IT IS LABOR LAW, NOT MASTER PLANNERS SHAPE THE CITY: AT LEAST THIS IS WHAT MOBILITY DATA SAYS
Habidatum is an American company assisting urban planners, professional experts, and businesses in understanding the dynamic urban environment through “big data” analytical interpretation tools including data analytical visualization.
Habidatum’s software aggregates, transforms, and interprets unstructured spatial and temporal data generated by people and their devices usually as a byproduct of their mobility (connected cars, telcos, navigation apps), telecommunication activity (telcos), spending (payment systems), posting in social networks (social media).
As a result, a raw and unusable flow of digital records becomes understandable, interactive, and reliable information for analysis and decision-making.
Urban mobility is among the key “health” indicators of the contemporary urban environment, and it is always about two dimensions — “space” and “time”. The temporal component of mobility has been underexplored so far.
Using its Chronotope big data platform Habidatum has launched a series of mobility research in various cities around the globe, from Singapore and Dubai to Barcelona, London, New York, and Miami. See links to the relevant projects below.*
One of the key companions of urban mobility is the so-called “dwell time” — the time of people’s productive stay in the area during certain hours of the day. The problem though is the significant portions of the urban commercial real estate that remain inaccessible and underused in areas of major concentration of people and heavy traffic, especially after the close of business hours when potential demand for commercial space in such areas is very high.
Habidatum’s study in Atlanta, DC, and New York shows that up to 60 % of its lifetime commercial real estate is not being used. Not just main premises but quasi-public corporate venues like ground floors, roofs, and big conference halls.
At the same time, many fancy office areas decline no matter how intensive the traffic is around them. Small and medium enterprises that serve the area cannot afford high commercial rent and are being squeezed out. Functional diversity of such a place usually goes down thus launching steady real estate degradation and finally a price cliff. People are unhappy, and landlord's properties are at risk.
We used real-time data reflecting people’s mobility, commercial rent, and functional diversity of the Manhattan urban blocks to identify areas exposed to the risk of degradation. Usually, it means a combination of intensive traffic, high commercial rent, and low diversity.
How widely this trend is spread, and what can be done to revert and avoid it? To answer this question we have to look at the city as a geo-temporal object. Taking the “time” component into consideration is the key while addressing this problem, as contemporary urban mobility and land use reflect the “length of working day” (Labor Law) regulations in the first place. Master-planning strategies and zoning priorities often come next simply translating a routine of the “office hours” into spatial and mobility patterns.
It is common knowledge that modern central business districts (CBD) have been planned to be used during office hours mostly by commuters, but what happens in CBD after 7 pm through 1 am remains a leftover on the urban planner’s desk, poorly if at all researched.
In this study, we offer a time-sharing solution for the quasi-proprietary (corporate) space (ground floors, roofs, conference venues), based on real-time big data analysis.
Among the recommendations is our concept of “time zoning” which assumes the introduction of Hours of Use per Sq. foot as an indicator of space efficiency, and a shift from FAR (Floor area ratio) to HAR (Hour per area ratio).
In this case, zoning regulation may set up a time quota, say from 7 pm to 10 pm, meaning that those commercial real estate owners who do not want to share their ground floor space with SMEs such as small bookstores, galleries, food markets, and other daily routine services at the designated time will have to pay an “evening time” tax or buy three hours from a nearby library that works 24/7, thus helping the library finance modernization of its storage facilities or Wi-Fi access infrastructure.
The following questions are being raised and discussed:
How can we set up time-zoning regulations beyond office hours? Can we sell time quotas for quasi-proprietary space on CBDs the same way we do with carbon or air rights? How to employ hrs/sq.m regulatory threshold in time zoning? Can we create a time quotas market in urban areas? Would this market be an additional source of financing for social infrastructure or historical heritage-protected areas in the city? Would it be a decongestion cure?
Authors (in alphabetical order):
- Eduard Haiman, architect, designer, data visualization specialist, CDO at Habidatum
- Alexei Novikov, urban scientist, President of Habidatum
- Ekaterina Letunovskaia (Serova), urban planner, data analyst, Vice-President of Habidatum
- Vadim Smakhtin, IT- specialist, data scientist, CTO at Habidatum
Links to relevant studies by Habidatum
London:
- https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yTHqa6Piosw7XzSMcoZNucrrMAa0eE8nAOGCNMdYv_4/edit?usp=sharing
- https://habidatum.com/projects/sport-events-and-local-economy-london-football-stadiums-on-spot
Dubai:
- https://habidatum.com/projects/valves-of-mobility/
- https://habidatum.com/projects/lifestyles-and-social-media-activity/
