Smart Spaces and Places

Ling Bian

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000404401
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geology & Earth Sciences

Smart technologies have advanced rapidly throughout our society (e.g. smart energy, smart health, smart living, smart cities, smart environment, and smart society) and across geographic spaces and places. Behind these "smart" developments are a number of seminal drivers, such as social media (e.g. Twitter), sensors (drones, wearables), smartphone apps, and computing infrastructure (e.g. cloud computing). These developments have captured the enthusiasm of the public, while inevitably present unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the geographic research community. When meeting the smart challenges, are there emerging theories, methods, and observations that reveal new spatial phenomena, produce new knowledge, and foster new policies?

Smart Spaces and Places addresses questions such as how to make spaces and places "smart", how the "smartness" affects the way we think spaces and places, and what role geographies play in knowledge production and decision-making in a "smart" era. The collection of 21 chapters offers stimulating discussion over the meaning of spaces, places, and smartness; scientific insights into smartness; social-political views of smartness; and policy implications of smartness.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

PART I
Spaces, Places, and Smartness

Understanding the New Human Dynamics in Smart Spaces and Places: Toward a Splatial Framework

Shih-Lung Shaw and Daniel Sui

The smart technologies led by advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the emerging data science in recent years are transforming many facets of society in profound ways. One of these affected areas is the experience of human dynamics in general and human mobility in particular with the growing maturity of smart technologies. The goal of this article is to critically examine the concepts of space and place in geography in general and in geographic information science (GIScience) in particular so that intelligent geographic information systems incorporating concepts of smart space and smart place can be developed to support human dynamics research. We argue that the current discussions on smart technologies are conceptually constrained due to their confinement to absolute space and physical place. By engaging research on smart technologies with geography and GIScience, we seek to move beyond the crude, and often simplistic, conceptualizations of space and place by synthesizing the multiple dimensions of both space and place. By doing so, we can better understand human dynamics through a synergistic perspective of both space and place. The space-place (splatial) framework proposed in this article will enable us to creatively study the human dynamics in the age of smart technologies. Our approach will not only allow us to better understand human dynamics but also advance and enrich our theoretical and methodological frameworks for studying smart technologies and the profound social impacts from a geographic perspective. Challenges for the implementation of the proposed framework are discussed and directions for future research are highlighted. Key Words: GIScience, human dynamics, place, space, splatial framework

晚近由人工智慧、机器学习和逐渐兴起的数据科学所推进的智能科技，正在以深刻的方式改变社会的诸 多面向。其中一个受影响的面向，便是随着智能科技逐渐成熟的人类普遍动态经验，特别是人类移动。 本文旨在批判性地检视普遍在地理学中、特别是地理信息科学 (GIScience) 的空间与地方概念，因而能 够发展纳入智慧空间与智慧地方概念的智慧地理信息系统，以支持人类动态的研究。我们主张，当前对 于智能技术的讨论，由于仅限于绝对空间和物理地方，因此在概念上受限。我们以地理学和地理信息科 学进行智能技术的研究，通过综合空间与地方的多重面向，寻求超越粗糙且经常是简化的空间与地方之 概念化。藉由这麽做，我们能够通过空间与地方的协力视角，更佳地理解人类动态。本文所提出的空间 地方（splatial）架构，能够让我们有创意地在智能科技的时代研究人类动态。我们的方法不仅能够让我 们更佳地理解人类动态，并可从地理学的视角推进并丰富我们研究智能科技及其深刻的社会影响之理论 与方法架构。我们并探讨执行此一推荐架构的挑战，并强调未来的研究方向。关键词：地理信息科学， 人类动态，地方，空间，空间地方 (splatial) 架构。

Las tecnologías inteligentes, impulsadas por los avances de años recientes en inteligencia artificial, aprendizaje con maquinas y la aparicion de la ciencia de datos, estan transformando muchas facetas de la sociedad de modo profundo. Una de las areas afectadas es la experiencia de la dinamica humana, en general, y la movilidad humana, en particular, con la creciente madurez de las tecnologías inteligentes. El objetivo de este artículo es examinar críticamente los conceptos de espacio y lugar en geografía, en general, y la ciencia de la informaciíon geogríafica (SIGciencia), en particular, de surte que los sistemas de informacioín geogríafica inteligentes, que incorporan conceptos de espacio inteligente y de lugar inteligente, puedan ser desarrollados para apoyar la diníamica de la investigacioín. Sostenemos que las discusiones actuales sobre tecnologías inteligentes están conceptualmente limitadas debido a su confinamiento dentro del espacio absoluto y el lugar físico. Al comprometernos en investigaciíon de tecnologías inteligentes dentro de la geografía y SIGciencia, buscamos ir mucho mías allá de las conceptualizaciones crudas y a menudo simplistas de espacio y lugar sintetizando las muíltiples dimensiones tanto de espacio como de lugar. Al hacer esto, podemos entender mejor la dinámica humana a través de una perspectiva sinérgica de espacio y lugar. El marco espaciolugar (splatial, esplugal) que se propone en este artículo nos capacitara para estudiar creativamente la dinamica humana en la era de las tecnologías inteligentes. Nuestro enfoque no solo nos permitira entender mejor la dinamica humana, sino tambien desarrollar mas y enriquecer nuestros marcos teóricos y metodológicos para estudiar tecnologías inteligentes y sus profundos impactos sociales, desde una perspectiva geografica. Se discuten los retos asociados con la implementación del marco propuesto, lo mismo que se destacan las direcciones de futuras investigaciones. Palabras clave: dinámica humana, espacio, lugar, marco esplugal, SIGciencia.

