Urban Planning

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Overview

AI for urban planning studies how data and computational models can help understand cities and assess choices about mobility, land use, housing, public space, and climate resilience. Common approaches include GIS and remote sensing, computer vision on street-view imagery, spatial machine learning, optimization, agent-based simulation, and generative models or language-model agents. These methods are used to map urban features, estimate accessibility and heat exposure, model travel and land-use patterns, and compare possible designs or interventions. A central challenge is making results reliable across different places and populations: models need local and field-based validation, calibrated uncertainty, and human review where decisions involve equity, regulations, or professional judgment.

Latest papers

CardsList

48 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, down 20% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. AgenticCity-Bench: Longitudinal Multimodal Observations of Urban Dynamics with Agentic Reasoning

    Oct 26, 2026Xiaofei Yu, Kailai Sun, Yanyu Mao +7Multimodal DatasetAgent Benchmarks

    Renmin University of China · Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, MIT · Massachusetts Institute of Technology +4

  2. Towards Spatio-Temporal Intelligence Systems in Urban Space: A Twin-Agent Perspective

    Oct 26, 2026Zhen Dong, Haiping Wang, Wei Tu +14Digital TwinsUrban Planning

    Wuhan University · The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology · Shenzhen University +9

  3. Complete Street Design informed by Multi-Agent Simulation

    Oct 20, 2026Sharika J. Hegde, Amirmohammad Khakpour, Pedram Beigi +3Urban PlanningIntelligent Transportation Systems

    Marco · Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University

  4. Popularity Trajectories and Mixing Patterns of Urban Venues in Two European Cities

    Oct 12, 2026Wang Ngai Yeung, Lakmal Meegahapola, Daniele Quercia +1Urban Planning

    Complex Connections Lab, Network Science Institute, Northeastern University, London, United Kingdom · Public Tech Media Lab, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States · Nokia Bell Labs, Cambridge, United Kingdom +2

  5. From Pixels to Policy: A Multi-Agent System for Intervention and Geo-Spatial Decision Support

    Oct 1, 2026Hosam Elgendy, Utkarsh MallGeospatial ReasoningUrban Planning

    Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, Abu Dhabi, UAE

  6. CLIPPER Beyond Shortlisting: Auditable Decision Support for Changing Municipal Micromobility Policies

    Sep 30, 2026Julian Teusch, Jörg Philipp Müller, Monika SesterCombinatorial OptimizationUrban Planning

    Institute of Computer Science Clausthal University of Technology Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany · Institute of Cartography and Geoinformatics Leibniz University Hannover Hannover, Germany

  7. Can VLMs Reliably Assess Sidewalk Accessibility Attributes from Pedestrian-Level Imagery?

    Sep 15, 2026Seung Jae Lieu, Diego Morra, Chiara Cadoni +3VLM EvaluationUrban Planning

    Senseable City Lab Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139

  8. CityPlanner: A Sandbox Agent for Executable Urban Planning

    Sep 9, 2026Wentao Zhang, Jingyuan Wang, Zetong Zhou +2Agentic RLUrban Planning

    School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China · MIIT Key Laboratory of Data and Decision Intelligence, Beihang University, Beijing, China

  9. CALM: A Calibrated LLM Choice Network Framework for Activity-Based Traveler Simulation

    Sep 6, 2026Yezhou ChengHuman Behavior SimulationTravel Planning

    Independent Researcher

  10. Mitigating Disease Spread by Design in Refugee and IDP Camps

    Sep 4, 2026Giulia Zarpellon, Joseph Aylett-Bullock, Frank Krauss +1Spatial Epidemic ModelingUrban Planning

    United Nations Global Pulse · Institute of Data Science, Durham University

  11. Urban Boundaries, Social Barriers: A Benchmark and Vision-Centric Framework for Mapping Gated Communities and Equity Implications

    Sep 3, 2026Minwei Zhao, Weiming Zhang, Jiawang Du +4Urban PlanningRemote Sensing Benchmarks

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) · School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China · Sony AI +1

  12. CLIPPER: Replayable Shortlisted Optimization for Repeated Spatial Coverage Planning

    Aug 27, 2026Julian Teusch, Jörg Philipp Müller, Monika SesterGreedy OptimizationConstrained Optimization

    Institute of Computer Science, Clausthal University of Technology, Germany · Institute of Cartography and Geoinformatics, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany

  13. District-Level Food Environment Indicators and Social Vulnerability in São Paulo

    Aug 26, 2026Pedro Lemes Sixel Lobo, Eric Tokuda, Kuruvilla Joseph Abraham +4Urban Planning

    Instituto de Informática, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, GO, Brazil · Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computação, Universidade de São Paulo, São Carlos, SP, Brazil · Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz da Universidade de São Paulo, USP, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil +1

  14. Spatial-Knowledge-Graph-Grounded LLM Agents for Neighborhood Livability Evaluation

    Aug 26, 2026Haiyan HaoUrban PlanningLarge Language Model-Based Social Simulation

    School of Humanities and Social Science The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

