 Hi everyone. Hi Lily. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you Lillian? I'm good. How was your 4th of July? It was it was pretty good You know the usual family time not a lot of things, you know are open but but you know, it's We're we're we're healthy and and that's what matters. How about you? the same a lot of home time, but definitely Try to enjoy our nation's independence. So welcome to everyone to coast-to-coast my name is Lillian Corral and I'm joined by my colleague Lily Weinberg and This is our weekly show on the future of cities So last week we took a little bit of a hiatus But we've been talking about some very like interesting and sort of interesting topics around exactly what's been happening in our city So Lily, I don't know if you want to give us a little bit of a rundown of what we've talked about what we've learned so far Yeah, yeah, I mean it's certainly been an interesting journey. I would say yeah, you know And we've been on this now for for two and a half months and And and so we started, you know during this very dynamic time Looking at the future of public spaces what that means in context of COVID We we then did a deep dive into some of the equity issues that we're seeing in our communities Especially in context of the the murder of George Ford And and so we looked at St. Paul and had a really good conversation with their chief equity officer We also looked at You know, what does it mean to do place-making and and at the intersection of equity and the arts? and And you know, I mean, I think that it's it's been a really fascinating conversation this last one that we had two weeks ago Was looking at cultural bridging? you know and and talking across Races and and what does that look like especially as we think about anti-blackness in our communities and so I you know equity Has has been a thread through all of the conversations and it's not just about the last three It's it's been a thread through it and I'm really interested in this next conversation that we're gonna have today around You know the digital world and and and especially the equity issues that that we're gonna see Elevated through that so yeah, no, that's a great recap and it's funny We have been on this journey for a while now. So thanks to everyone who keeps who keeps joining us So today, you're right. We're talking about the digital public square and we thought this was a good Topic of conversation. I'm really excited by our guests because We have seen obviously we can't all be out on the streets and the spaces that we usually Take up to be civically engaged are no longer accessible to us. So we're all online. And what does that look like? What is it? What are these trends? What does civic life look like? especially In this pandemic stays with us for a very long time, which it definitely feels like it's going to be here for a while And so how do we make sure we don't lose our civic life? In this moment, so I'm really excited to kick it off and and talk today with Mona Sloan and Warren flood so Mona is a New York based sociologist she works at NYU And she's really been working at the intersection of AI design and policy and a lot of her latest research really focuses on Developing an understanding of how we're making these digital shifts as a society especially right now during COVID and where so where we're populating these digital spaces and frankly where they're falling short And and how we can make sure that we are keeping everyone in our community engaged and an active part of Community building and then we also have Warren flood with us who is the corporate affairs officer for Microsoft in Detroit He works with civic leaders community stakeholders and citizens as they tackle urban challenges and prior to joining Microsoft Warren Has a history in data analytics both on the consulting side, but also having worked on several political campaigns And and with political efforts across the country. So thank you both for joining us. It's really interesting to have you here And so as I said today, you know, we're exploring the communities that we engage civically online and offline and And then obviously the outbreak of COVID really has shifted the way that we use these tools And we don't foresee any any changes to our shelter in place strategy Especially not in places like where I live in Los Angeles. We're hunkering back down again Miami is closing down So let's start first by framing all of this and I thought Mona, maybe we could start with you You've used this word public as a practice with us and so I thought maybe we could start by just talking about what it means to be public and And what you're seeing how you see that play out as people are moving digitally Making the shift into kind of just a more digital life if you will Thanks so much Lilian and Lily for having me and Warren also it's such a pleasure and I'm so excited about this conversation Apologies for the background noise. There's a car going off The joys of being you know, public and private At an event. So yes, so thanks for that first question. So what I sort of try to think about when I think about Publicness as a practice is sort of on the one hand critically examine what kinds of affordances of successful physical public space are being carried over into the digital practices that sustain our social life in the shelter in place situation and in the lockdown but also what that means in terms of the different inequalities and inequitabilities that we are seeing in public space both digitally and and sort of physically and And sort of to help anchor that sort of thinking and that framework What helps me thinking doing that is basically thinking about three main points. The first one being Publicness as a practice looking at how do people really do that What does it mean to be together while we are apart? What kinds of social glue do we develop to do that? How are we on the flip side our private and public or used to be private and public? And sort of what kinds of behaviors came out of that? The second one is questions around community and sort of a feeling of belonging The questions around membership. What are the conditions of membership for a certain community? And how do we develop a sense of publicness and belonging for different kinds of communities that cluster around different kinds of activities ideologies goals kinship, you know any kind of social ties and the third point is really about power and and and Policing