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have been left with the important responsibility of finding ways create an urban environment
capable of sustaining future generations. Although professionals like economists predicted this
downward trend long ago, it has been the urban developers who have begun to take initiative in
developing new, sustainable solutions. Researchers believe that it is only through the innovation
of current urban design practices and the development of new urban technology will government
officials be able to temporarily relieve the populations strain on global resources. However, to
develop a more permanent solution, they will have to turn to the study of design and data science
to properly immerse themselves in the art of urban imagination and social innovation.
The increased consumption of natural resources around the world has created a sense of
urgency in going about finding solutions to slow or reverse this trend. Often failing to see the
complexity of city infrastructure and systems, humans are now beginning to increasingly rely on
artificial intelligence to ease this process. By capitalizing upon this new technology, city
planners can foster the growth of smarter and more self-sufficient cities. In addition, through the
proper analysis of big data and proper implementation of urban intelligence, researchers can
assist city officials by providing them with important information about energy usage, water
consumption, and waste treatment. Lastly it is important to recognize the use of city intelligence
in traffic dynamics. Similar to how researchers find ways to maximize the efficient usage of
natural resources, they can use the same technology to find ways to minimize travel time and
traffic congestion. In the end, by minimizing the amount of fuel that is burned as well as
reducing the amount of excess resources that go to waste, urban planners can serve to promote
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INNOVATIVE URBAN DESIGN THROUGH DATA VISUALIZATION
10 billion: the number scientists expect our population to peak at by the end of the 21st
century. To put that into perspective, that will be an extraordinary 3 billion more people who will
be consuming food supplies, expending energy resources, and producing waste than the 7 billion
who already do so today. The underlying question remains: Will the rate at which our civilization
is innovating be enough to support the population growth of the coming century? While
economists have frantically been looking for an answer, urban developers have already started to
take initiative in developing smarter and more efficient solutions. Through the innovation of
current urban design practices, implementation of urban monitoring techniques, and the
development of new urban technology, city planners will be able to temporarily relieve the
populations current strain on global resources with hopes of turning it into a permanent solution.
It is only through the study of design and science can one immerse themselves in the art of urban
Advancements in computer vision and urban monitoring techniques have given scientists
a more efficient means of detecting problems in the current urban environment. Through the use
of new data visualization techniques and Global Information Systems (GIS), analysts have been
able to predict the worlds next environmental predicament or energy crisis before it actually
occurs. Improvements in monitoring techniques have also allowed city planners to use satellite
imagery to detect the roots of poverty in certain regions. Though traditional monitoring tools
have been labeled as ineffective due to their high cost requirement, high labour input
requirement, and poor spatial resolution (given the complex spatial structure of urban
landscapes), much hasnt changed with the advent of the newer technology planners use today
(Seiferling). This is evident in a recent study conducted by MITs SENSEable City Lab in which
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they used LiDAR to illustrate the different methods by which urban planners can quantify and
map trees in the urban city landscape. LiDAR, a high-resolution active sensor, has proven to be
well-suited for most landscapes but often falls short in some instances, once again, due to the
usual high costs and intensive labor requirements. Nevertheless, the study found that the use of a
planned arrangement of trees not only provides natural infrastructure and services for the city,
but also serves to reduce air pollution, support biodiversity, mitigate heat island effects, increase
land value, improve aesthetics, and even improve human health (Seiferling). Apart from the
listed environmental and health benefits, the effects of these green streets have been found to
extend to cultural and psychological behaviors as well. For example, the previous study also
found that a high abundance of street trees [has been] linked to urban scenes that were
perceived to be safe (Seiferling). For most people, because they do not pay much attention to
the placement of trees on streets, or, as a matter of fact, trees is general, it is quite eye-opening to
see that their placement is not arbitrary, but rather strategic and for the purpose of attaining
certain health benefits and maximizing their impact on the environment. Essentially, the goal of
computer vision scientists has been to teach computers to quantify real-world features and their
spatial distribution within a landscape for a multitude of applications. These applications can
range from quantifying urban appearance and urban change to socio-economic indicators which
has been made possible using machine learning models. New data visualization techniques have
been able to turn raw data into important findings which can eventually be used to achieve the
