Artificial City: Designing Future Scenarios through Data and AI
Abstract
The issue surveys how high-quality data and AI, via virtual city models and scenario simulations, can inform fairer, evidence-based urban planning. It emphasizes both opportunity and responsibility, leveraging digital information to improve decisions while ensuring ethical, equitable, and sustainable outcomes for cities.
TIn this interview with Revista PLANEO, I discuss how data science can inform urban decision-making under uncertainty, bridging descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, while stressing governance, institutional capacity, and ethics. We talk about translating complex models into actionable tools for public decision-makers, the need for data literacy and transparent communication, and the risk of widening gaps if only wealthy cities can leverage data. I argue for shared repositories and collaboration mechanisms so that smaller or vulnerable municipalities can benefit as well, advancing fairer and more sustainable urban management.
“The challenge is to prevent only the wealthiest cities from benefiting from the use of data… we need collaboration mechanisms and shared repositories…”
