OSM and the pulse of a city...

But a city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time.—Patrick Geddes (Scientist)

Substack authors have a multitude of reasons for writing irregularly regular newsletter updates to subscribers. I had written a popular blog for many years and liked the discipline of warming up for the day with a few ideas or thoughts that I wished to catalog, for if not immediate use — at least for safekeeping.

It reminds me of a designer skirt I held onto for years and the moment I gifted it away I was invited to an occasion worthy of its grandeur.

Why not create a written record of ideas, curiosities, and resources to share or safeguard for future use. Aren’t we all simply an invite away from something spectacular? Maybe a book or two — or three.

In my experience, writing a book was not that different from giving presentations remotely. If you are anticipating an exchange or relationship with your audience the options that first come to mind are limiting. On one hand, I crave the autonomy and solitude but on the other, books need engagement — or in publication speak — promotion.

The books represent a moment in time. Nothing is more true than when writing about technical topics. I wanted to be able to revisit topics and share updates or maybe even show how I continue to use a particular book. A continued conversation creates value primarily because it is fed by the evolving interests of both the author and the reader.

Writers also are directed to create a theme in books so a lot of words and even chapters are trimmed out of the final product. Substack is a great resource or home for other parallel interests on a topic. The communication channel as newsletter or social media presence can foster a metric for assessing engagement. We may be writing alone but the ability to be in conversation during the process is irreplacable. The network is alive and can be amplified from both ends.

Case in point. I have been reading about vulnerable cities. An abstract was posted on LinkedIn, Urban Vulnerability: Requirements and Data Availability on the Global Scale. The discussion of vulnerability assessments for different hazards such as pluvial flooding (surface water), coastal flooding, drought, earthquakes, heatwaves, and waterborne diseases are applicable to several of the presentations I am working on at the moment but I also feel challenged to think of hazards more colloquially or in challenges of our built infrastructure to improve health and social outcomes.

Chapter 5 of Python for Geospatial Data Analysis, OpenStreetMap: Accessing Geospatial Data with OSMnx is the perfect reference for one of the assessments of urban vulnerability.

import osmnx as ox

import networkx as nx

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt #installs with osmnx

import pandas as pd

%matplotlib inline

ox.__version__

Walkability is an important characteristic of a city. We know that an abundance of parking lots or paved areas, long street lengths, or circuity impacts the life within the city.

The world is now a giant nervous system. We talk about networking and common nodes in our professional and social networks. The red node in the graphic representation of Detroit Michigan has a betweenness value of 16%. This means that 16% of the traffic passes through this node — the highest value for the city.

Again we can also calculate an isochrone to measure how far in distance for example you can travel within a time threshold.

Or zoom into the area in question to see zoning, parcels, and even historic HOLC redlining.

Examples are outlined in the book and also in a GitHub repository linked to the book. Upgrade to a yearly subscription for private chats and the chance to preview upcoming presentations and books.

Things I am excited by this week:

• Communicator & Journalist Roundtable Dinner at the National Press Club DC

• #GeospatialConnections Twitter Space every Wednesday at 1:00 PM NYC time

ChatPDF (paid subscriber content)

I have a digital folder of articles I need to scan through. I have been uploading PDFs to ChatPDF and asking interview style questions about the article.

---