As city planners we are increasingly recording, measuring, and organizing city data—a practice known as urban science. Learn about resources across the globe helping to better understand our cities.
I recently traveled to Glasgow, Scotland with students and faculty from around the world learning about Cities and Citizens in the Digital Age. The sessions were wonderful, and I am sharing installments about a number of the key sessions of interest to the Planetizen community.
As city planners we are increasingly recording, measuring, and organizing city data—a practice known as urban science. Urban science is increasing in importance and universities across the globe are focusing on urban problems through urban science. Dr. Chris Pettit, a professor of Urban Science at the University of New South Wales, shared a range of labs and resources that are analyzing cities. Below is a list of resources offering insight and access into this emerging field. I encourage you to spend some time clicking through these websites—there is lots of planner eye candy, from gorgeous maps to fascinating city facts.
Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network: AURIN is a national collaborative delivering e-research infrastructure to empower better decisions for Australia's urban settlements and their future development.
Beijing City Lab: The Beijing City Lab employs interdisciplinary methods to quantify urban dynamics, generating new insights for urban planning and governance and ultimately producing the science of cities required for sustainable urban development.
Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis: This center is a leading force in the science of cities, generating new knowledge and insights for use in city planning, policy, and design—drawing on the latest geospatial methods and ideas in computer-based visualization and modeling.
Center for Urban Science and Progress: The Center for Urban Science and Progress is a public-private research center that uses New York as its laboratory to help cities around the world become more productive, livable, equitable, and resilient.
Future Cities Laboratory: The Future Cities Laboratory focuses on sustainable urbanization on different scales in a global context.
The Programmable City Project: The Programmable City Project examines software-enabled technologies and services to augment and facilitate how we understand and plan cities, how we manage urban services and utilities, and how we live urban lives.
Senseable City Lab: The Senseable City Lab deploys sensors and hand-held electronics to study the build environment.
SustainCity: SustainCity addresses the modeling and computational issues of integrating modern mobility simulations with the latest micro-simulation land use models.
Urban Big Data Centre: The Urban Big Data Center is a resource promoting the use of innovative methods and complex urban data to solve global problems.
Urban Observatory: The Urban Observatory is an interactive app and website that allow people to compare and contrast cities from around the world. This of this as a "live museum with a data pulse."
Warwick Institute for the Science of Cities: WISC focuses on the means to gather city-scale data and the apparatus to transform this data into knowledge, capitalizing on emerging developments in big data and in interdisciplinary solutions to the world's urban challenges.
An Expanded Approach to the Analysis of Cities
Even with so much data in the world, cities are a slippery subject. What if an everyday part of life in cities—the "scenes" comprised by businesses, people, and practices of similarly distinct aesthetics—can help our understanding?
Hoboken's Curbs Are Going Digital
Hoboken, New Jersey, is leveraging technology to up its curb management game with a digital streetscape map that will allow real-time demand monitoring.
Tech Trends for Cities and States
Smart cities technology is well behind schedule, but the technology industry hasn’t given up on new digital solutions, self-driving cars, curb management, and AI-powered systems.
What ‘The Brutalist’ Teaches Us About Modern Cities
How architecture and urban landscapes reflect the trauma and dysfunction of the post-war experience.
‘Complete Streets’ Webpage Deleted in Federal Purge
Basic resources and information on building bike lanes and sidewalks, formerly housed on the government’s Complete Streets website, are now gone.
The VW Bus is Back — Now as an Electric Minivan
Volkswagen’s ID. Buzz reimagines its iconic Bus as a fully electric minivan, blending retro design with modern technology, a 231-mile range, and practical versatility to offer a stylish yet functional EV for the future.
Healing Through Parks: Altadena’s Path to Recovery After the Eaton Fire
In the wake of the Eaton Fire, Altadena is uniting to restore Loma Alta Park, creating a renewed space for recreation, community gathering, and resilience.
San Diego to Rescind Multi-Unit ADU Rule
The city wants to close a loophole that allowed developers to build apartment buildings on single-family lots as ADUs.
Electric Vehicles for All? Study Finds Disparities in Access and Incentives
A new UCLA study finds that while California has made progress in electric vehicle adoption, disadvantaged communities remain underserved in EV incentives, ownership, and charging access, requiring targeted policy changes to advance equity.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
