urban life are being captured as data and city management mediated through data-driven technologies. Data and the City is the first edited collection to provide an interdisciplinary analysis of how we come to know and govern cities and the implications of such a transformation. This book looks at the creation of real-time cities and data-driven urbanism and considers the relationships at play. By taking a philosophical, political, practical and technical approach to urban data, the authors analyse the ways in which data is produced and framed within socio-technical systems. They then examine the constellation of existing and emerging urban data technologies. The volume concludes by considering the social and political ramification of data-driven urbanism, questioning whom it serves and for what ends. This book, the companion volume to 2016 s Code and the City, offers the first critical reflection on the relationship between data, data practices and the city, and how we come to know and understand cities through data. It will be crucial reading for those who wish to understand and conceptualize urban big data, data-driven urbanism, and the development of smart cities."--Publisher's description.

Globally, Smart Cities initiatives are pursued which reproduce the interests of capital and neoliberal government, rather than wider public good. This book explores smart urbanism and 'the right to the city', examining citizenship, social justice, commoning, civic participation, and co-creation to imagine a different kind of Smart City.

"From driving the car to work to doing the shopping, our daily lives consist of a myriad of spatial behaviours - movements across and within spatial environments. Each day we make hundreds of complex spatial choices and spatial decisions. In the vast majority of cases we rely not on external references such as maps to make these choices but upon a previously acquired spatial understanding of the world in which we live - we rely upon our mind's spatial representation of the environment, our so-called 'cognitive map'. How we perceive our spatial environment, how our mind stores such information, and how we use it to make a wide variety of complex spatial decisions, are some of the concerns of cognitive mapping. These questions are fundamental for a wide range of disciplines and cognitive mapping has applications in environmental planning, cartography, transportation, migration, route learning and wayfinding, business location and consumer behaviour. In this first comprehensive overview for more than twenty years, Rob Kitchin and Mark Blades synthesize ideas and empirical findings from geography, planning, cartography, anthropology, computer science, psychology and cognitive science to provide a critical assessment of how we think about and behave in geographic space. They detail the current 'state of play' of cognitive mapping research, with detailed analysis of how spatial knowledge is created, stored, used and measured. Using these results and their own empirical research they put forward a new conceptual model of cognitive mapping which integrates research focused on specific aspects of cognitive mapping, and unites the theoretical traditions of behavioural geography and environmental psychology. In the final chapter they outline a research agenda to guide future studies. This new book from two leading researchers will be welcomed by those looking both for new ideas and the broader picture in this wide-ranging field of study."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

There is a free pdf available of whole book at

"In cities around the world, digital technologies are utilized to manage city services and infrastructures, govern urban life, solve urban issues, and to drive local and regional economies. While "smart city" advocates are keen to promote the benefits of smart urbanism - increased efficiency, sustainability, resilience, competitiveness, safety and security - critics point to the negative effects, such as the production of technocratic governance, the corporatisation of urban services, technological lock-ins, privacy harms, and vulnerability to cyberattack. This book, through a range of international case studies, suggests social, political and practical interventions that would enable more equitable and just smart cities, reaping the benefits of smart city initiatives while minimizing some of their perils. Included are case studies from Ireland, the United States of America, Colombia, The Netherlands, Singapore, India and the United Kingdom. These essays discuss a range of issues including political economy, citizenship, standards, testbedding, urban regeneration, ethics, surveillance, privacy and cybersecurity. This book will be of interest to urban policymakers, as well as researchers in Regional Studies and Urban Planning"--