Eradicating poverty remains one of the biggest challenges in the world as it tops the list
rely heavily on census data, which in most low-and middle-income countries are unavailable or
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out-of-date (Steele). There exist many other approaches which can be used to calculate
indicators of living standards, however, because each presents its own advantages and
disadvantages, they remain widely unreliable and inaccurate. For example, consumption data
can be highly noisy due to recall error or because expenditures occurred outside the period
captured in surveys, but provide a better shorter-term concept of poverty. Asset-based measures
have been regarded as a better proxy for the long-term status of households as they are thought to
called for a more a flexible approach to modeling poverty as indicators representing asset-based,
consumption-based and income-based measures didnt always produce similar results. Recent
work has shown that sources of high-resolution derived from remote sensing, geographic
information system data (RS data), and mobile operator call detail records (CDRs) can provide
an accurate and up-to-date indication of living conditions. They were recently used in a study
conducted in the impoverished country of Bangladesh. GP, which is the largest mobile network
provider in the country, had about 48 million customers (99% of the population) at the time
making it a good network to be used for analysis (Steele). Some basic metrics which the CDR
measured range from phone usage and social networks to user mobility and handset usage.
Researchers also used Voronoi tessellations to approximate the coverage areas provided by
cellular towers. Using the models created by these tessellations, the researchers used hierarchical
Bayesian geostatistical models (BGMs) to predict the three poverty metrics at unsampled
locations across the country. Interestingly, the Voronoi polygons themselves formed the
neighborhood structure for this spatial random effect, and neighbors are defined within a scaled
precision matrix (Steele). The matrix serves to represent the processes which may affect overall
poverty estimates. Essentially, they found that the models employing a combination of CDR and
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RS data served better for the purpose and generally provide an advantage over models which
relied on data source alone. These finding have, nonetheless, caused many urban planners to
believe that the solution to poverty lies in the way they model city infrastructure and organize
land use.
Similar to how data visualization techniques can create effective arrangements for trees
on streets, on a much wider scale, they can also be used to determine land use organization in
cities. The advent of geo-located information and communication technologies opens the
possibility of exploring how people use space in cities, bringing an important new tool for urban
scientists and planners, especially for regions where data are scarce or not available
(Lenormand). A quick and systematic approach to determining land use patterns has been
derived from mobile phone records. In a recent study conducted by the University of Cambridge,
researchers were, once again, able to find a correlation between organization by land use and the
livability of neighborhoods and the health of locals. The study consisted of an extensive analysis
of the land distribution in Spains five most populous cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia,
Seville, and Bilbao. The study went through a series of processes in which they first divided the
urban area networks using Voronoi tessellations, then proceeded to analyze their mesoscopic
structure using clustering techniques (Lenormand). A Voronoi diagram helps show the
partitioning of a plane into regions based on its distance to points in a specific subset of the
plane, one in which each Voronoi cell has its own center of mass. The diagrams use in visual art
is just one example of how data visualization can be used to create immersive models and
representations. In this case, researchers discovered the emergence of four prominent regions
through the cities: residential, business, logistics/industry, and nightlife. It is interesting to find
that not only do these groups cover similar proportions of cells throughout the cities, but they
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also show similar scaling curves indicating comparable structures when it comes down to how
the four groups fuse at the urban level (Lenormand). This analysis is believed to have confirmed
the existence of certain properties which have been hypothesized to be common to all cities, and
also to laws which serve as a means to see how property scales with city size. These include, but
are not limited to, the number of patents filed, unemployment rates, gross domestic product per
capita, business diversity, consumption of resources, length of road networks or even crime
density. Lastly, it is important to note that the model is based on a Schelling-like segregation in
which the different land use types interact to generate a spatial distribution in the city. Cells in a
given land use type tend to maximize the number of neighbors undergoing equivalent uses. The
different land uses interact by attracting each other, such as services and residential areas, or by
repelling like industry and almost any other type (Lenormand). Basically, this model serves to
explain the simple interaction rules between different land uses (Lenormand). Because of this
benefit, researchers have glorified the emergence of new geolocated information and
communication technologies which can now directly measure the use that citizens make of each
urban space compared to old technologies which failed to satisfy this need.
