Today we are more connected than ever before. We use technology to enhance, share and control the world immediately around us—turning on lights, networking on demand, locating the nearest bike rack or parking space, all from pocket-sized devices. Our connectivity is not only expressed person to person and at the individual level. It is also expressed at the community and city level where improved communication, participation, and collaboration has increased with access to data and information for agencies, institutions, and citizens. Today’s cities are laboratories for technology, connectivity, networks, and initiatives, driven by citizens and entrepreneurs together with governments and institutions.
Geospatial Technology for Gathering Location Data
Location data is paramount to intelligent cities planning and development. Geographical information provides a common frame of reference and big picture analysis for entrepreneurs, citizens, and policymakers alike. The new place-based thinking demonstrates that location can no longer be considered just a pin on a map. Now, location is the dynamic nexus of the physical and digital in real time. The availability of geo-tagged digital data creates rich new layers of information that can be utilized at scale to create evolving solutions for more livable cities, intelligent policy and design, better research, improved emergency response, predictive analysis, and economic opportunity.
Geospatial technology is a powerful tool when used by governments or citizens to leverage data to make more informed decisions and to better understand the cities they govern and live in. CARTO, a web-based mapping platform and geospatial analysis tool, allows users of all technical skill levels to tap into location intelligence for key insights into information relevant to all aspects our lives. It is important to point out that these insights are often invisible until we use innovative technology to visualize and understand them.
Open source technology allows users to easily apply and integrate their tools into any platform or application. Easy accessibility of open source technology democratizes these powerful tools and opens up information at an unprecedented scale. Local governments are increasingly opening up their data so citizens can access it and leverage it to inform the many decisions they make on a daily basis. This information can help a family choose where to live, where to send their kids to school, where to start a business, or what kind of business to start. It can even give citizens insight into how taxes are being spent, where the government is allocating time and resources, and where service provisions are working and where they are not.
Applying CARTO in Mexico City
CARTO, with the help of our partners, has implemented such technology across Latin America, most notably Mexico City. The city wanted to serve a broader demographic by applying new technologies to connect city departments and agencies like transportation, administration, healthcare, education, utilities, and construction. To accomplish Mexico City’s objectives, priority was given to the areas of the city where bigger social and economic issues were found. Emphasis was placed on social, environmental and economic indicators as they interact with the built urban environment and the people who inhabit the city.
The data portal is aimed at opening communication channels between government and citizens. An application is available for tracking public transport, real-time social media updates, as well as information about traffic routes, social services, marriage and divorce rates, education, property information, crime statistics, unemployment rates, public spaces and parks, and much more. CARTO’s APIs allowed for the integration of large data to work without compromising scale or the interpretation of millions of data points.
CARTO’s accessible visualizations give Mexico City the transparency necessary to demonstrate accountability to its citizens. The city is taking a modern, integrated approach to smart cities planning, where citizens can work with one another, along with the government, in making a better city that is more responsive to all its inhabitants.
CARTO brings together all the elements of a successful smart city geo-ecosystem with unprecedented accessibility: crowdsourcing with social media, monitoring of sensor networks, custom security and deployment options. CARTO remains current with the pace of technology, and the evolving processes of smart cities and digital prosperity in Latin America and the world.