Data Action

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Using "Data | Action"
Chapter 1: Big Data for Cities is Not New
Chapter 2: Build It! Data is Never Raw, It's Collected
Chapter 3: Hack It! Using Data Creatively
Chapter 4: Share It! Communicating Data Insights
Chapter 5: Private Data for a Public Good
Conclusion: More Than Data, It's How We Work With It
Notes

Sarah Williams is Associate Professor of Technology and Urban Planning at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, where she is also Director of the Civic Data Design Lab. Trained in geography, landscape architecture, and urban planning, she was named one of the Top 25 Leading Thinkers in Urban Planning and Technology by Planetizen and 2012 Game Changer by Metropolis Magazine. Her designs and visualizations have been widely exhibited.

The work is accessible and uncomplicated. Readers will not get the sense that Williams is sitting alone in an armchair musing about her thoughts and generating ideas in isolation, but rather that her boots have been on the ground and her passport stamped. The narration is honest and transparent Williams seems to know you re busy, too but inspiring for planners who find themselves hesitant to try something new. We need such encouragement.
Finally, this work is useful for the planning profession and discipline, especially for those who think algorithmic bias and data production issues are confined to Silicon Valley and are searching for a bridge to translate the power issues behind tech and data into urban planning terms. It is appropriate for urbanists, imaginative planning practitioners, academics, and students, and with its glossy pages, heaps of color figures, and landscape layout, the coffee table will enjoy it as well.
-- the Journal of the American Planning Association

Data Action a perfect fusion of historical framing, critical reflection, and how-to instruction powerfully demonstrates how collaborative, methodologically pluralistic, reflective, and publicly responsive modes of data design can incite civic change.
--Shannon Mattern, Professor of Anthropology, The New School; author of Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: 5000 Years of Urban Media
 
There is nobody who understands the theory and practice of engaged civic data visualization better than Sarah Williams. Her reflective, absolutely fearless guide to the complexities of knowledge and power in this often-thorny domain distills her decades of experience into a single, indispensable volume a pure gift to the aspiring practitioner.
-- Adam Greenfield, author of Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life
 
Data Action is a much needed, accessible guide to our complex digital world. Writing with clarity, Williams curates both appalling and inspiring