and gatekeeping and thinking about publicness as a practice that is as much about being open and making connections as it is about Contesting assumptions about a contested space about friction and along those lines very much about whiteness ideas coming out of white supremacy Prolucing along racial lines who can be in who can be out and sort of really looking at how is this Done. That's what I mean when I when I say we need to look at publicness As a practice is something that is being done with materials technologies with certain skills and certain meanings That's great. And our audience tends to be mostly city practitioners planners Official, you know, but both in placemaking as Lily had a little alluded to and also just design So for those folks that are joining us, please feel free to ask us questions In a little bit, we'll turn it over to Lily to take to gather some of the public questions This is a really important conversation So then just real quickly one What are the kind of like big trends that you're seeing like just in the in the first couple months of the of the of the COVID Outbreak in terms of how we're acting as a public online Great great question. Thank you. So I'm drawing what I'm saying now I was drawing on a research project that I'm currently directing which is called here in Cognita whereby I have a wonderful team of researchers who are studying the emergence of digital public space in New York City's Lockdown and I would say one of the main thing main themes That we are seeing is really a close connection between and I know we're going to talk about the flavor between Locality and local communities and how they are an active digitally. So existing social ties social connections That are then sort of played out deep and expanded through technologies that become available and their affordances and as part of that Also, we're seeing a little bit of tinkering with the technology moving maybe from one platform to the other Which we call platform switching to sort of see what works better and sort of what is more in line with one community over the other We see like teachers, you know teaching over zoom. I teach over zoom and we have parents watch that groups as in as as the protests started to happen as part of the Black lives matter movement. We're seeing a Signal come up as a highly encrypted a new Platform used by more and more people. So there's a lot of movement movement going on Another thing that we're seeing is a lot of programming. So we're seeing a lot of public institutions Putting their program online like we do now or also what we do at NYU and sort of participation and an enactment of Publicness happening that way that is quite interesting And so the third thing I'm going to say is that we might want to be a little careful about thinking or Think that this is all new a lot of these digital spaces already existed prior to the lockdown that they are now expanding and they're you know changing the meaning and sort of Along those lines again, we must be mindful of who does what together with whom and under what condition right who can Yeah, and which sort of links to interesting conversations and important conversations about the digital divide and so on Yeah, so definitely an acceleration of the use of a lot of these digital tools And then you're right a lot of platform usage, which I think is a great segue to Warren and Detroit So we definitely wanted to ground this conversation of what's happening in the city And then it was interesting when I reached out to the folks the leadership of Detroit In terms of their their CIO Beth Nylock I was like Beth I want to talk a little bit about how you're engaging the public because I know they're making all these great efforts and she's like Well, if you want to talk to someone you got to talk to Warren so Warren Tell us about what's happening in Detroit and in this context and how you're seeing folks engage digitally and and then also like The value of it if you could talk a little bit about because not every city is really actively Trying to engage and build the muscles to engage their community digitally So can you can you tell us what's happening in Detroit and why you see it being so valuable? Love to thank you. Lily and Lily as well Mona and I we can go on talking about these issues and we have in will for hours Here in Detroit Detroit's known as being the least connected city So we're already starting from behind. We're even just catching up and doing The same is going to leave our folks while behind and we really saw with cove it coming around that The digital divide was really exacerbated in our city and also created this real sense of urgency but what has grown out of that is this beautiful coming together of all sectors in the community Around tackling this digital divide aiming for digital inclusion for all. It's first started with a real effort to equip every single Detroit public school student from K through 12 with an appropriate device and with connectivity at home So they can learn from a home for all 50,000 plus students. It has really evolved into What about every other detroiter that you know is at risk of being left behind so Because we've been sort of starting from behind We really are looking at well, what can we do in order to? Not only catch up but to leapfrog and be where everyone's included. So the second thing that sort of come out of Covid was that negative exacerbation of the digital divide, but this opportunity we really have seen two years of digital transformation Happen in a span of two months, which has opened up everyone's eyes and said, oh, what's possible? And so that's created a little bit of an opening where partners like Microsoft and you know other great partners Google Amazon are also heavily involved in the city of we really have taken this community driven approach where how can we come alongside community efforts and Enable them with with technology, but really it's not us talking about the technology It's really coming alongside the community to dream big start small Iterate and then once we know that we have something figured out how to scale that quickly And so you have seen that happening and this is happening across Detroit As Mona said the the lens to see the work is not through technology lens It's through that community lens and really how can we empower? Those in-person interactions in places in spaces We need to we need to as we're looking at the virtual Side of that coin