Author: dillonm
Geography of race and income shape spatial data gaps in two national participatory science projects
We argue in this paper that such data gaps are not incidental noise but the cumulative outcome of white supremacy culture, colonial land-ordering, and project designs that privilege whiter, more affluent spaces as default sites of scientific value. [continue reading]
Land for AI
We introduce the concepts of data rent and computational rent to name the specific forms of value extraction that emerge when controlling the storage and transmission of digital information and the processing power necessary for AI platforms, such as LLMs, to function. [continue reading]
Bluetech in Baltimore
Through a climate-focused internship with local youth, it co-designs game-based projects that connect artificial intelligence and environmental science to emerging blue economy jobs in the city’s harbor, while revealing that a “smart” future cannot be built on uneven access to broadband, devices, and STEM learning. [continue reading]
Navigating digital geographies
We argue that digital geographers need to radically defetishize the construction of spatial data and acknowledge how these black-boxed systems mediate surveillance and capitalist extraction. Rather than taking computational results at face value, we call for methodological transparency and critical engagement, centering the situated, embodied, and political processes that underpin digital spatial knowledge. [continue reading]
We can’t count our way out
This article critically examines the interplay between digital infrastructures, authoritarian politics, and quantification in contemporary governance, arguing that quantification is being reimagined as a tool for exclusion, austerity, and violence under the guise of objectivity. [continue reading]
Uneven development and the anti-politics machine
The Market Value Analysis (MVA), and similar algorithms, perpetuate racial and class-based inequalities by embedding systemic biases into urban planning and the geography of cities under the guise of objectivity. Presented as neutral tools, these algorithms depoliticize decisions, reinforcing the legacies of redlining while prioritizing capital accumulation over equitable development and justifying the abandonment of marginalized communities. [continue reading]
The urban-tech feedback loop
Tech companies are reshaping cities through a feedback loop where consumer behaviors, tracked via smartphones, inform the design of urban spaces tailored to affluent users, reinforcing consumption and deepening inequalities. Using a "data-walk" methodology in Seattle's South Lake Union, we uncovered how surveillance and data collection commodify everyday actions, embedding tech-driven priorities into urban development. To disrupt this cycle, we advocate for inclusive methodologies... [continue reading]
From FOSS to profit
Through tracing the historical evolution of these formats, we uncover how digital labor—whether voluntary, outsourced, or co-opted—plays a role in shaping the operations of for-profit technology firms. Open standards, often associated with transparency and accessibility, paradoxically contribute to proprietary goals as well, serving as gateways through which corporations can attract free labor and build out profitable infrastructures. Companies often adopt open standards and Free... [continue reading]
The Amazon Warehouse
Amazon’s warehouses are vast, windowless spaces, each the size of multiple football fields, where thousands of employees and over half a million robots work in tandem to process immense volumes of packages daily. Coordinated by Amazon's AI-powered AWS platform, robots such as Pegasus and Proteus move products efficiently through these facilities, while delivery drivers are monitored closely by AI systems that regulate their behavior... [continue reading]
Interrogating narratives of urban change
Baltimore’s treatment of majority-Black neighborhoods versus Latine/x areas illustrates how racist logics structure urban development. While Latine/x neighborhoods like Highlandtown are framed as vibrant immigrant communities worthy of preservation, Black neighborhoods like Upton are cast as slums primed for exploitation and “renewal.” This distinction impacts how each neighborhood experiences investment or neglect, with Latine/x areas more likely to attract capital while Black neighborhoods face... [continue reading]