  15. From Street View Imagery to Street Quality Indicators: Vision Language Inference for the Suburban 15-minute City

    Aug 20, 2026Joan Perez, Giovanni FuscoUrban Planning

    Urban Geo Analytics, France · Université Côte-Azur-CNRS-AMU-Avignon Université, ESPACE, France

  16. Cross-View Urban Sensing: Mapping Subjective Streetscape Perception via AlphaEarth Embeddings and Urban Context

    Aug 17, 2026Peilin Li, Pengfei Chen, Jingyu Wang +4Urban Planning

    School of Geospatial Engineering and Science, Sun Yat-sen University, and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai, 519082, China · Key Laboratory of Comprehensive Observation of Polar Environment (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Zhuhai, 519082, China

  17. Demand-Driven Vertiport Siting and Discrete-Event Fleet Simulation for On-Demand Urban Air Mobility Network Design

    Aug 15, 2026Hossein Z. Saghazadeh, Yonas Ayalew, Reza Ahmari +2Intelligent Transportation SystemsUrban Planning

    department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, 27411 NC, USA

  18. From crown candidates to neighborhood screening: integrating optical GeoAI and spatial modeling for urban-canopy assessment in Davis, California

    Aug 14, 2026Mohammadreza Narimani, Shreyan Mitra, Parastoo FarajpoorRemote Sensing Image SegmentationLand Cover Classification

    Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, 95616, USA · California High School, San Ramon, CA, 94583, USA

  19. Walkable to Whom? Capturing Subjective Variability in Walkability Perception Using Multimodal Deep Learning

    Aug 7, 2026Moloud Damandeh, Meead SaberiUser ModelingUrban Planning

    School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW, Australia, and the Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation (rCITI)

  20. Paris as a 15-Minute City: An Explainable AI Perspective

    Aug 1, 2026András J. Molnár, Csaba I. Sidló, Rita Rónai +1Urban Planning

    Institute for Computer Science and Control, Hungarian Research Network, Hungary

  21. Beyond Binary Rooftop Mapping: A Four-Class Deep Learning Framework for Green Roof Potential Assessment from Open Swiss Geospatial Data

    Jul 24, 2026Htet Yamin Ko KoRemote Sensing Image SegmentationUrban Planning

    International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland

  22. Examining the Associations between Visual and Non-Visual Elements and Cyclists' Route Choices for Various Trip Purposes

    Jul 17, 2026Heyang Hua, Koichi Ito, Filip BiljeckiUrban Planning

    Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore, 8 Architecture Drive, Singapore, 117356, Singapore · Department of Real Estate, National University of Singapore, 15 Kent Ridge Drive, Singapore, 119245, Singapore

  23. AI vs Human Expert Reasoning: Assessing Agreements in Building Typology Predictions based on Street View Imagery

    Jul 16, 2026Zahratu Shabrina, Muhammad Asa, Jin Rui +2VLM EvaluationVLM Reasoning

    Department of Geography, King’s College London, UK · Resilience Development Initiative, Indonesia · School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Surrey, UK +1

  24. CommuniWave:A Machine Learning Model for Quantifying the Degree of Temporary Informal Behavior in Urban Communities

    Jul 9, 2026Hongye Yang, Shien Liu, Zhihao XieUrban Planning

    Beijing Institute of Architectural Design Co., Ltd · Wuxi Taihu University

  25. City landscape in sight: A crowdsourced framework for unlocking urban-scale window view perceptions from real estate imagery

    Jun 13, 2026Chucai Peng, Sijie Yang, Ang Liu +3Human Preference ModelingUrban Planning

    Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore, Singapore · College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences / Hubei Engineering Technology Research Centre for Forestry Information, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China · School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, USA +2

  26. Learning Urban Access Costs from Origin-Destination Flows via Inverse Optimal Transport

    Jun 12, 2026Paula Joy B. Martinez, Sebastian Felipe R. BundocInverse Optimal TransportUrban Planning

  27. Can AI Reason Like an Urban Planner? Benchmarking Large Language Models Against Professional Judgment

    Jun 10, 2026Yijie Deng, He Zhu, Wen Wang +3LLM EvaluationUrban Planning

    Behavioral and Spatial AI Lab, Tongji University · Behavioral and Spatial AI Lab, Peking University · College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University

  28. PlanBench-V: A Spatial Planning Map Benchmark for Vision-Language Models

    Jun 4, 2026Minxin Chen, He Zhu, Junyou Su +3VLM EvaluationSpatial Reasoning Benchmarks

    1Behavioral and Spatial AI Lab, Tongji University · 2Behavioral and Spatial AI Lab, Peking University · College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University

  29. U-Net-Accelerated Quality-Diversity Optimization for Climate-Adaptive Urban Layouts

    Jun 3, 2026Alexander Hagg, Tania Guerrero, Dirk ReithNeural Surrogate ModelingSurrogate-Assisted Optimization

    Institute of Technology, Resource and Energy-efficient Engineering (TREE) Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences Sankt Augustin, 53757, Germany · Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI), Sankt Augustin, Germany

  30. DeCoR: Design and Control Co-Optimization for Urban Streets Using Reinforcement Learning

    May 20, 2026Bibek Poudel, Lei Zhu, Kevin Heaslip +2RL ControlIntelligent Transportation Systems

    University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA · University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA