Social Urban Networks

What makes urban labor markets more resilient? This is the question at the heart of a new study we have published in Nature Communications. We drew on prior network modeling research to map the job landscapes in cities across the United States, and showed that job “connectedness” is a key determinant of the resilience of local economies. Economists, policy makers, city planners, and companies have a strong interest in determining what factors contribute to healthy job markets, including what factors can help promote faster recovery after a shock, such as a major recession or the current COVID pandemic. ...

Authors: Alberto Aleta, David Martin-Corral, Michiel Bakker, Ana Pastore y Piontti, Marco Ajelli, Maria Litvinova, Matteo Chinazzi, Natalie E Dean,M. Elizabeth Halloran, Ira M Longini, Alex Pentland, Alessandro Vespignani, Yamir Moreno, Esteban Moro Publication: medRxiv (2020). Link Abstract: Detailed characterizations of SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk across different social settings can inform the design of targeted and less disruptive non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI), yet these data have been lacking. Here we integrate real-time, anonymous and privacy-enhanced geolocalized mobility data with census and demographic data in the New York City and Seattle metropolitan areas to build a detailed agent-based model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. ...

Map art makes beautiful posters. You can find them all over the internet and buy them even framed for your favorite city, area or country. Those posters' beauty relies on the intricate and beautiful pattern of roads, buildings, parks, rivers, etc., which shape our cities and our mobility. In my research I constantly use those maps as the hardware fabric in which humans interact, move or encounter in urban settings. ...

Video of my talk “Modeling the impact of testing, contact tracing and household quarantine on second waves of COVID-19” at the Cycles of Seminars Covid-19 Sponsored by MexSAIM in UNAM, Mexico, September 15, 2020.

Authors: Xiaowen Dong , Alfredo J. Morales, Eaman Jahani, Esteban Moro, Bruno Lepri, Burcin Bozkaya, Carlos Sarraute, Yaneer Bar-Yam and Alex Pentland Publication: EPJ Data Science 9, Article number: 20 LINK Abstract: Urban income segregation is a widespread phenomenon that challenges societies across the globe. Classical studies on segregation have largely focused on the geographic distribution of residential neighborhoods rather than on patterns of social behaviors and interactions. In this study, we analyze segregation in economic and social interactions by observing credit card transactions and Twitter mentions among thousands of individuals in three culturally different metropolitan areas. ...