Layer

In the twenty-first century of tech and information, the practice of city management and urban planning often boils down to an obsolete set of unsubstantiated top-down verdicts with almost no correlation between decisions and desired outcomes. Layer changes that. We empower leaders in delivering cross-disciplinary change to the urban fabric. Our platform knits urban planning, architecture, urban economy, demography, mobility, infrastructure, municipal finances, technology, data and geographical information systems. Layer is a holistic urban management platform with a focus on urban planning orchestration. It is designed for cities of all sizes as a tool to help govern through tactics and patterns while leveraging data and artificial intelligence. It enables urban planners to balance the top down with the bottom up – putting options and design references at their fingertips. Layer attempts to serve as a mediating layer between communities, political appointees and civil servants by increasing institutional transparency and demolishing silos. We do not expect scientific rationalism to magically resolve the issues of cities anytime soon. But we can try to improve urban environments by putting state-of-the-art tools in the hands of mayors and public officials around the world. Layer enables a sophisticated and interconnected overview of responsibilities, objectives and outcomes. It can transform communities from lethargic participants in tokenistic public consultations, to proactive agents of change – which access the deeper order of cities by excelling at community-driven local interventions. Layer enables a distributed but well-coordinated exercise in urban acupuncture which might allow cities to achieve the kind of local governance that might have a much higher impact on cities than current cartesian attempts of imposed order and legibility.