The NYPD vaunts crime mapping technologies from CompStat maps to a vast networked surveillance infrastructure. Who benefits?
A multi-billion-dollar industry of data-driven policing technology includes dozens of mapping, surveillance, and data-analysis tools, each claiming to hone in on crime at ever-finer grain. But as data and infrastructure writer Ingrid Burrington argues, these technologies represent less a science for the provision of safety, and more a highly effective sales pitch for a management model born in the zero tolerance Giuliani era. Since the early 1990s, when precinct commanders pushed pins into paper maps, police in New York have contended that if they can track crime, then they can predict it, and therefore prevent it. The maps they’ve made have monopolized media narratives, and shaped the lives of those who live within their frames. The authors of CompStat now export their methods around the world. Business is good for those technology vendors and consultants who sell crime- and fear-reduction as a customer service. But who’s buying? More than a set of tools, crime mappers hawk a model of a future world where the cost of guaranteed order would be accountability to the public.
FULL STORY: Policing is an Information Business

Rethinking Redlining
For decades we have blamed 100-year-old maps for the patterns of spatial racial inequity that persist in American cities today. An esteemed researcher says: we’ve got it all wrong.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

Walmart Announces Nationwide EV Charging Network
The company plans to install electric car chargers at most of its stores by 2030.

Indianapolis Advances Plans to Expand and Connect Citywide Greenway Network
Indianapolis is developing a new Greenways Strategic Implementation Plan to expand, connect, and modernize its trail system, aiming for over 250 miles of greenways that support sustainability, mobility, and community well-being.

EPA Awards $267 Million to Clean Up and Reuse Contaminated Sites
The EPA is investing the funds to clean up and redevelop contaminated sites nationwide, supporting economic growth, community revitalization, and environmental restoration.

Knoxville Dedicates $1M to New Greenway
The proposed greenway would run along North Broadway and connect to 125 miles of existing trails.
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