The Pointillistic City

A new paradigm of research, policy, and practice that acknowledges the multiple scales at which we live every day. The Pontillistic City explores the multilayer geography of our daily lives—specifically, how we simultaneously live at the scales of addresses, streets, and neighborhoods and how each can be relevant for our wellbeing. Not unlike the way in which we look at a pointillistic painting, which depicts a full scene through the detailed organization of multiple objects, Daniel O’Brien considers the three scales together and the comprehensive understanding of the city they offer. The pointillistic approach to the city contrasts with decades of focus on neighborhoods. As such, it surfaces microspatial inequities, or disparities in experiences between people living in the same neighborhood, even right around the corner from each other. Microspatial inequities have gone largely unnoticed to date, and their recognition offers a new approach to understanding and supporting the diverse population of the city. This book illustrates the pointillistic perspective on cities with two in-depth case studies—one on crime, the other on environmental justice—in Boston, MA. Both are conducted through the Boston Area Research Initiative, a center at Northeastern University that leverages the cutting-edge data and technologies of urban informatics to pursue research that advances social, economic, and environmental justice. Both projects are research-practice partnerships that begin by highlighting microspatial inequities and their interplay with broader neighborhood conditions. But they go further by demonstrating how these insights can be incorporated into a new generation of policies and practices that are science-driven and community-led, truly addressing disparities both between and within our communities.