Navigation through an Environmental Lens

• In Event: Regenerating Algorithms

Abstract

In the text Machine in the Garden Leo Marx brings forth the tension that exists between nature and technology driven by the ideal of American pastoralism(Marx, 1964). He shows how the pastoralist ideal has been incorporated into a powerful metaphor of contradiction. From the history of the locomotive and its interruption of once pristine, unpolluted space to the form of pastoralism where citizens idealize living in the suburbs, he shows this tension present between technology and nature. Other scholars point to the rise of the automobile as an instrument of freedom that contributed to the idealization of the suburbs resulting in what Marx calls “the flight from the city”(Wachs,1992; Foster 1981). This tension is still present to date given the current discourse on carbon emissions due to automobiles. I argue that this contradiction has also been extended onto digital navigation algorithms as these algorithms are designed through the lens of time taken. Time is seen as the most important value to get from one point to another. This use of the automobile is so common not only due to the underinvestment in public transit infrastructure but also how the design of such routing algorithms do little to encourage environmentally friendly options and values(Edwards, 2013). Through this paper, we highlight design interventions on how environmentally friendly options could be provided as part of local routing infrastructures. We point to the challenge of large scale routing infrastructures that also sit in contradiction to the amount of power required to generate shortest route options. We also explore other values such as scenic routing that aligns well with American pastoralism ideals and other carbon neutral options.

References:

Edwards, Paul N. A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2010.
Foster, Mark S. From Streetcar to Superhighway: American City Planners and Urban Transportation, 1900-1940. Technology and Urban Growth. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.
Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.
Wachs, Martin, and Margaret Crawford, eds. The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment, and Daily Urban Life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992.

Author

• Jude Mwenda Ntabathia, Georgia Tech