finelybook
How AI Sees the City: Urban Visual Intelligence
Author(s): Fábio Duarte (Author), Martina Mazzarello (Author), Fan Zhang (Author), Carlo Ratti (Author)
- Publisher Finelybook 出版社: Routledge
- Publication Date 出版日期: September 16, 2026
- Edition 版本: 1st
- Language 语言: English
- Print length 页数: 176 pages
- ISBN-10: 1041086458
- ISBN-13: 9781041086451
Book Description
In an era where extreme amounts of data are produced daily, with the majority being visual content, cities have become vast repositories of digital imagery. From surveillance cameras to smartphone photos, satellite imagery to street-level captures, our urban environments are continuously documented through an unprecedented volume of visual data. This groundbreaking book examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing our understanding of cities and presents a comprehensive framework for applying visual AI in urban contexts. The book traces the evolution of visual analysis in urban studies, from early photographic documentation to today’s sophisticated AI-powered interpretations. Through detailed case studies from across the United States, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Beijing, Dubai, Singapore, and more, it demonstrates how machine learning is unveiling new insights about urban patterns, human behavior, and social dynamics in cities. Chapters address critical concerns about surveillance, privacy, and algorithmic bias, offering a nuanced perspective on the ethical implications of urban visual intelligence. This book is essential for scholars and postgraduate students in urban planning and landscape architecture, while also appealing to anyone interested in the future of cities and technology’s role in understanding them.
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Review
“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
About the Author
Fábio Duarte is Principal Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Associate Director, Research and Design, of the MIT Senseable City Lab. Duarte has been a consultant for the World Bank in urban planning and mobility. Duarte’s books include Unplugging the City (Routledge, 2018) and Urban Play (MIT Press, 2021).
Martina Mazzarello is Research Scientist at the MIT and Lead of MIT Senseable City Lab global initiatives. Mazzarello has exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale and has published in journals such as Scientific Reports, Nature Computational Science, and Nature Water.
Fan Zhang is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Remote Sensing and GIS, Peking University. Zhang has been awarded as one of the Geospatial World 50 Rising Stars. Zhang has published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cities, and Nature Climate Change.
Carlo Ratti is Professor of the Practice at the MIT, Founder and Director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, and Distinguished Professor at the Politecnico di Milano. Ratti has been the curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale and is the author of the Atlas of the Senseable City Lab (Yale Press, 2023).
