Accessibility and collaborative information technologies. Cartographies for an inclusive city

Abstract

Performative character of social action is an active force in the development of everyday life, in social organization and in the planning of urban environments. Despite the exponential increase in the availability of data describing our daily habits and behaviors, cartographies continue to present subjective limitations when representing the image of the city and society. This is clear if we focus on the study of urban non-accessibility. From the understanding of accessibility as a right for all, the paper explores the possibilities that the use of new information technologies represents to generate a map based on the principles of space justice, universal design and full autonomy in the city. The comparative analysis of two projects that study the level of accessibility in the cities of Valencia and Zaragoza (Spain) allows us to identify the common features that could be shared by the applications and mechanisms trying to construct a more inclusive city. The main findings reveal the adequacy of the crowdsourcing led work methodology as a mechanism to counteract current social and urban asymmetry

Carlos Cámara-Menoyo

Architect. PhD. Lecturer. Life-long Learner. Transdisciplinary.

I love learning, teaching and researching, as well as sharing and visualizing data, specially with maps. I have a technical and social background and my multiple research interests are centered around the commodifications between cities, technology and society within informationalism and free culture paradigm. So far, I have applied that approach on the topic of social and spatial inequities.