Michael Batty
Auckland, London
Chairman, CASA (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis) & Bartlett Professor of Planning at UCL (University College London)
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Articles by Michael Batty
Steering open-source AI to accelerate the sustainable development goals
While the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is advancing rapidly, the open-source paradigm offers key pathways and potential risks for accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and beyond. This comment introduces four governance actions that consider how sustainability, evaluation, safety, and cooperation can be integrated into the transformation of open-source AI, thereby reducing uncertainties and challenges posed by open-source AI for sustainable global prosperity.
Mobile phone data show spatial and socioeconomic inequalities in hospital utilization
Abstract Hospital bypass behaviour, where patients forgo nearby hospitals for distant providers, challenges the efficiency of healthcare systems. However, its socioeconomic status (SES) drivers and equity implications remain poorly understood. Here we analyse 96 million mobile phone users across 11 Chinese cities integrated with behavioural models quantifying the trade-off between spatial proximity and hospital quality.
The spatiotemporal scaling laws of urban population dynamics - Nature Communications
Abstract Human mobility is becoming increasingly complex in urban environments. However, our fundamental understanding of urban population dynamics, particularly the pulsating fluctuations occurring across different locations and timescales, remains limited. Here, we use mobile device data from large cities and regions worldwide combined with a detrended fractal analysis to uncover a universal spatiotemporal scaling law that governs urban population fluctuations.
Confronting the smart city governance challenge - Nature Cities
Governance inefficiencies threaten the potential of smart city projects to deliver equitable urban transformations. Current strategies often hinder implementation, and risk harmful technological effects on communities. Tackling this challenge demands urgent reforms to better integrate scientific insights into smarter governance practices.
Recommended Reads Designing Cities for All #27
So, you want to know what to read or listen to become a better designer, urban planner, architect, or social activist who integrates cutting-edge technology while putting ethics and inclusion at the heart of your work? Here are a few recommendations from the Designing Cities For All (DCFA) team.
Collaboration between artificial intelligence and Earth science communities for mutual benefit - Nature Geoscience
Artificial intelligence is rapidly being integrated into Earth science, but how Earth science may benefit artificial intelligence has been overlooked. We call for mutual balancing between the two disciplines and improving cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The role of analytical models and their circulation in urban studies and policy
Introduction Cities are complex human organisations composed of ‘bodies and bricks’ (Fox and Wolf, 2022) as well as multiple networks linking individuals, institutions and the built environment. To help us grasp how such organisations function, how they evolve with time and what cities could look like in the future, simplified representations in the form of urban models have been developed over the last 50 years or more (Pumain, 1998).
The role of analytical models and their circulation in urban studies and policy
Introduction Cities are complex human organisations composed of ‘bodies and bricks’ (Fox and Wolf, 2022) as well as multiple networks linking individuals, institutions and the built environment. To help us grasp how such organisations function, how they evolve with time and what cities could look like in the future, simplified representations in the form of urban models have been developed over the last 50 years or more (Pumain, 1998).
Digital twins in city planning - Nature Computational Science
Abstract Here, I provide a perspective on digital twins of cities that cover a wide array of different types, ranging from aggregate economic and behavioral processes to more disaggregate agent-based, cellular and micro-simulations. A key element in these applications is the way that we as scientists, policymakers and planners interact with real cities with respect to their understanding, prediction and design.
The Computable City: Histories, Technologies, Stories, Predictions
How computers simulate cities and how they are also being embedded in cities, changing our behavior and the way in which cities evolve. At every stage in the history of computers and communications, it is safe to say we have been unable to predict what happens next.
Defining a city — delineating urban areas using cell-phone data - Nature Cities
Abstract What is a city? Researchers use different criteria and datasets to define it—from population density to traffic flows. We argue there is one dataset that could serve as a proxy of the temporal and spatial connections that make cities what they are: geolocated data from the world’s more than 7 billion cell-phone users. Cell-phone data are a proxy of people’s presence in a given area and of their movement between areas.
Era megalopolis: bagaimana seluruh kota di dunia menyatu
Pada 15 November 2022, seorang bayi perempuan bernama Vinice Mabansag, lahir di Rumah Sakit Memorial Dr Jose Fabella di Manila, Filipina dan menjadi – secara simbolis – orang ke delapan miliar di dunia. Dari 8 miliar penduduk Bumi, 60% orang tinggal di kota. Pada akhir abad ke-21, 85% dari 10 miliar penduduk Bumi diprediksi akan tinggal di kota. Pertumbuhan suatu kota tidak hanya berdasarkan segi jumlah penduduknya.
In the era of the megalopolis, gauging the size of a city is getting increasingly harder
On November 15, a baby girl named Vinice Mabansag, born at Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines, became – symbolically – the eight billionth person in the world. Of those 8 billion people, 60% live in a town or city. By the end of the 21st century, cities will account for 85% of Earth’s predicted 10 billion inhabitants. Cities don’t only grow by the number of inhabitants.
