Episode 49 - Happier Maps, Better Routes, and the Tyranny of Efficiency with Daniele Quercia
Daniele Quercia, Professor of Urban Informatics, talks about his research into what makes a city and a travel route good. Our algorithms aren't measuring things like sights, smells, and ambiance, and these are the things that can affect our mood and overall wellbeing. We discussion:
- The change in focus from Efficiency to Exploration
- The Political Map (or technically accurate map) versus the phychological mind-map
- Making daily habits more inspiring
- Ideas for urban planners and for changes to the modern workplace
Go to the Good City Life Website
Daniele’s Bio
Research Papers
Website
Twitter
Daniele Quercia is Department Head of Social Dynamics at Nokia Bell Labs Cambridge (UK) and Professor of Urban Informatics at the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at King's College London. He has been named one of Fortune magazine's 2014 Data All-Stars, and spoke about “happy maps” at TED. His research has been focusing in the area of urban informatics and received best paper awards from Ubicomp 2014 and from ICWSM 2015, and an honourable mention from ICWSM 2013. He was Research Scientist at Yahoo Labs, a Horizon senior researcher at the University of Cambridge, and Postdoctoral Associate at the department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. He received his PhD from UC London. His thesis was sponsored by Microsoft Research and was nominated for BCS Best British PhD dissertation in Computer Science.
Books
Life and Death of Great American Cities
Related Episodes
Episode 12 on Virtual Friends and Enemies, which has themes similar to this interview
