Urban analytics: History, trajectory and critique

Geoff Boeing, Michael Batty, Shan Jiang and Lisa Schweitzer

Chapter 30 in Handbook of Spatial Analysis in the Social Sciences, 2022, pp 503-516 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Urban analytics combines spatial analysis, statistics, computer science, and urban planning to understand and shape city futures. While it promises better policymaking insights, concerns exist around its epistemological scope and impacts on privacy, ethics, and social control. This chapter reflects on the history and trajectory of urban analytics as a scholarly and professional discipline. In particular, it considers the direction in which this field is going and whether it improves our collective and individual welfare. It first introduces early theories, models, and deductive methods from which the field originated before shifting toward induction. It then explores urban network analytics that enrich traditional representations of spatial interaction and structure. Next it discusses urban applications of spatiotemporal big data and machine learning. Finally, it argues that privacy and ethical concerns are too often ignored as ubiquitous monitoring and analytics can empower social repression. It concludes with a call for a more critical urban analytics that recognizes its epistemological limits, emphasizes human dignity, and learns from and supports marginalized communities.

Keywords: Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Environment; Geography; Research Methods; Sociology and Social Policy; Urban and Regional Studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Working Paper: Urban Analytics: History, Trajectory, and Critique (2021)
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