This artist hacked a CitiBike to make NYC's affordability crisis harder to ignore
Artist Justin Blinder created a 3D-printed device for CitiBikes that increases pedal resistance in neighborhoods with high rent burdens. The project aims to make the abstract concept of the NYC affordability crisis a tangible, physical experience for riders.
Why it matters
This project highlights the intersection of urban art, social activism, and the use of data to visualize economic inequality in major cities.
Justin Blinder riding a CitiBike. Blinder created a device that makes it more difficult to pedal in rent-burdened areas of New York City. Justin Blinder Justin Blinder created a device that makes it harder to pedal in rent-burdened areas of NYC. The device, called "Ground Truth," has a custom map and attaches to any CitiBike in the city. Blinder's invention comes as NYC reckons with an affordability crisis. Justin Blinder was lugging Taco Bell burritos from neighborhood to neighborhood on his bike for his Uber Eats gig in 2020, watching as skyscrapers and modular apartment buildings gave way to brown-bricked housing projects and cracked streets. It made the Brooklyn-based artist and software developer think viscerally about affordability , and how abstracted the concept had become in modern discourse.
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