Civic Tech for Small Towns

Most streets in small Italian towns have never been digitally documented. Unlike major urban centers, the often ubiquitous Google Street View feature is not available in these settlements. In those rare cases where it is, it does not cover the streets that are not wide enough to accommodate Google automobiles equipped with its tracking devices. In other words, the narrow and stepped streets that characterize these towns are the black holes of Google’s digital eye. 

Through this project, liminal used a head-mounted 360 camera in the town of Sutera as a bottom-up digital collection device. Rendering struggling Italian towns on live and interactive maps is key in opening up the spectrum of opportunity available to local businesses, property owners and administrations.

Moreover, the data collected through this kind of initiative can be analyzed through automated machine learning visual recognition techniques to better quantify abandonment rates and support policymakers as they plan for restoration/demolition actions. Because small towns often lack specific data on the architectural and structural conditions of their buildings, liminal believes that the bottom-up use of 360-cameras could contribute to a better spatial knowledge of the physical fabric of small towns and thus empower their stakeholders.

Partners
L’Associazione Turistica Proloco di Sutera
MIT Department of Urban Studies & Planning

Location
Sutera, CL
Sicily

Status
Complete (2019)