Dr. Michael J. Holland, Chief of Staff at New York University’s (NYU) Center for Urban Science & Progress (CUSP), presented a Winter Enrichment Program (WEP) keynote lecture on “The Promise of Urban Science,” a field that is becoming increasingly important as the world’s cities continue to grow.

CUSP was launched at NYU on April 23, 2012, and represents NYU, NYU-Poly and a number of other top universities’ effort to make New York City a world capital of science and technology. CUSP is an attempt at a multi-sector research and education collaborative, and is special because it is built to “function in collaboration with the city [of New York] itself,” its website states.

“There are many challenges faced by a rapidly urbanizing world. These include intellectual, engineering, academic, technical and human challenges,” Holland said. He and NYU believe CUSP and the study of urban science, through the use of New York City as CUSP’s laboratory and classroom, are ways to tackle these issues.

URBAN GROWTH LEADS TO THE SCIENCE OF CITIES

More than half of the world’s population currently inhabits urban areas, and, according to CUSP, it is anticipated that within our lifetimes 70 percent of people will live in cities.

“We need cities to deliver services effectively, efficiently and sustainably to their citizens,” Holland said. “However, at the same time, city officials must ensure the health and safety of their citizens, and need to keep them well-informed. This is one of the world’s most pressing challenges. CUSP aims to deal with these challenges by educating the next generation of engineers in how to apply research on ‘the science of cities.’”

Holland outlined how data from cities, when it is properly acquired, integrated and analyzed, can improve city government functioning, city planning and policy operations and citizen engagement. It can also help the private sector create new services for city residents, their government and other firms.

However, there are many issues facing those working in the field, including difficulties in acquiring data, challenges in designing experiments and ensuring privacy when gathering data.

Ways to address these challenges include using novel and non-invasive methods to acquire data, such as infrared and spectral imaging, seismic and acoustic data gathering, the use of sensors, including fixed sensors or information from mobile phones, and gathering data from censuses, traffic and transit systems, or social media networks.

Holland cited how data about New Yorkers use of the city’s famous yellow taxi cabs was gathered from the taxis’ GPS data, providing a wealth of information about taxi use throughout the year, including a drop in use during 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.

“In this case, the taxis themselves acted as sensors that provided unprecedented insight into city life, including into economic activity, human behavior and mobility patterns,” he said.

DEVELOPING MODELING AND SIMULATION TOOLS

To better gather data, CUSP has a number of resources in place and is also expanding them, including its Data Warehouse, its Urban Observatory, which allows for an excellent view of New York, and its Quantified Community, a fully instrumented urban neighborhood that is expected to be fully operational by 2018.

Currently in development are modeling and simulation tools, “Citizen Science,” which is crowdsourced data that also comes from community engagement in urban science, and further uses of social media to gather data in what is called “urban social media,” Holland said.

Like KAUST, CUSP can be viewed as a start-up institution. “We had a very entrepreneurial method of launching, and we had diverse stakeholder expectations,” explained Holland. Although CUSP welcomed its first class of master’s degree students in 2014, “finding the right balance at CUSP continues to be a challenge,” he noted.

In the coming years, CUSP hopes to expand its academic programs, including offering a Ph.D. in urban informatics, and offering training for experts in the field. It also hopes to offer joint degrees and research programs with other leading academic institutions.

“Our aim is to become a major center for research and education in urban sciences, a field that will only keep growing in importance,” Holland said.

- By Caitlin Clark, KAUST News