Cities occupy just 2% of the planet’s land. They now contain more than 50% of the world’s population. They also produce 70% of its greenhouse gas emissions (Nelson, 2023). Cities are centers of inequality, where underlying socioeconomic inequities are exacerbated, notwithstanding their concentration of economic and human resources. Growing demands on urban infrastructure and scarce resources brought on by declining public budgets exacerbate these issues even further. Therefore, urban planners must deal with both expanding people and decaying infrastructure while tackling the difficult challenge of doing more with less.An innovative solution to these urban problems is artificial intelligence (AI). AI has the potential to improve decision-making across a range of urban planning sectors by processing large and complicated datasets.AI has the potential to improve decision-making across a range of urban planning sectors by processing large and complicated datasets.
For instance, by examining trends in population density, and resource consumption, AI can optimize public services, transportation networks, and land use. By optimizing resource allocation, boosting infrastructure resilience, and improving public transportation systems, these AI-driven insights assist urban planners in creating more sustainable, efficient cities.Furthermore, cities may proactively handle housing, traffic, and environmental impact concerns by employing AI’s predictive algorithms to foresee patterns of urban expansion. In order to create cities that are more sustainable, inclusive, and flexible enough to meet changing demands, urban planners may also employ AI to model different growth scenarios. The quality of life for all citizens may be enhanced by cities better managing their growth, making the most use of their resources, and ensuring long-term sustainability through the integration of AI into urban planning.
In order to create smart cities via urban planning, it is necessary to understand many aspects of viewpoints, insights, and community efficiency while keeping an eye out for potential bias and adverse effects (Heinrichson et al., 2023).The ways that tasks are completed varies between AI and human cognitive ability.High-volume jobs can be consistently and effectively completed by AI on its own.All stages of urban planning need strategic direction. For this reason, in the context of smart cities, the use of AI in urban planning can be advantageous for intelligent and sustainable development, strong economic growth, and enhanced citizen quality of life.In order to create smart cities via urban planning, it is necessary to understand many aspects of viewpoints, insights, and community efficiency while keeping an eye out for potential bias and adverse effects (Heinrichson et al., 2023).The ways that tasks are completed varies between AI and human cognitive ability.High-volume jobs can be consistently and effectively completed by AI on its own.All stages of urban planning need strategic direction. For this reason, in the context of smart cities, the use of AI in urban planning can be advantageous for intelligent and sustainable development, strong economic growth, and enhanced citizen quality of life.Beyond data analysis, AI’s usefulness in urban planning is increased by its capacity to comprehend human emotions and responses in public settings. Planners may make more logical, data-driven judgments by using this affective system to analyze behavioral economics and emotional emotions. AI has the capacity to completely transform planning processes, as evidenced by the 50% increase in predicting accuracy in spatial modeling of urban settings (Heinrichson et al., 2023). Thus, incorporating AI into urban planning offers a distinct comparative advantage, facilitating better informed and effective decision-making for the creation of resilient, smart cities.
By offering real-time data insights, predictive modeling, and optimization tactics that support resilient infrastructure and environmental planning, artificial intelligence (AI) may improve the sustainability and efficiency of urban planning. This is consistent with the current values of urban planners, which include mitigating ecological deterioration and enhancing the quality of life.In order to address complex environmental concerns, sustainable smart cities are embracing and utilizing AI more and more. These cities are dynamic ecosystems that necessitate a fundamental reevaluation of their existing planning methodologies. The continuous development of sustainable smart cities emphasizes the need for a significant change in how urban settings are understood and planned. AI’s contribution to environmental sustainability is further supported by the incorporation of AI into environmental planning procedures, which draws on planners’ prior experiences utilizing technology to guide decision-making (Bibri et al., 2024). Furthermore, AI has already been successfully applied in a wider range of fields, including governance, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure planning, thanks to the quick speed of modernization and technical breakthroughs. We are unaware of how much it permeates our daily lives.
Academic research on artificial intelligence is still lacking, and its applications in daily life have just lately begun to take shape. The hazards and full potential of AI are yet unknown to us. AI adoption is being hampered by worries about the security and privacy of citizen data, which have grown significantly in importance as AI becomes more integrated into the urban fabric.The implementation of AI is hampered by security and privacy issues because of its inherent weaknesses and decentralized nature.Citizens may be at danger from the massive volumes of data gathered by numerous sensors, gadgets, and networked systems as private data is becoming more and more vulnerable to abuse and illegal access.For city planners, policymakers, and technology developers alike, striking a careful balance between protecting people’s right to privacy and using data to influence urban planning choices through UDT has become crucial. The use of AI in urban planning raises ethical and societal questions.For urban planners and policymakers to understand decision-making processes and detect and reduce possible areas of bias, responsible and transparent usage of AI and AIoT is essential to the development and use of UDT.Conflicting objectives among stakeholders, ambiguous accountability obligations, and legal uncertainties might all cause city authorities or citizens to oppose the use of AI.Transparency, guidelines and ethical practices need to be implemented to foster trust and support for AI(Bibri et al., 2024).
City planning has already included AI into smart city design. AI has been used by cities across Europe, America, and Asia, especially Amsterdam, London, Vienna, Stockholm, Toronto, Singapore, and Hong Kong, to accomplish sustainable results in their smart city transformation goals.The urban environment of Lyon, France, for example, was used to test a decision/planning support system that assesses a building’s or space’s suitability by taking into account a number of factors, including the distribution and composition of the population, the accessibility of transportation, the urban form, and the availability of infrastructure. It was discovered that the system worked well (Sideris et al., 2019). Similarly, a Chinese case study that evaluated the effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI), encompassing knowledge-based systems, artificial neural networks, and decision support systems, only recommended adjustments and enhancements (Heinrichson et al., 2023).
There is a lot of promise for addressing the more complicated problems facing contemporary cities through the use of AI into urban planning. AI offers the means to maximize resources, promote sustainability, and raise the standard of living in urban areas as the population of cities continues to increase. AI helps urban planners make better decisions about public services, transportation, and land use by analyzing large datasets, which increases city resilience and efficiency (Heinrichson et al., 2023). The implementation of AI-powered models and systems has the potential to significantly contribute to the development of smart cities, which are defined by sustainable infrastructure and resource equity
Sources
Heinrichson, T., Weedon, Z., Yigitcanlar, T., Sanchez, T., Corchado, J. M., & Mehmood, R. (2023). Algorithmic urban planning for smart and sustainable development: Systematic review of the literature. Sustainable Cities and Society, 94, 104562. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.104562
Laurini, R. (2022). Promises of artificial intelligence for urban and regional planning and policymaking. In R. Laurini, P. Nijkamp, K. Kourtit, & L. Bouzouina (Eds.), Knowledge management for regional policymaking (pp. 1–26). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15648-9_1
Son, T. H., Weedon, Z., Yigitcanlar, T., Sanchez, T., Corchado, J. M., & Mehmood, R. (2024). The synergistic interplay of artificial intelligence and digital twin in environmentally planning sustainable smart cities: A comprehensive systematic review. Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, 20, 100433. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ese.2024.100433
The prospects of artificial intelligence in urban planning. (n.d.). Sustainable Cities and Society. https://sccvo.org/sites/sccvo.org/files/2022-10/Sanchez-2022-The-prospects-of-artificial-intelli%20(3).pdf
These 5 cities are making innovative use of generative AI. (n.d.-b). World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/07/generative-ai-smart-cities/
World Economic Forum. (n.d.-a). 9 ways AI is helping tackle climate change. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/ai-combat-climate-change/#:~:text=The%2520use%2520of%2520artificial%2520intelligence,the%2520World%2520Economic%2520Forum%2520says
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