Kitchin’s chapter defines data-driven urbanism as the emergent mode through which cities are increasingly governed by networked, real-time, computationally processed data. The iconic idea is that smart cities are not merely data-informed; they are becoming environments where sensors, platforms, dashboards and algorithms prefigure operational decisions and shape the urban agenda. Its theoretical contribution is to distinguish long histories of urban data from the contemporary condition in which data systems become embedded in the fabric of governance itself. Methodologically, the chapter operates as a critical overview, mapping how big urban data are produced, circulated, integrated and mobilised for management and control. Its conceptual operation is infrastructural datafication: the city becomes knowable through technical capture, but also vulnerable to reduction, surveillance and vendor-led solutionism. It bridges urban studies, critical GIS, smart-city critique, platform governance and STS.
