Cities
Human complexity at its absolute best.
Cities, by definition, are groups of people who actively choose each other. We make this decision every day when waking up and going about our lives. We share this space and build in the interest of neighbors we may never meet, because of an unshakable belief that this is our hometown.
We build software in service of hometowns the world over, from Seoul to Los Angeles. We see data as the anecdote of every person written in code and use those stories to create a more just and livable city.
We ask: how do we build communities that are resilient to climate change? How do we create systems that actively foster connection? How do we build smart cities that use software to lift every community?
Sometimes the answers are surprising, and sometimes they are not. But they are always interesting.
Check out the papers we're reading.
- Intercity Connectivity and Urban InnovationLiang et al.
This paper explores the relationship between intercity connectivity and urban innovation. It finds that cities with better intercity connectivity have higher levels of innovation, as measured by the number of patents granted.
citiesnetworks+2 more - Is your neighbor your friend? Scan methods for spatial social network hotspot detectionLiang et al.
The authors develop two scan methods to specifically analyze social networks in the context of their spatial environments. This is a great example of making spatial analysis more nuanced and accessible.
citiesnetworks+1 more - Urban phenology: toward a real-time census of the city using Wi-Fi dataKontokosta et al.
The authors use Wi-Fi data to track the population of a city in real-time. They find that the use of the usage of a city is not static, but rather changes over time.
citiesnetworks+1 more - The impact of urban street tree species on air quality and respiratory illness: A spatial analysis of large-scale, high-resolution urban dataLai et al.
A review of urban networks and how they connect markets, people, and ideas. It's a great overview of the field.
citiesnetworks+1 more - Urban intelligence for pandemic responseLai et al.
A review of urban networks and how they connect markets, people, and ideas. It's a great overview of the field.
citiesnetworks+1 more - Topic modeling to discover the thematic structure and spatial-temporal patterns of building renovation and adaptive reuse in citiesLai et al.
Lai et al. use topic modeling to discover the thematic structure and spatial-temporal patterns of building renovation and adaptive reuse in cities.
citiestopic-modeling+2 more
Posts related to this pillar.
- Introducing the Urban Anonymity Simulationblog2026-03-23
- IQ - Measuring Graph Intelligenceresearch
We propose an MDL-based measure of network structural complexity. The method utilizes the two-phase MDL approach for describing random and nonrandom variation.
2026-02-15 - Zoning Law is Complex. This Makes it Perfect for AI.blog
Zoning law is complex and highly-specific. How do we find the right answer as quickly (and efficiently) as possible?
2025-11-05 - Urban Data Coordinationblog
Standards that make city data actually useful.
2025-11-03 - The Problem of Optimizationblog
The mathematical route to the best possible cities.
2025-09-19