Urban Panic
Where shall we run? Can Matt Tiessen’s desire paths be collective? Thanks to Pruned and Nicholas my attention was drawn to the increasing interest in simulating city life - in this case, Paul Torrens’ geosimulation work on predicting the actions of pedestrians and crowd behaviour. Maybe simulated crowds could help the depopulating spaces of Second Life which Andre Lemos picked up on? Of course security analysts noticed immediately - as Bruce Schneier’s post on the possibility of simulating riots and the extensive, and more revolutionary, commentary indicate.
I’m always astounded at how behaviour and crowd practice become quickly seen as mechanical. Losing sight of the socialness of public action often follows. Crowds don’t exist with neat borders cut off from either events before, people elsewhere and adjoining spaces - or even relatively distant destinations.
Like Schneier’s commenters, I’m doubtful that prediction is straightforward, something those closer to the technology also realize. However, it is an interesting analytical tool: one could set up a crowd or situation in which panic ensued, in an interior or exterior urban space, and compare the actual course events with the panic model, adjusting the environment and its attributes and affordances to see if the program suggests any significant impacts on social action. Really though I don’t want to spend any more time than I do in a lab, it would be nice to get out a bit.
- Rob