Characterizing Urban Areas in the 21st Century: A Data Driven Approach

Professors Sucharita Gopal and Nathan Phillips will use a data driven approach to define sustainability, resiliency and metabolism metrics to provide cities across the globe better ways to use data to address real urban challenges through the examination of the cities of Boston, New York and Melbourne.

Their research seeks to answer the following questions:

• What is the data required for quantifying the metrics of sustainability or resiliency or metabolism?
• How are the three different in different cities across the globe?
• At what spatial scale should the metrics be defined?
• How can the metrics help in formulating policies related to, smart growth, conservation, green roofs and other issues?

Publications:

Gopal, S., Tang, X., Phillips, N., Nomack, M., Pasquarella, V., & Pitts, J. (2016). Characterizing urban landscapes using fuzzy sets. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 57, 212-223.

View more projects funded through our Early Stage Urban Research Awards