Mankind has always aimed at the best use of land in hopes of making the most efficient
use of the environment possible. However, the nature of the city planning process had widely
changed overtime in that it now allows us to see what exactly leads to a flourishing, and
productive society. By creating a conceptual system independent of, but corresponding to, the
real-world system, we can seek to understand the phenomena of change, then anticipate them and
finally evaluate them to concern ourselves with the optimization of the real-world system by
seeking optimization of the conceptual system (Yaakup). The failure of previous city models
has prompted urban planners to develop newer strategies which can now be tested using
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advanced software. Additionally, the monitoring of land use change also forms an integral part
of the urban planning process whereby policies and strategic plans are reviewed and updated
(Yaakup). It is only through these immersive data visualization techniques can we detect poverty
and other hindrances to the sustainable growth of our society. Once detected, the solution is only
Earths to provide enough resources for everyone (Oenhuber). This startling statistic do not only
help us personify the severity of the changes our earth is bound to face, but helps promote a
sense of urgency in going about finding a solution. Through the use of urban intelligence and big
data, city planners can foster the growth of smarter and more self-sufficient cities as well as
promote a more sustainable future. Lastly, by devising policies which increase the efficiency of
energy usage, water consumption, and waste treatment, the government will be able to support
New technologies in the field of artificial intelligence research have been highly
concerned with the development of the next generation of urban intelligence systems. The goal
of researchers has been to integrate several different techniques in order to develop a single,
hybrid intelligent system which has expanded capabilities for urban planning. Whereas
automatic systems have now improved decision-making capability and labor efficiency (Feng).
Because knowledge-based systems (KBSs) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) already
complement each other, they have been integrated in order to develop a system far more
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intelligent when put together. One of the best benefits of an ANN approach is that knowledge
[can be] accumulated directly from case data by way of a learning algorithm that may be either
supervised or unsupervised (Feng). What this means is that they dont need any prior
means for representing uncertain knowledge. These remain significant in capturing the
impreciseness in human reason when it comes to urban planning by allowing uncertainties and
complexities in the knowledge to be incorporated (Feng). Hence, the ability to learn in unknown
environments is an essential component of any intelligent system and is particularly crucial to its
performance. By incorporating neural network learning mechanisms (ANNs) with KBSs, you
can actually enhance the KBSs by enabling the ANNs to modify their knowledge structures
autonomously (Feng). Logic, facts, and rules may be frequently modified in an evolutionary
fashion but will nevertheless remain dependent on human experience in the larger domain.
Lastly, the combination of different intelligent systems, or an integrated system, can be capable
of analyzing even larger quantities of data and establishing patterns and identifying
characteristics which had previously been unknown. As this new, growing class of technology is
applied to a variety of city operations, cities will now have the potential to promote sustainable
growth.
Over the past century, Chinas complex city structure has been rapidly expanding due to
a rise in traffic, increase in population, and surge in manufacturing. Each of these factors have
had an incredible impact on the sustainable development of Chinas ecosystem. Because city
administrators are not fully aware of the complexity of this urban ecosystem, many of their
policies have failed to address these mounting issues. Over time, modern cities have slowly
grown from the dual spaces they once occupied to now occupying ternary spaces (Pan). This
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means that the highest dimensional space which once referred to human society space (cultures,
norms, interactions) now refers to the cyberspace (computers, internet access, data flow). This
new concept of approaching urban life calls for new philosophies, theories, and practices.