we need to keep in mind that this really is about those in-person interactions Not about the technology itself So can you guys a couple of quick examples and then maybe also talk a little bit about I know this isn't I mean This has definitely been accelerated by COVID But this is something you've been working on with the city over a while So can you talk a little bit about those efforts and and and then for the audience again? What what exactly does this look like of having technology work alongside the community? I love to so we've really kind of come along in phases with the city again piggybacking off of all that Mona has said How we can come alongside the city as well as the community partner data-driven Detroit a very very strong organization that the reason why I lit up when I first met them is because They don't come at it from a data analytics firm They really are a community organizing group that happens to be ridiculously good at data analytics So when I was looking at the efforts as they were coming alongside the city I'm how we could bolster their efforts to connect with residents really four phases emerge number one was user feedback on City apps because as we know a comfort level with apps could be a barrier So how to make them as user friendly for all Detroiters as possible out of that came The the kind of group the civic user testing group that data-driven Detroit powered on behalf of the city of Detroit To really help start trying to address a digital divide The second part then really kind of evolved from oh, how do we look at the digital divide as a whole? And how do we resource and track? Collective impact that's happening but in this digital inclusion space and again data-driven Detroit stood up a metro data Metro Detroit data Alliance Which again really helped to? Not centralized but to pool and coordinate as a resource the data across The spectrum and then the third part that we're really excited about which is how do we kind of transcend? Just looking at specific applications and we're looking at how do we upgrade these physical community gathering places that already exist With technology and programming to help folks access the digital landscape So we're coming with a series of hundreds of neighborhood tech hubs designated throughout the city In order to help make it as easy as possible for residents who might not have Equipment devices connectivity at their home be able to connect and to feel more comfortable with it And then it's like how do we transcend even these physical places and spaces? And that's we're really coming alongside to empower people to digitally access their digital landscape through these community ambassadors Which are community organizers who sold job It is is to help residents become more comfortable using this technology for the betterment of their learning their employment But also their well-being in life That's great And so we're going to put a link out I thought it'd be great to share with folks a link to the data different Detroit Group like even just the intake form to see exactly how they're engaging the public in participating and this is a user testing group that the city has to actually Test any new technology that's being deployed just an easy way to engage so Obviously one of the key question I definitely want to move to this topic of localism and community But one of the key questions I know has been, you know top of mind for everybody is this issue of privacy It's come up in the protest. It's come up in in both in the contact tracing context as well for co-bed So Mona, what are the kind of high-level implications for our privacy? And I know this could be like a conversation unto itself But like what are the high-level implications for privacy in all of this? And then you've written a little bit about this too. So we'll also put some links to some articles that you've talked about Yeah, that's a big question Lillian. So I think maybe we want to backtrack a little bit and think about What happens before we even ask questions about privacy, which I think are important questions around infrastructures and public versus private ownership of infrastructures and what what happens What are the government structures that we have around these? infrastructures who owns what in what way and if it is their democratic oversight that's sort of the baseline I think that we need to look at first and then Obviously as we as we sort of use these largely or mostly privately owned infrastructures And centralized infrastructures as sort of the social glue that holds us together and that facilitates our social life in the lockdown Issues around data extraction and and privacy Come up. So at these can be very Technical and pragmatic and about security how how secure is zoom, right? Can there be a zoom booming? What happens to your cloud recording who owns that data? Can it be can it be hacked? What happens to it? but then sort of leading on to that are really issues around Again, sort of inequalities and equities and structures of power and oppressions that are imbued into design processes and data analytic processes. So highly surveyed communities Immigrant communities for example or Communities of color who have been under under surveillance. The question is will this shift to the digital under this particular ownership structure exacerbate exacerbate this surveillance and this policing and therefore the oppression and that is not just related to privacy when we privacy I know it's a very big, you know We love talking about privacy To do data right and sort of a key mechanism that we have when we talk about privacy is a consent And as we've seen with the GDPR That does not always work so well because we don't really can't can we really give consent to something We don't really understand and what we don't understand then necessarily is how is this data being used used to build models? Which are predictions of the future, right? That sort of live on beyond the data. So even when the data is being deleted Sort of harmful assumptions and patterns can live on that were sourced from this from this data I could talk about this forever, but these are sort of some of the concerns and thoughts that I have Related to that. However, what I will also say is that I do see With this sort of really rapid shift into the digital space Rapidly growing collective literacy and knowledge around that That that is emerging which kind of excites me because we're talking about