Is "Datafication" Making Our Cities Better?
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-dat... 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=cit... 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! / citynerd ---------- Previous videos referenced: CityVisit: Silicon Valley: • I Visited the Epicenter of the U.S. Housin... ---------- 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.... (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...) Real Change article on Race the L8 by Sabra Boyd (I was quoted in this article, too!) https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2... https://www.businessinsider.com/amazo... https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2025/08/... ---------- 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: [email protected]
In a nutshell: Nick Couldry on Data colonialism
Why Are They Making Up Nonsense About Our Cities?
An Urban Planning Marvel Hidden In Plain Sight
The Gross Reason Suburban Yards Are This Size
The Problem With Fingerprint Analysis
This Is What Brexit Cost the World
What Is Livability? A Field Report from Melbourne
Ranking All EU Countries from Worst to Best for Expats
Shockingly, They've Been Lying to Me About Chicago
TCF is peak urbanism, don't try to tell me different
When Building a Brand-New City Doesn’t Go as Planned
Why Buildings Stopped Spinning
The Problem Isn't the Room. It's the Layout
Is It An Actual Thing? And Can Cities Fix It?
I Went to New Zealand, and I Have Thoughts
Washington: the Least American American City?
Why U.S. Cities Don't Build Metro Systems
Why Can’t American Cities Build 3-Flats Anymore?
These Two Cities Used to be the Same (Utrecht vs Fake London)
