Google Street NO View

This is a presentation of two approaches and visualizations of the stream crossing a low income community in the of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. It illustrates how Google Street View, which could be considered a proxy to the formal city, fails to capture significant environmental and health threats to the community.

Instead, the visualization of those problems appears in research conducted in Websites, Blogs and YouTube looking for claims and demands about conflicts on the territory which have been uploaded by members of civil society (individuals, neighbors associations, community groups, NGOs, local media, etc.). Those images and videos expose environmental and social threats such as garbage, stream contamination, and extreme poverty, which are located on the banks of the open air sections of the stream.

Brochure, side B

The blue lines of the Google Street View on the larger map of Buenos Aires, could be understood as representing the formal city; therefore, this Google virtual walk provides images of what the formal city recognizes as such. In contrast, the images and videos captured in our research reveal other geographies, identified and made visible by the residents if the area, looking for recognition of their “invisible” and highly vulnerable situation.

Brochure, side A

This analysis raises a cautionary warning that our technical approaches to collecting urban data may contain the same biases and gaps found in the established forms of urban analysis, which very often overlook spaces of extreme needs.

This word is one component of an ongoing research project about disciplinary and extra-disciplinary anticipations of the urban future in Buenos Aires, conducted by a team of researchers of the New School, New York and the Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo, Universidad de Buenos Aires.

A. Imágenes senderismo virtual calle Cnel. Casacuberta 3546, Sarandí, Buenos Aires (Street View – noviembre 2013), capturados en octubre, 2017; B. Imágenes senderismo virtual calle Gral. Arredondo 3379, Sarandí, Buenos Aires (Street View – diciembre 2014), capturados en octubre, 2017; C. Imágenes senderismo virtual calle Av. Crisólogo Larralde 3386, Sarandí, Buenos Aires (Street View – enero 2015), capturados en octubre, 2017

1. Video Youtube (2009). “Reclamo vecinal por la contaminación del Arroyo Sarandí”; 2. Video Youtube (2010). “Arroyo Sarandí: Contaminación industrial y déficit de vivienda (Villa Luján – Avellaneda)”; 3. Video Youtube (2015). “Arroyo Sarandí, Villa Luján 24 04 2015”; 4. Video Youtube (2014). “Arroyo Sarandí”; 5. Video Youtube (2014). “Vecinos en riesgo, Villa Luján”; 6. Video Youtube (2017). “Arroyo Sarandí contaminación 30 03 2017”; 7. Blogspot Villa Corina. Medio de comunicación del barrio Villa Corina. Conurbano Bonaerense, Argentina; 8. Video Youtube (2014). “Infosecla. Experimento ecológico en el arroyo Sarandí”; 9. Video Youtube (2007). “Contaminación del agua. Feria de ciencia”; 10. Video Youtube (2011). “Descargas industriales en el Arroyo Sarandí”