Civic Media for Advocacy Across Amenity Gaps with Augmented Reality

While initiatives like Mapping for Equity document what exists (or doesn’t exist) in public spaces, these gaps must be communicated or demonstrated so that community demand for invisible, unbuilt amenities can be recorded. Open Streetmap has a few ways to note desire or proposed amenities, but civic media can also help. inCitu, a NYC-based augmented reality company, proposes AR as a tool to bridge this gap: by combining data from projects like Mapping for Equity and Spatial Equity NYC with augmented reality (AR) visualization, communities can create compelling artifacts, like AR videos and mockups, that advocate for repair, preservation, and creation of public space infrastructure where it’s needed most. This session will present a sample workflow, from scanning an existing amenity to creating an AR video of it in a new location, and will be followed by open discussion on civic design considerations how this method might contribute to existing efforts.