Scientists deem the cure for various urban diseases lie within the realms of big data and the
advent of the intelligent city (Pan). In technical terms, urban big data is a massive amount of
dynamic and static data generated from the subjects and objects including various urban
facilities, organizations, and individuals, which have been being collected by city governments,
public institutions, enterprises, and individuals using new intelligent city systems (Pan). The
surge in big data research is being led by companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter who
are using real-time data such as emails, tweets, and photos gathered from millions of users to
feed large-scale analytic engines to produce additional value services such as recommender
systems, customer analytics, social network analytics, and fraud detection (Ang). The reason
why big data is becoming so prevalent today is because of its potential to transform and enhance
the values of products and services in industry and business. The emergence of social media has
served as a new form of network where humans act as sensors and data generated in the form of
tweets, photos, and videos convey relevant information with spatial and temporal characteristics
reminiscent of physical wireless sensor networks (Ang). Essentially, they have discovered that
social media feeds often convey up-to-date geographic information due to people frequently
commenting on events in their area or even referring to locations that represent momentary social
hotspots. Urban developers have taken a similar approach and have begun to use this new
technology for studies of the urban environment, [ranging] from monitoring air pollution, to
disaster management systems, and even intelligent transportation (Ang). Because urban big data
can be converged, analyzed, and mined using the Internet, cloud computing, and artificial
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intelligence technology, researchers are hoping to assist the government with decision-making
and urban planning in order to achieve their goal of intelligent administration of the city.
As new technology is constantly being developed every year, much of it still remains in
its infancy stage and is not capable of being used to its full potential. Therefore, the intelligent
administration of cities is not always effective and requires an evaluation system in order to
detect any discrepancies in its system. However, finally after having determined a common base
with the 38 current intelligent city evaluation systems (ICESs) from around the world, scientists
have developed the City Intelligence Quotient (City IQ) Evaluation System. Additionally,
because of the highly diverse purposes these city evaluation systems serve, there have been no
set global standards. Out of the half of these systems which all consist of primary, secondary,
and tertiary indicator systems, only the China Wisdom Engineering Association System and
GONG Bingzheng System have secondary indicators that are actually quantifiable (Wu). The
results of a quantitative study of 20 indicators selected before 2013 found that the first three
construction, intelligent governments, and intelligent citizen. Often associated with iCity
practices, intelligent industries and intelligent environments are often considered as extra
dimensions of measure by many researchers. As mentioned earlier, not only are the worlds
existing ICESs unreliable due to their relative newness, but also due to their lack of global
comparability. However, because City IQ Evaluation System series are updated annually with
sustained improvements...they will still be able to provide more valuable and credible evaluation
results for advances in iCity construction, operation, and development (Wu). Essentially, what
distinguishes the City IQ Evaluation System from other ICESs is that the system avoids the
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existing problems in current ICESs such as indirect data access, poor reliability, and the missing
The usage of intelligent systems is vastly increasing in cities throughout the world. The
advent of big data has innovated the way in which information is processed for enhanced insight
and decision making. By using analytical and statistical techniques like machine learning,
recommender systems, and network analysis, scientists have been able to accurately quantify
data previously unmeasurable in the urban landscape. These advancements have prompted
economists such as W.B. Arthur to declare the emergence of a second global economy, one
whose activities run on processors, connectors, sensors, and executors. Other than traditional
sensors to measure physical quantities, new devices like smartphones contain embedded sensors
such as microphones, cameras, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and GPS which can be used to sense
a variety of data from the environment (Pan). Due to the increasing number of devices available
for integration into networked systems, this second economy is expected to approach the size of
our traditional economy by the year 2030. Big data research essentially focuses on five factors:
intelligent life. By effectively coordinating activities between all five, city planners are
determined to build a new, integrated urban environment which is capable of self-correction and
solving critical social, economic, and ecological problems in a more automated and timely
fashion.
things people have complained about ever since the suburban revolution. Despite commute via
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personal cars being one of the most important innovations leading to suburbanization, it has also
been one of the most detrimental. From burning less fossil fuels to reducing stress, city dwellers
have constantly been asking for more efficient methods of travel for the purpose of limiting the
properly evaluate traffic dynamics, city planners need to analyze data collected from traffic
stops, police monitors, and other systems strategically placed throughout cities. Through the use
of intelligence city data and the evaluation of traffic dynamics in urban neighborhoods, city
planners can work towards improving health, reducing carbon emissions, and creating a better
tomorrow.