The smart technologies led by advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the emerging data science in recent years are transforming many facets of society in profound ways. One of these affected areas is the experience of human dynamics. The goal of this article is to critically examine the concepts of space and place in geography in general and in geographic information science (GIScience) in particular so that intelligent geographic information systems (GIS) incorporating concepts of smart space and smart place can be developed to support human dynamics research. Human dynamics in this article refers to all kinds of human activities and interactions in both physical and virtual spaces that constantly shape and are shaped by the physical, social, economic, cultural, and political environments (Shaw and Yu 2009; Shaw, Tsou, and Ye 2016; Shaw and Sui 2018). We choose human dynamics as the focus of this article for two reasons. First, we want to elevate humans as the focus for future GIS development as well as in geography in general. Although many geographers (especially human geographers) have considered humans as a focus in their studies, the development of GIS has traditionally neglected humans to a large degree. Humans often are represented in conventional GIS as an aggregate number associated with a polygon or a grid cell, points on a map, or paths reflecting their traces over time. Humans have not been considered in GIS and GIScience as autonomous, intelligent entities that possess not only locations and attributes but also behaviors, perceptions, feelings, and thoughts related to spaces and places. Second, we want to emphasize that human activities and interactions are dynamic in nature and they constantly evolve in place, across space, and over time. The new human dynamics are introducing major social, economic, political, and cultural changes and new challenges to human societies (West 2018). We need to better address the challenges brought up by the rapidly changing human dynamics. Smart technologies have enabled us to study the new human dynamics at much improved spatial and temporal granularity in a hybrid of physical and virtual spaces.

What Are Smart Spaces and Smart Places?

As an integral part of the fourth industrial revolution (Schwab 2017) that has been unfolding in front of us in recent years, smart technologies have advanced rapidly throughout society by introducing approaches such as autonomous vehicles, smart energy, smart health, smart living, smart cities, smart environment, smart society, and even smart planet. An implicit assumption underlying these smart systems is that these technologies can make human societies smart. Many projects of developing smart systems therefore have placed significant efforts and investments on technological infrastructures and technical solutions to become smart. A critical question, rarely asked or answered adequately, is how to measure the smartness or intelligence¹ of a system. There is no doubt that technologies play an important role in smart systems to facilitate faster and better communications, powerful data collection and data processing, and more convenient transactions and services. Yet, what is the purpose of developing these smart systems? We inevitably have to bring humans to the center of the smart systems because the ultimate goal of developing such systems is to improve human lives. Every smart system therefore should have a specific purpose of serving particular needs in human societies (e.g., reduce traffic congestion or have a sustainable world).

Egenhofer and Mark (1995) suggested that naive geography “captures and reflects the way people think and reason about geographic space and time” (4). They argued that future GIS can be built from the formal models of the commonsense geographic world, which can be used by average citizens in day-to-day tasks without receiving major training. In fact, they suggested that “naïve geography is also the basis for the design of intelligent GISs that will act and respond as a person would” (Egenhofer and Mark 1995, 2). In other words, making a system intuitive to human thinking and human behaviors is an important criterion of developing smart systems. Obviously, GIS today are far from being more intuitive to human thinking and human behaviors than two decades ago when Egenhofer and Mark published their paper. So what is qualified as a smart space? We suggest that a smart space is a space that is intuitive to human thinking and spatial cognition. Implementation of a smart space is aided by incorporating various technologies that can make the space easily comprehensible to humans. For example, Tobler’s First Law of Geography states that “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things” (Tobler 1970, 236). Tobler did not explicitly define the meanings of near and distant and in what kind of space, however. Although it is a statement with ambiguity, we nevertheless understand its premise and accept it as a common law regulating human activities. This kind of ambiguity exists in our everyday life and people can function fine with such ambiguities. Smart spaces need to be tolerant to such ambiguities rather than tying everything to specific coordinates in a space like the conventional GIS.

Regarding the definition of place, Tuan (1977) indicated that place is an area in a space to which humans have given meaning. Roche (2016) suggested that “a place is typically defined by a named event (or action, or dynamics, or sense) that takes place (or is associated) to a specific location at a specific time (punctual, recurrent, period)” (568). Place consequently is a social construction that is unique to particular people and varies over time (Goodchild and Li 2012; Roche 2016). Humans play an even more central role in defining place than in defining space. Places are difficult to work within GIS because they often have fuzzy or indeterminate boundaries such as downtown Manhattan or Chinatown in New York City (Goodchild and Li 2012; Chen and Shaw 2016). In the meantime, places must be identifiable objects to be handled in conventional GIS. The concept of place, which is an outcome of human dynamics, has not been seriously considered in GIS until the emergence of platial GIS in recent years. Increasingly available volunteered geographic information (VGI) and big geospatial data are often related to the concept of place (e.g., neighborhoods, points of interest) rather than the coordinates in space, which have motivated the GIScience communities to accommodate places in GIS and develop platial GIS (e.g., Elwood, Goodchild, and Sui 2013; Goodchild 2015; Miller and Goodchild 2015; Roche 2016).

In an urban context, recent research has argued that cities should be studied as networks of places and flows instead of a mosaic of various areal spaces (e.g., Castells 2010; Batty 2013, 2018). As stated by Jones (2009), “Place—the city, region or rural area—as a site of intersection between network topologies and territorial legacies ... it is a subtle folding together of the distant and the proximate, the virtual and the material, presence and absence, flow and stasis, into a single ontological plane upon which location—a place on the map—has come to be relationally and topologically defined” (487). The question “Where am I?” is being replaced by “Where am I in relation to everything else?” in a globalized network of places (Roche 2016). Whether or not a place is smart no longer can be decided by the location in a local space and l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Smart Spaces and Places
• Part I Spaces, Places, and Smartness
• Part II Analytical Smartness
• Part III Critical Smartness
• Part IV Smart Sustainability and Policy
• Index