Digital Tools for Inclusive Planning in West Texas: Between Participation and the (Un)Sustainability of Datafication

Digital methods of citizen engagement are touted as an increasingly effective means for including public opinion and data in planning, especially as the American Southwest continues to experience accelerated urbanization and the compounding stresses of climate change. But as these tools proliferate across the American Southwest, they also pose questions of how sustainable these methods are from a material perspective. This article uses West Texas as a case study for critically examining the (un)sustainable implications of digital infrastructure. This study investigates the tensions between using digital methods for the public good and the ecological harms associated with the energy, water, and materials used to create digital infrastructures. By analyzing a set of regional policy and community data, we explore whether citizen-generated data can be useful to planning in this data-scarce region, as well as the digital waste and material pollution associated with participatory datafication. In doing so, this research distinguishes between the direct, comparatively marginal footprint of participatory digital tools themselves and the indirect, contextual impacts of the hyperscale data center economy within which those tools are embedded. This study has been framed around the following questions: How can digital methods of participation support a diverse citizenry in a regional planning context? How might digital waste and pollution be factored into our understanding of data for the purpose of supporting equitable outcomes in the regional context? This research argues that inclusion of citizen-generated data does enhance planning and decision-making, and that we must take care to consider not only what participatory data can tell us about our regional environment but also where they originate and what material costs they are associated with. This study contributes to ongoing conversations around the topic of digitalization and (un)sustainability by exploring the ways in which the benefits of digital infrastructure for a diverse citizenry in a regional context sit in tension with its environmental costs.