Anni Beukes
Anni’s research interest lies at the nexus of poverty, place, and politics. She focuses on understanding how the processes and technologies of knowledge making, especially the creation and use of digital mapping tools, affect communities and populations living in marginalized neighborhoods internationally. Before joining the Mansueto Institute, Anni spent four years with Slum Dwellers International (SDI) where she was responsible for SDI’s data ecosystem, from community managed data collection, to data platform management, analysis and partnerships. She led SDI’s efforts at the intersection of organized community groups, researchers, technologists and software developers to create and refine tools, methods and practices for community-driven knowledge production. Anni holds degrees in social anthropology from University Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Session
We outline methods for a) extracting the geometry of street blocks in urban centres using
OSM and remote sensing data, b) generating approximate cadastral maps of a
block given contained building footprints, and c) quantifying residents’ ability to navigate within
blocks through topological analysis of cadastral maps. This topological metric, termed “spatial
accessibility” and denoted k = 1, 2, 3, ..., determines whether areas of a city are informal
settlements, as blocks where k > 2 contain cadastral parcels without direct access to formal road
networks. We analysed 1 terabyte of OpenStreetMap data for 120 low and middle income (LMIC) countries.