Urban data: who controls what we know about favelas?

Work reviewed: MAIA, Flavia Neves. “Smart urbanism and the politics of digital visibility: mapping informality in the city of Rio de Janeiro (2008-2016)” Doctoral Thesis

Abstract

Every collective decision-making process starts from a common denominator of knowledge on the subject under discussion. The urban development agenda requires that information be spatialized, otherwise the relationship between social processes and the transformation of the built environment is lost. Until recently, the production of plants, sketches and maps demanded a lot of resources, and for this reason the activity was easily monopolized by the dominant groups, as a rule state agents or private sectors interested in influencing the direction of the city's production process. The current context of digitalization of social relations destabilizes the traditional process of representing urban issues by adding new layers of inequality, the effects of which we are just beginning to unravel. Between a celebratory view - which presupposes the democratizing potential of digital data production and manipulation - and a pessimistic view - which considers the control of the public sphere by private corporations inexorable - there is an interesting debate. Flavia Maia's dissertation, entitled “Smart urbanism and the policy of digital visibility: mapping informality in the city of Rio de Janeiro (2008-2016)”, contributes to moving forward, adding important nuances to this discussion.