Cooperative Data Inquiries

An illustration. It shows a laptop, with hands operating it, has data on the screen. Behind it is building work, and a map showing different planning sites — Map element in illustration derived from: Map tiles by Stamen Design, CC BY 3.0 — Map data © OpenStreetMap

The London Development Database (LDD) was a London-wide database detailing every planning application that “reclassed” space through shifts in housing tenure, commercial use and open or ecologically protected land. This database was used by the GLA and Mayor of London to monitor key indicators from the London Plan.

It was thus a key database of spatial governance that needed opening up. I conducted a co-inquiry with Concrete Action in 2018-19 to find if the database could be reappropriated for activist oversight and to produce accountability for the lack of social housing in London.

This section details this investigation, as well as subsequent experiments with planning data.

Diagram of planning data inquiry

An onto-epistemogram of the investigation of the database.

Data dictionary

An examination of the fields and tables of the London Development Database.

Final database map

The datamap produced in collaboration with Concrete Action.

Technical documentation for planning data map

Details of the software created for the datamap, and the scripts designed to extract LDD data into the right format.