Miami’s Underline, an ongoing $120 million project to transform the underside of a raised rail corridor into a 10-mile linear park, already seeks to be a transformative civic investment. But a new grant by the Knight Foundation may turn this revitalizing transit corridor into something new: a testing ground for civic technology.
Earlier this month, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced a $925,000 investment in The Underline’s technology infrastructure, which would include the hiring of a chief operating officer and chief information officer by the end of the year to help “create a technology master plan informed by residents and experts alike.”
“Technology will be the connective tissue that connects the people, places, and activities within The Underline’s 120 acres,” said Meg Daly, founder of Friends of the Underline, the nonprofit that helped champion the idea of the new park. “We know technology offers infinite ways to improve this space and bring new ideas to life, but we have to build the foundation based on what’s available today and tomorrow.”
At a time when privacy issues in tech are paramount, and the prospect of a Sidewalk Labs-led smart neighborhood in Toronto is getting blowback, how would a park tech plan work, without raising data security issues?
Read the original article by Patrick Sisson: https://www.curbed.com/2019/9/24/20881872/miami-park-underline-technology-civic-tech