it because we're experienced. Yeah Yeah, no, I think the dialogue. Oh, sorry. Go ahead one. I'm just gonna say for Mona That's exactly why I think The phases of work that we described is really important because it comes out of the trust, right? So these phases not only help build trust between residents in the city But by taking on as many different projects for us to all work together cross sector and building up these small wins It's really important to build trust between the organizations that are reaching out to residents as well Which in turn hopefully translates into more trust of how that data is being used to ensure that that privacy is being respected That ethics is thought first and foremost and that it's being accessible for all not just some so maybe Kind of piggybacking off of that Warren you've talked about how essentially what we're doing is we're trying to take So typically we try to take online activity Offline and now what we're trying to do essentially is take all this offline activity things that we would do in physical spaces in the public square Quote-unquote online Can you tell us more about what that sort of shift means for you? What and then again, what does that look like? And some specifics where you seen that looks like in community and back to Mona's point earlier about this localism Like what is that? What are some of the opportunities here and then again, you know for a lot of our city guests, you know, like What kind of things could we be thinking about doing in our community to kind of help that shift? I love that So number one it really is about trying to make folks see technology as a tool not as a solution So too oftentimes it's thought of as a solution that I don't know how to do and therefore is not for me which in turn even furthers the the distance between those who are able to use the tool to improve their quality of life versus those who aren't so Lot of times also is just talking about well, this is the same as what you're doing in person It just happens to be a slightly different way one example that we use is for example with seniors Who we are getting comfortable using you know face time and talking to their grandchildren who might be afraid to visit them Knowing that once they get comfortable with that it's social interaction. They'll be more comfortable speaking with their doctor and doing telemedicine Before they get sick. So we're really looking at how we can change that conversation And really is anchoring it and what folks are doing offline and as well We really want to make sure that we're meeting everyone where they're at no matter where they are so that no one Is left behind all too often before we think of digital literacy as a thing that once you achieve that check It's all done and not as a spectrum So we really want to make sure that we're addressing and have solutions for folks wherever they're on the spectrum to move along the spectrum Great. Now Lily. I know we've got The set of questions in the Q&A So I don't know if you want to pull up some of those. Yeah. Yeah, this is a great conversation. Thanks guys So so there's a few questions that I want to I want to tease out so so first And Warren I'll start with you. You talked about trust And and one of our audience members commented and and opposed the question to around how He's seen that it's really important to have in-person networks first before transitioning into the virtual space and So Warren if you could start like is that is that really important first and and if you can comment on that and Mona I would love to hear your thoughts do so it definitely is I think we sort of mentioned about two years of digital transformation happening in two months and it feeling wait a minute Things didn't break down number two. There's some benefits to it. So there's there's sort of two things that I see there number one is We don't we need to not confuse this as being Equivalent to in person what we're doing right now is we're drawing down We're borrowing from that social equity that we built up in person that we're able to use now that we're connecting with virtually And we're getting to know people a little bit differently, right? Like I get to see someone's kids come into the picture before they never talked about their kids at work So we're actually like able to get to know them a little bit more But that's because we're born from the social equity we built up in person at some point That's gonna get depleted and it's gonna be go and it's gonna go back to being ineffective So we need to figure out how to get back to enabling and empowering those in-person interactions to begin with even though This feels as if it's it's easy so a completely completely 10,000 percent agree with that No, no any thoughts on that. Yeah, so Thanks for that Lily and Warren. I would first of all, I would absolutely Agree that as a sociologist That's what I observe and what I'm interested in and this is really what is Emerging as sort of an early insight from the Terran Cognita research project that we are talking about existing social networks Interactions ties that by the way can't be super local, but that can also be global, right? Because like the history of humanity is a history of migration and people have ties all over the world that are Sort of now being strengthened actually And sort of what we see is that some you know folks who have family abroad say well I'm closer now because everything is you know is virtual and I can attend You know fourth of July dinner with my family, which we never did before and like I'm closer to them I'm even closer to Public life in my city because I go to my local yoga studio These kinds of things so that's one come the other comment is around trust I do think trust is an important concept, but I think we also need to complicate it a little bit and ask what constitutes trust Do we actually have a? Sufficient definition of that and sort of who who defines that for us and what are the kinds of Processes and structures that we need in addition to trust such as democratic oversight Transparency equitability and all these kinds of things and sort of I am Cautioning us to think those and do those along the lines of building trust Absolutely And so so on that on that thread of you pointed out, you know Defining trust being able to understand what that means. I think that that is that's really important As we're as we're continuing into this this virtual space So so I so one of