[somnic]

>Instead of more gratuitous parametric modeling, we need to think about urban epistemologies that embrace memory and history; that recognize spatial intelligence as sensory and experiential; that consider other species’ ways of knowing; that appreciate the wisdom of local crowds and communities; that acknowledge the information embedded in the city’s facades, flora, statuary, and stairways; that aim to integrate forms of distributed cognition paralleling our brains’ own distributed cognitive processes.

I don't know if the authors of this article are substantially less guilty of abstractionism and impracticality than Sidewalk Labs or whoever. Knowing how pigeons understand cities might be interesting, but I'm not sure it's interesting enough to center urbanism around. The wisdom of local communities can be seen in angry letters to the council about how bike lanes are satanic, contemporary statuary seems to be about giving a well-connected artist a big chunk of cash to make something that the residents of a city find unpleasant to look at.

[gremlinunderway]

> The wisdom of local communities can be seen in angry letters to the council about how bike lanes are satanic

This is such a stupid dismissal and a provides a great example of what the article is trying to point out. This paternalistic ultramodernist and nearly authoritarian "we know better" mentality.

[somnic]

Okay, to put it differently, hyper-local community decision-making, in isolation, might make decisions that are good for that particular community at the cost of the rest of a city. People don't want bike lanes on their street because it means less on-street parking and more difficulty pulling out onto the road, even if they broadly think cycling is a good idea. People can make reasonable decisions that are in the interests of the "community", and it leads to dysfunction. Doesn't mean "we know better" it means coordination has to happen on a higher level.