Culture
Can You Tell if a Street is Safe Just By Looking?
Comparing images of cities and neighborhoods to gather data on perceptions of place
Imagine your street passing you a note. It says “Do you like me?” and asks you to circle “Yes” or “No.” There's no “Maybe” or “Kinda” or “Yeah, but… .” This should be an easy answer. Which do you circle?
Any question framed this way can seem not particularly informative. But take that same note and send it out to a couple hundred thousand people, and the results start to gather a little more meaning. That’s the thinking behind the web-based project Place Pulse, which seeks to collect simple binary responses about images of places in cities.