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ABSTRACT
Housing issues, including affordability, instability, and the search for available units, present ongoing challenges for urban inhabitants. Supporters claim information and communication technology (ICT) can solve housing problems through increased efficiency, transparency, and the creation of smart cities. However, little is known about the actual use and application of ICT data on housing issues. This article reviews and assesses recent empirical research involving housing and ICT data. Using Web of Science to identify relevant articles, we find most studies focus on housing search and prices or home sharing, which partly reflects the availability of data in these domains. Few articles use ICT data to explore housing challenges for economically vulnerable, historically disadvantaged, or marginalized groups. We discuss concerns about representation in ICT data related to housing and argue for more attention to the needs of vulnerable groups to help build more inclusive smart cities.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. Ginger Leib and Nick Pittman provided excellent research assistance. We also thank Shan Jiang for initial discussions.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Shomon Shamsuddin
Shomon Shamsuddin is Assistant Professor of Social Policy in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University.
Sumeeta Srinivasan
Sumeeta Srinivasan is a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. She teaches courses on Geographic Information Systems, Spatial Models and Spatial Data Analysis.