In a new report submitted to the National Science Foundation, a large group of collaborators from many fields, led by Jose Lobo, spell out a vision for the future of urban science. From the preface:
"Urban science seeks to understand the fundamental processes that drive, shape and sustain cities and urbanization. It is a multi/transdisciplinary approach involving concepts, methods and research from the social, natural, engineering and computational sciences, along with the humanities. This report is intended to convey the current “state of the art” in urban science while also clearly indicating how urban science builds upon and complements (but does not replace) prior work on cities and urbanization in many other disciplines. The report does not aim at a fully comprehensive synopsis of work done under the rubric of “urban science” but it does aim to convey what makes urban science different from discipline-based examinations of cities and urbanization. It also highlights novel insights generated by the inherently multidisciplinary inquiry that urban science exemplifies."
The report is an outcome of a workshop held at the Santa Fe Institute in May, 2019.
The entire report is available here.