The Use of Big Data in Regenerative Planning

Abstract

With the increasing significance of Big Data sources and their reliability for studying current urban development processes, new possibilities have appeared for analyzing the urban planning of contemporary cities. At the same time, the new urban development paradigm related to regenerative sustainability requires a new approach and hence a better understanding of the processes changing cities today, which will allow more efficient solutions to be designed and implemented. It results in the need to search for tools which will allow more advanced analyses while assessing the planning projects supporting regenerative development. Therefore, in this paper, the authors study the role of Big Data retrieved from sensor systems, social media, GPS, institutional data, or customer and transaction records. The study includes an enquiry into how Big Data relates to the ecosystem and to human activities, in supporting the development of regenerative human settlements. The aim of the study is to assess the possibilities created by Big Data-based tools in supporting regenerative design and planning and the role they can play in urban projects. In order to do this, frameworks allowing for the assessment of planning projects were analyzed according to their potential to support a regenerative approach. This has been followed by an analysis of the accessibility and reliability of the data sources. Finally, Big Data-based projects were mapped upon aspects of regenerative planning according to the introduced framework.

Impact of AI-Based Tools and Urban Big Data Analytics on the Design and Planning of Cities

“…Various urban research scholars argue that big data analytics supported by AI-based tools promise benefits in terms of real-time prediction, adaptation, higher energy efficiency, higher quality of life, and accessibility [8,[31][32][33]. Data-driven technologies, such as artificial intelligence, suggest ways to establish a new generation of GIS systems, as they enable the building of frameworks connecting multiple data sources [2]. AI-based tools are applied in the studies which require accurate predictions with a high spatiotemporal resolution, such as urban traffic surveillance systems [34] and real-time pedestrian flow analysis [35].…”

“…Large volumes, velocities, varieties, and veracities of geo-referenced data, actively and passively produced by users, bring more comprehensive insights into depicting socioeconomic environments [1]. With the widening access to big data and their increasing reliability for studying current urban processes, new possibilities for analysing and shaping contemporary urban environments have appeared [2]. Emerging AI-based tools allow designing spatial policies enabling agile adaptation to urban change [3].…”

The Association between Urban Public Transport Infrastructure and Social Equity and Spatial Accessibility within the Urban Environment: An Investigation of Tramlink in London

“…But near things are more related than distant things" [33,34]. With the influx of open source data now available [35], Fotheringham and Rogerson [36] and Openshaw [37] have called for more localised modelling in an attempt to take account of Tobler and this paper heeds these calls and has thus implemented statistical models that allow for localised modelling through distance decay. It was determined that creating localised results could focus the debate, allowing for issues to be pinpointed across space instead of a "one size fits all" attitude which is currently adopted within the "top down" governance structure.…”

State of the Art in Open Platforms for Collaborative Urban Design and Sharing of Resources in Districts and Cities

“…The exemplification of this phenomenon is urban platforms. The digital revolution in contemporary society provides smart technologies and digital platforms that, if based on principles of restorative development, can support the transition towards regenerative buildings, regenerative cities and a regenerative society [12]. Urban platforms have emerged as a vision of what a smart city could be like if it is built on co-creation and network of social relations, as it creates intersections between local policy-making, urban activism and digital living [13].…”