Essay: The era of the megalopolis - how the world’s cities are merging
25 November 2022 JAMES CHESHIRE and MICHAEL BATTY On 15th November, a baby girl named Vinice Mabansag, born at Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines, became – symbolically – the eight billionth person in the world. Of those eight billion people, 60 per cent live in a town or city. By the end of the 21st century, cities will account for 85 per cent of Earth’s predicted 10 billion inhabitants. Cities don’t only grow by the number of inhabitants.
how the world's cities are merging
On November 15 2022, a baby girl named Vinice Mabansag, born at Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines, became – symbolically – the eight billionth person in the world. Of those 8 billion people, 60% live in a town or city. By the end of the 21st century, cities will account for 85% of Earth’s predicted 10 billion inhabitants. Cities don’t only grow by the number of inhabitants.
Health insurance, medical debt, and financial well‐being
RESEARCH ARTICLE Michael Batty, Michael Batty Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Search for more papers by this author Christa Gibbs, Christa Gibbs orcid.org/0000-0001-6083-825X Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Search for more papers by this author Benedic Ippolito, Corresponding Author Benedic Ippolito benedic.ippolito@aei.org orcid.org/0000-0002-0216-8697 American Enterprise Institute, Washington, District of...
Health insurance, medical debt, and financial well-being
Journal Publication Michael Batty Principal Economist - Federal Reserve Board of Governors January 9, 2022 By Michael Batty, Christa Gibbs, and Benedic N. Ippolito Abstract We study the financial protection provided by health insurance through two natural experiments—the Affordable Care Act’s under 26 provision and Medicare eligibility.
Inventing Future Cities
Description Praise How we can invent—but not predict—the future of cities. We cannot predict future cities, but we can invent them. Cities are largely unpredictable because they are complex systems that are more like organisms than machines. Neither the laws of economics nor the laws of mechanics apply; cities are the product of countless individual and collective decisions that do not conform to any grand plan. They are the product of our inventions; they evolve.
The Computable City
How computers simulate cities and how they are also being embedded in cities, changing our behavior and the way in which cities evolve. At every stage in the history of computers and communications, it is safe to say we have been unable to predict what happens next.
Wealth Inequality and COVID-19: Evidence from the Distributional Financial Accounts
August 30, 2021 Wealth Inequality and COVID-19: Evidence from the Distributional Financial Accounts Michael Batty, Ella Deeken, and Alice Henriques Volz A wide range of economic activity has been severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, while others have been remarkably resilient throughout the restrictions placed on our physical interactions.
A new framework for very large-scale urban modelling
Defining big, defining scale Big data and computable urban models The digital computer was invented in several places in the decade spanning the Second World War, and as soon as it emerged from its scientific and philosophical origins, it was applied to large-scale problems involving predicting human futures as well as accounting and transactions processing in business.
Airbnb and its potential impact on the London housing market
Introduction New information technologies are increasingly being used to underpin businesses and markets. The most high profile of these are those that are defined around ‘platform’ economies, typically any activities involving financial transactions that can be underpinned by the internet which bring buyers and sellers together as individuals (McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2017; Parker et al., 2016).
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
On Friday afternoon, 20 March, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced a further series of measures to support people, jobs and businesses. Perhaps the most surprising measure was the announcement that, for the first time in our history, the government is going to step in and help to pay people’s wages under a new Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Revealing centrality in the spatial structure of cities from human activity patterns
Alonso, W (1964) Location and Land Use. Toward a General Theory of Land Rent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref Anas, A, Arnott, R, Small, KA (1998) Urban spatial structure. Journal of Economic Literature 36: 1426–1464. Google Scholar | ISI Batty, M (2013) The New Science of Cities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar Batty, M, Besussi, E, Maat, K. (2004) Representing multifunctional cities: Density and diversity in space and time. Built Environment 30: 324–337.
Cities Will Blend Together Into Giant Urban Regions
In the future, a megalopolis could stretch from D.C. to Boston Credit: aaaaimages/Moment/Getty If you journey from Nanjing to Shanghai through Suzhou, a distance of nearly 200 miles, you will be struck by the fact that you pass through almost continuous urban development. The countryside seems to be turning into a new kind of city — “desakota,” a term the geographer Terry McGee once coined.
Cities Will Blend Together Into Giant Urban Regions
If you journey from Nanjing to Shanghai through Suzhou, a distance of nearly 200 miles, you will be struck by the fact that you pass through almost continuous urban development. The countryside seems to be turning into a new kind of city — “desakota,” a term the geographer Terry McGee once coined. This is a mixture of town and country, an urban sprawl, peppered by many high-rise blocks in what seem to be rural areas.
Inventing Future Cities
With a clear voice and compelling vision, Batty provides a roadmap for urban invention and reinvention in the unpredictable twenty-first century, with an eye for the interplay between technology and urban form. A significant contribution to the field of urban planning and urbanism more broadly.
Mystery Of The Chargemaster: Examining The Role Of Hospital List Prices In What Patients Actually Pay
Hospitals in the United States maintain chargemasters that contain the official list prices for all billable services. The prices vary widely across hospitals and are more than three times what hospitals are paid for treating a patient, on average. From this it is tempting to conclude that list prices are a strange, yet ultimately inconsequential, quirk of US health care.
Revealing centrality in the spatial structure of cities from human activity patterns
Identifying changes in the spatial structure of cities is a prerequisite for the development and validation of adequate planning strategies. Nevertheless, current methods of measurement are becoming ever more challenged by the highly diverse and intertwined ways of how people actually make use of urban space.
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