#segregation #Urban Science #Mobile phone data #crime

Diversity beyond density: Experienced social mixing of urban streets

Authors: Zhuangyuan Fan, Tianyu Su, Maoran Sun, Ariel Noyman, Fan Zhang, Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland, Esteban Moro Publication: PNAS Nexus, Volumen 2, Issue 4, pgad077, 2023 LINK Abstract: Urban density, in the form of residents’ and visitors’ concentration, is long considered to foster diverse exchanges of interpersonal knowledge and skills, which are intrinsic to sustainable human settlements. However, with current urban studies primarily devoted to city- and district-level analyses, we cannot unveil the elemental connection between urban density and diversity. ...

#Urban Science #inequality #Big Data

Behavioral roots of inequality

Inequality is one of the most important problems in our societies. For example, economic inequality is today higher than it was in the 1970’s and by some metrics stands at levels not seen since the last Great Depression. A special form of segregation is that happening in our cities. We share the public places, our workplaces and our residential neighborhoods with people like us: same type of jobs, same education, similar economic status, and political opinions. ...

#Mobile phone data #Urban Science

Rhythm of the streets: a street classification framework based on street activity patterns

Authors: Tianyu Su , Maoran Sun, Zhuangyuan Fan, Ariel Noyman, Alex Pentland, and Esteban Moro Publication: EPJ Data Science 11, 43 (2022). Link Abstract: As the living tissue connecting urban places, streets play significant roles in driving city development, providing essential access, and promoting human interactions. Understanding street activities and how these activities vary across different streets is critical for designing both efficient and livable streets. However, current street classification frameworks primarily focus on either streets’ functions in transportation networks or their adjacent land uses rather than actual activity patterns, resulting in coarse classifications. ...

#Segregation #visualization #Urban Science #inequality

The Atlas of Inequality

Segregation is hurting our societies and specially our cities. But economic inequality isn’t just limited to neighborhoods. The restaurants, stores, and other places we visit in cities are all unequal in their own way. The Atlas of Inequality shows the income inequality of people who visit different places in the Boston metro area. It uses aggregated anonymous location data from digital devices to estimate people’s incomes and where they spend their time. ...