Over the past century, governments all over the world have been trying to innovate the
traffic dynamics of cities in order develop a safer highway transportation system as well as
promote a more sustainable urban environment. Many have used Intelligent Transportation
Systems (ITS), which rely on Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC), to manage vehicle traffic,
assist drivers with safety and sharing information, and provide appropriate services for
passengers (Meneguette). The reason traffic congestions are considered such a huge urban
mobility problem is because they often stress drivers and result in economic losses. This study,
conducted by Rodolfo Meneguette of the University of Ottawa, proposes a new method called
INCIDEnT which can actually detect and control congested roads based on inter-vehicle
communication. The main goal of researchers in this study has been to reduce the average trip
time, CO emissions and fuel consumption by allowing motorists to avoid congested roads
(Meneguette). To their joy, the simulation of this method actually showed that their proposed
solution leads to shorter delays and a low overhead. Moreover, it is efficient with regard to the
coverage of the event and the distance to which the information can be propagated. Their model
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also uses control messages (i.e. beacons) to make the information about the state of the roads
available to all the vehicles (Meneguette). Each message consists of the location, speed, and
direction, as well as the status of the particular road segment in which the vehicle is currently
located. Through the use of the INCIDEnT, researchers eventually achieved a high success rate
in the classification of the level of congestion, reduced average trip time, and managed to
from the OpenStreetMap, researchers were able to create a realistic scenario which can be used
to accurately test these simulations as well as propagate emergency information so that drivers
In the recent discourse on urban sustainability, many have believed that megacities
received a disproportionate amount of attention over other sizes of cities. This puts forth that a
focus on smaller and medium-sized cities is crucial to achieving progress towards more
sustainable urban development because they also offer great potential for sustainable
transformations (Pojani & Stead). Additionally, a focus on smaller developing cities (i.e., with
fewer than one million inhabitants) is important in current urban sustainability discourses since
nearly half of the worlds 3.9 billion urban dwellers reside in relatively urban settlements with
fewer than 500,000 inhabitants, while only around one in eight live in the 28 megacities of 10
million inhabitants or more (Pojani & Stead). Smaller developing cities are extensively
underserved with respect to basic services and lack the necessary institutional capacity to be able
to manage their rapidly growing populations. In a study conducted by Dorina Pojani and
Dominic Stead of The University of Queensland, they argue that medium-sized cities in the
developing world can actually offer greater potential for more sustainable transformations than
megacities. Their smaller size allows for greater flexibility when it comes to urban expansion,
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adoption of green travel modes, and environmental protection (Pojani & Stead). Researchers in
this study also critically reviewed the potential role and impact of other options for sustainable
urban transport in cities in developing countries including road infrastructure, rail-based public
transport, and support for non-motorized travel modes. In the years after World War II, a
commonly-used approach for addressing congestion and other urban travel issues was increasing
the size and number of roads. In more recent years an understanding has emerged that
increasing capacity can lead to greater demand as a result of induced travel (Pojani & Stead).
This is similar to the concept of induced demand in economics which states that after supply is
increased, more of a good is consumed. In this case, expanding the highway transportation
systems calls for more cars to travel on the road. Ultimately, this paradox has proven that post-
expansion congestion levels will soon be restored to pre-expansion congestion levels in which
Research over the past century has shown city planners that traffic infrastructure can have
drastic effects on the quality of a life of a city dweller. These findings have created a need among
engineers to further evaluate and explore this traffic data for the purpose of finding ways to
optimize this infrastructure (Oenhuber). However, the two biggest problems which emerge
when going about doing this lie in the fact that the sparseness of speed sensors can only cover a
limited number of road segments and that traffic patterns are eventually become too complex to
analyze (Poco et al.). In a study conducted by Jorge Poco of New York University, him and his
colleagues take a look at the use of NYC taxi trips as sensors to capture traffic information.
