How AI Sees the City

“In this fascinating book, Duarte, Mazzarello, Zhang, and Ratti bring together a wide array of computational techniques that enable us to produce new insights into the way we build cities and how we might improve their designs in the new world which is being built around the digital domain. In the last decade, there has been a flurry of developments in urban design based on articulating how we can understand the way we mold our physical environment by bringing together a very diverse array of data that determines their quality. This book shows how we are beginning to interpret the world of urban design, suggesting ways in which we might improve design using urban analytics, AI and large language models.”

Michael Batty, University College London

“Artificial intelligence promises to be the most powerful force ever to shape cities—potentially surpassing the automobile, electric power, and the digital revolution itself. AI is already changing how cities are designed, measured, and governed through its ability to read and make visible patterns in streets, buildings, and urban life that were previously invisible at scale. Drawing on groundbreaking work from the MIT Senseable City Lab, How AI Sees the City is the first book to explain this monumental transformation—and why it will define the urban century ahead.”

Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class