Is "Datafication" Making Our Cities Better?

Description

The South Lake Union neighborhood in Seattle has added thousands of housing units and thousands of new jobs in the last 15 years, including the headquarters of Amazon. Today we look at all the impacts of SLU's transformation — good and bad. ---------- Watch this video on Nebula, the creator-owned streaming service, ad-free! https://nebula.tv/videos/citynerd-data-colonialism-is-unfortunately-a-thing Using my custom link gets you 40% off an annual subscription, and really helps the channel! https://go.nebula.tv/citynerd Also STILL available: the Lifetime offer! $300 for Nebula as long as both you and Nebula exist, and a full 1/3 of the price goes directly to support this channel. https://go.nebula.tv/lifetime?ref=citynerd And! Gift cards -- get the same deals using my code, but gift a membership to someone who needs weekly (ad-free and promo-free) Nerd propaganda! http://gift.nebula.tv/citynerd ---------- Patreon — a way to directly support my ability to talk about what I want to talk about every week, and get out to the cities I want to highlight. Much appreciation to all of you who are already patrons! https://www.patreon.com/CityNerd ---------- Previous videos referenced: - CityVisit: Silicon Valley: https://youtu.be/Wa5wpLuJZNY ---------- Resources: - Dillon Mahmoudi, Anthony Levenda, Alicia Sabatino, The urban-tech feedback loop: A surveillance and development data-walk in South Lake Union, Digital Geography and Society, Volume 7, 2024, 100106, ISSN 2666-3783, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2024.100106. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266637832400028X) - Real Change article on Race the L8 by Sabra Boyd (I was quoted in this article, too!) https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2025/07/24/race-l8 - https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actually-1-000-people-in-india-2024-4 - https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2025/08/28/route-8-updates-supporting-reliable-travel/ ---------- Images - Lovingly curated by yours truly, Seattle, August 2025 ---------- Instagram: @nerd4cities BlueSky: @nerd4cities Threads: @nerd4cities LinkedIn: /raydelahanty ---------- Music: CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (YouTube music library) ---------- Business Inquiries: thecitynerd@nebula.tv