Robert Muggah: “A city is a place to connect”

28/06/2018
Originally published on the Cities To Be

To Robert Muggah cities are places where people connect, feel safe and live. Places where people thrive and express creativity.

He moved from Geneva to Brazil, which is “the homicide capital” of the world as the majority of people are scared of their own safety. This is an evident challenge but it also represents huge opportunities to make the difference to come up with solutions not only for Brazil but for other cities.

Muggah recommends the Crime Radar is the world first open source predictive algorithm for crime. It takes 16 million data points of crime in Rio de Janeiro and through its algorithm, it predicts the provability of being a victim in a time and space. This project not only brings together the best results of crime research but is also a tool for citizens to learn more about mobility in the city and think about the possibilities of the predictive analytics.

He also recommends Fragile Cities, the largest platform on data about cities around the world, which shows up to eleven metrics that every city faces. Both are new and innovating ways to think about cities but most important, both are ways of improving cities.