My research, which examines how computer information systems were used as a tool for environmentally conscious city planning during the 1960s-1980s, provides meaningful background for several issues in the city planning field today. First, it relates to today’s question of the use of artificial intelligence in city planning, an issue which also faces many other fields. During my study period, planners were exploring the possibilities of computers that could handle and analyze more data than humans ever could (at least cost effectively).
Many of the arguments made for such computer information systems (given the spatial nature of a city’s data, they can also be called geographic information systems or GIS) included that considering more information in city planning could be used for more thoughtful, environmentally and socially conscious results. There is much written about the emphasis on rationalism and science in American society which came to a peak during the Cold War. The harms of midcentury city planning, characterized by urban renewal, suburbanization, and highway construction, are also today well established. Such projects were justified with a supposedly “rational” decision making process based on traffic, economic, and engineering data.
However, such projects destroyed many low-income and communities of color and made most American cities arguably irreversibly car-dependent and sprawling. My research looks at how GIS was used as an attempt to counter specifically the environmental harms of midcentury city planning, while keeping the data-centered approach. Some argued that a better understanding of environmental and social systems through more data was the crucial first step in more environmentally and socially conscious planning. This conversation is relevant to today’s questions of to what degree AI should be used in the planning field. Given that AI can make entire plans and reports much faster than a human (based on huge amounts of data), what should be humans’ relation to these systems in planning decision-making?
Second, this research is relevant today because it looks at a time where people were concerned with suburban growth destroying natural landscapes. With American postwar suburbanization, there was less distinction between urban and rural land, and suburbs greatly expanded the metropolitan areas of cities into what was often former farmland. Many early geographic information systems were created by California local governments, a state with huge postwar population growth, with the goal of conserving natural resources and open spaces. This is relevant to us in Florida because our state is currently experiencing large population growth, whose accommodation in sprawling suburbs is of concern for the state’s natural environments and resources.
After working on this project this summer, I am excited to finish and defend it as my Honors in the Major thesis this fall. The IDEA Grant has played a huge role in setting me up for my thesis defense. It gave me the opportunity to travel and conduct archival research, which transformed the possible scope of the project, and spend focused time sharpening my ideas and writing a draft. During the fall semester, I also will be volunteering at the Tallahassee Trust for Historic Preservation, which I am excited for because of my interest in how landscapes change over time.
Lastly, I’ll be returning as a UROP leader, and I hope this research experience will enrich what I can share with my UROP students about undergraduate research at FSU. After graduating this spring, I’m aspiring to either work or attend graduate school in the city planning field. As someone drawn to history because I’m interested in how things came to be, I hope that this research will give me an enriched perspective on how data and technology was and can be today used in the planning field.
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