Researchers in this study proposed an efficient traffic model capable of deriving speed and
direction information from the data collected, as well as providing reliable estimates. Another
form of data they have analyzed includes traffic patterns from historic data over different periods
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of time and in different parts of the city. Regardless of what type of data is analyzed, questions
mobility-based tasks (Poco et al.). Scalar-based questions involve a fixed property of the traffic
such as speed and density of traffic. In this category, a task of interest which some like to explore
is how traffic speeds vary throughout a city during different times over different days. On the
other hand, mobility-based tasks involve studying the flow of traffic along various streets of the
city. These include exploring the flow of slow moving traffic, free-flowing traffic, and direction
of traffic (Poco et al.). These simulations are really useful when trying to essentially determine
whether or not a proposed change to traffic infrastructure has any adverse effects. Though the
data that is captured can be very complex, a proper analysis through the use of vector field
visualizations should also be able to simulate traffic dynamics under a variety of stipulations.
The expansion of urban technology over the past century has truly changed the pace at
which our society has developed. Along with the proper evaluation of city traffic dynamics, the
advent of big data has allowed city planners to work towards creating a city which is safer,
healthier, and cleaner for its dwellers to commute in. Additionally, focusing on the the
development of smaller cities has also been crucial to achieving progress towards a more
transformation, urban planners can lead the way in creating a better tomorrow.
GLOBAL IMPACT
The subject of urban sustainability and its uses applies to a variety of fields ranging from
mapping poverty to reducing traffic. The United Nations has pledged for the successful
completion of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals by the year 2030, the first of which being
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the eradication of poverty. Urban developers around the world have implemented various
techniques for the purpose of mapping and detecting poverty in remote areas. In addition, new
artificial intelligence technology developed by scientists has served to satisfy Goals #6 and #7,
which are Clean Water & Sanitation and Affordable & Clean Energy, respectively. Ultimately,
their focus in these sectors has been to promote the more sustainable usage of natural resources
as well reduce pollution which may be caused by the excess burning of fossil fuels. Lastly, the
analysis of traffic dynamics has economic and environmental benefits as well in that it can
reduce unnecessary consumer spending on unused fuel and reduce the emission of greenhouse
CONCLUSION
Although the nature of the city planning process had widely changed over the course of
human history, mankind has still not deterred from its goal of aiming to make the best use of
land possible. It is still our focus to make the most efficient use of the environment possible in
that we hope to create a flourishing and productive society. The monitoring of land use change
also forms an integral part of the urban planning process whereby policies and strategic plans are
reviewed and updated (Yaakup). Essentially, it is only through these immersive data
visualization techniques can we detect poverty and other hindrances to the sustainable growth of
our society. Once detected, the solution is only a matter of a couple of clicks away at the hands
The advent of big data has innovated the way in which information is processed for
enhanced insight and decision making. Through the use of analytical and statistical techniques
like machine learning and network analysis, scientists have been able to accurately quantify data
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previously unmeasurable in the urban landscape. Lastly, by effectively coordinating activities
between all sectors of the city, city planners will be able to build a new, integrated urban
environment capable of self-correction and solving critical social, economic, and ecological
The expansion of urban technology over the past century has truly changed the pace at
which our society has developed. The proper evaluation of city traffic dynamics and the advent
of big data has allowed city planners to work towards creating a city which is safer, healthier,
and cleaner for its dwellers to commute in. The increased focus on the development of smaller
cities has also been crucial to achieving progress towards a more sustainable urban environment.
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Feng, Shan, and Li D Xu. Hybrid artificial intelligence approach to urban planning. Expert
Lenormand, Maxime, et al. "Comparing and modelling land use organization in cities." Royal
Oenhuber, Dietmar. Decoding the City Urbanism in the Age of Big Data. Edited by Carlo Ratti,
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German National Library, Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.
Pan, Yunhe, et al. Urban Big Data and the Development of City Intelligence. Engineering,
Poco, Jorge, et al. Exploring traffic dynamics in urban environments using vector-Valued
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Pojani, Dorina, and Dominic Stead. Sustainable Urban Transport in the Developing World:
Seiferling, Ian, et al. "Green streets Quantifying and mapping urban trees with street-level
imagery and computer vision." Landscape and Urban Planning 165 (2017): 93-101.
Steele, Jessica E., et al. Mapping Poverty Using Mobile Phone and Satellite Data. Journal of
Wu, Zhiqiang, et al. The City Intelligence Quotient (City IQ) Evaluation System: Conception
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