the one of the the the key places that we found that that has tremendous Trusts is our libraries and our communities and and actually there is interesting enough I didn't even think of this there There's a bunch of questions around libraries and how how you you too are thinking about potentially partnering Or or how do libraries play in this in this world that we're talking about just quickly Warren if you have any comments I was working very closely with the American Libraries Association already over 200 I want to misquote 278 different library districts have been equipped with Wi-Fi so they connect to the community We've seen too often here in Detroit, but also in rural areas as well throughout the nation where People are playing up to the parking lots at the libraries in order to access Wi-Fi so so number two as well is not only the place for knowledge, but also just the place for Accessing social Benefits of any sort really the rules of libraries really are is that key community space and I love the fact they've taken this broader lens And and so we we're coming alongside their efforts as much as possible Recognizing that that is the place where we're community gap Absolutely, Mona. I'm gonna just pivot a little bit because we're running out of time But I'm gonna ask you the the final question That that I thought was really interesting from from the group and there's a bunch more so so we can we can we can respond on Twitter afterwards Well, we'll put up your handles but there's a really interesting question around journalism and and of course we know at night and we're we're That is a major pillar of our work too and and what does You know this this digital civic engagement Mean for journalism and if there's anything interesting that that you're seeing Around that so Mona. Do you have any thoughts on that? I do and I love that question. Thank you for that So I'm just gonna narrow it from my own experience. So and I'm gonna say Journalism is so important for forces for a healthy society for a healthy democracy and I'm real to see that it's going strong here and so I Find I have way more interactions with journalists in the lockdown We're reaching out we can sort of do these kinds of interactions. We can have conversations There seems to be a really sort of a more close collaboration between journalism and sort of people like me who are in the Academy but also community organizers activists, you know Community members generally and I do think that is that's something really important to hold on to and to really closely observe how Important journalism is for our society critical journalism really good investigative journalism And that we sort of hold on to that as we hopefully sort of re-emerge Later on so those are my two cents on journalism in the lockdown Fantastic great. Well, I'm gonna call in Lillian to to close this out Yeah No, these are great questions So there's a bunch of really great questions in the Q&A that we won't get to that talk about digital infrastructure and a little bit more on the digital divide I'll maybe just tease out that in the in the coming weeks We actually want to focus a whole a whole show on the digital divide because it's come up in all of our public spaces discussions It's come up in the racial equity conversation and obviously here. So for our guests, please stay tuned for that one But perhaps just to close it out Mona and Warren Do you have any kind of just last provocation about like moving forward? Especially if we're not technologists But we're in this process of rebuilding our cities like what's the one big thing that you know, everyone should be thinking about doing Yeah, gotta let Warren go first for this one Really quickly. I've been surprised at how many different stakeholders who in the past may have had what seemed like selfish interests are leaning into the digital divide So just really encouraging taking a growth mindset and an allyship for all approach Not necessarily an us versus them too often. It feels like us versus them but in Detroit here It's really nice to see everyone coming alongside and lending Their resources and expertise where they can in surprising ways Okay Yeah, and I would just add endorse that and second that and add on to that and saying one of the main trends that I'm seeing is that I'm Excited about both as the intellectual but also as a person is kind of This localism that I keep talking about the decentralized community building and sort of coming together but not in a in a sense of you know Sort of really closing up and so it's just us against them But I see an opening up happening as this happens, which I'm really excited about as a cultural shift And I do see and I'm hopeful for things like different kinds of literacy Happening as part of that and building sort of local networks both like literally networks But also networks of mutual aid of support And so on and that's what I think is a trend that puts cities back firmly back on the map and local communities firmly back on the map That I'm excited about and yeah, I'm really good at that Well, definitely. Well, thank you both I think definitely the thing I'm taking away is that we've got to build on the social equity that we've built in These physical spaces and let's let's not be afraid by let's not be afraid of the digital and let's let's figure out how we take that That connection and that community Digital so that we don't lose these ties as we're sheltering in place So thank you very much Both of you for those that are still on as Lily mentioned I Mona you're active on Twitter. So if folks have any more questions for you, you're at Mona's underscore Sloan, so folks can find you there and it's in the chat and then please join us next week We're gonna talk we're gonna sort of take this digital Forward and talk a little bit about mobility, which has been a huge topic of conversation for us And we'll be joined by Anthony Townsend who talks a lot about the shift moving towards autonomy in mobility And then we'll also talk to Warren Logan from the city of Oakland Who is their mobility policy lead and we'll think through how what does? Mobility look like as we try to rebuild From COVID and how do we make sure we do it equitably and how do we make sure we're also like really taking advantage of the technology That's out there, so please join us next week, but thank you all. Thank you Lily for joining again, and we'll see you all next week Next Tuesday next Tuesday. Bye