Reading 1.1 

Reading 1.1 

The article “Data dimension: accessing urban data and making it accessible” talks about collecting data, and how ethical it is to collect data and to make it public for people to see. I found this article intriguing since recently I watched “The Social Dilemma” and “Snowden” which was published on Netflix and gave me insight on exactly how much of my information is being watched and tracked, which left me feeling too watched. This article however argues it’s not always bad to collect data, but the data collected can’t be used for the wrong reasons or have a bias attached. 

In the chapter “Mobile cuisine in New York and Portland,” I learned a lot about the history of food trucks and how different the east coast treats food carts versus what is taking place on the west coast. I love my fair share of “grease trucks” from the pad thai, to the sushi burritos, to the ice cream truck. It was intriguing to think about these mobile food options being seen as less than, or just a lunch truck for construction workers. Today they provide some of the most diverse and good tasting food you can find for a fair price. I love how temporary and adaptable these carts can be and hope that the fight for these food trucks continue so that they do not have to worry about getting parking tickets for giving us all a great, and convenient service healthier than fast food. 

“Social “Coding:” Urban Processes and Socio-Computational Workflow” is an article that touches on how there is a rapid shift in this world where the human is more attached to technology than ever before. The article suggests that through that we can now gather more information quicker and more accurately than ever before and use it to create meaningful graphs and charts that can help designers understand urban design today. This article walks us through what some of that workflow looks like to get us from the information to the visual graph we want to achieve. 

“Using parametric methods to understand place in urban design courses” is an article that shows us how students are learning about parametric software like Rhino Grasshopper and others to collect new data and process it to educate us more about current urban design. This article also touches on how important place and time relate to the information we gather and how it all comes together to make up invaluable information about urban design. Lastly this article taught me about other technologies that can be on our phones that help us to collect more data faster.