Defining Computational Urban Science

Uncovering the multi-dimensional interplay between computation and urban life’s spatial-social aspects has both theoretical and practical implications for urban planning and public health science. Many analytical methods have been implemented and applied to deal with high-dimensional, heterogeneous, and unstructured location-based social data drawn from urban locales. Computational urban science has four interdependent layers: human dynamics-centered, platform-based, actionoriented, and convergence-driven. As a research paradigm based on computational thinking and spatiotemporal synthesis, computational urban science can provide a needed framework for addressing many pressing urban sustainability challenges from a systematic perspective.