Stad in het vizier

In this closing lecture I reflect on my research on the design of trust to which witnessing and sharing rhythm seem to be crucial. Defending the polyphonic space for being and bearing witness to one another is crucial for our collective human future, I argue. When bearing witness, we need to share rhythms, and as a result we can share trust and truth and locally counteract disinformation and systems control. Recognizing rhythms of others is fundamental to emerging social and ecological structures, also in relation to one another. This lecture then presents the research on identifying rhythms in large urban data sets for a new understanding of community movements without having privacy being invaded. First, based on formal CBS microdata, and we developed the so-called ‘Base Rhythms’ of neighbourhoods to identify an urban potential that allows for specific service arrangements in particular areas. Then, based on ‘spontaneous’ data (mobile phone location data 2019 – 2023 during COVID19), we developed the ‘Foam Index’ which identifies rhythms-of-communities-over-time to contribute to cities’ management of challenges and crises for safeguarding people’s autonomous space to move.