The Royal Society

Philosophical Transactions A

Published by The Royal Society

Online ISSN: 1471-2962

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Print ISSN: 1364-503X

Disciplines: mathematics, physics, engineering, materials science, computer science, earth science, chemistry, astronomy

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Top-read articles

152 reads in the past 30 days

Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance

November 2024

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154 Reads

Dirk Helbing

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Luis M. A. Bettencourt

The digital revolution, fuelled by advancements in social media, Big Data, the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence, is reshaping our urban landscapes into ‘participatory cities’. These cities leverage digital technologies to foster citizen engagement, collaborative decision-making and community-driven urban development, thus unlocking new potentials while confronting emerging threats. Such technologies are empowering individuals and organizations in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. They do, however, introduce new risks and vulnerabilities that must be carefully managed. Hence, socio-technical innovation is urgently needed. In this connection, open-source technologies, participatory approaches and new forms of governance are becoming more popular and relevant. This theme issue looks into the tangible impacts of these technological advancements, with a focus on participatory cities. It aims to explain how digital tools are used in cities to tackle urban challenges, improve governance and promote sustainability. Through a collection of in-depth analyses, case studies and real-world examples, this issue seeks to offer a comprehensive understanding of the digital governance frameworks underpinning participatory cities. By offering a platform for multidisciplinary discourse, this theme issue endeavours to contribute to the broader narrative of shaping a more resilient, sustainable and democratic urban future in the digital age. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.

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113 reads in the past 30 days

Influence of impurities on the use of Fe-based powder as sustainable fuel

November 2024

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119 Reads

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1 Citation

Sustainable energy production, inherently transient and non-uniformly distributed around the world, requires the rapid development of sustainable energy storage technologies. Recently, pure iron powder was proposed as a high-energy density carrier. While promising, challenges are faced, such as nanoparticle emissions, micro-explosions or cavitation. In this work, a screening of the impact of the most common impurities in iron sources on these mechanisms was conducted through purely thermodynamic simulations. Two idealized models were considered to obtain a range of plausible flame temperatures and emitted gases when considering a purely diffusive regime in standard conditions and stoichiometric air–fuel mixture. The flame temperature and iron evaporation are increasing with the specific energy. A strong evaporation of C, S, Mo, Cu and P is also expected. Most impurities are predicted to decrease cavitation, except for Mn and MnO. The regeneration process by hydrogen-based direct reduction in fluidized bed reactors is also discussed. MgO and CaO are the most promising additions in terms of reducing nanoparticles and porosities, as well as to improve the fluidization and reduction kinetics of the combusted products. The potential of Fe powder as sustainable fuel, already very promising, could be further improved by the addition of selectively chosen impurities. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue 'Sustainable metals: science and systems'.

Aims and scope


Continuing its long history of influential scientific publishing, Philosophical Transactions A publishes high quality theme issues on topics of current importance and general interest within the physical, mathematical and engineering sciences, guest-edited by leading authorities and comprising new research, reviews and opinions from prominent researchers. Each issue aims to create an original and authoritative synthesis, often bridging traditional disciplines, which showcases current developments and provides a foundation for future research, applications and policy decisions.

Recent articles


Oceanic and ionospheric tidal magnetic fields extracted from global geomagnetic observatory data
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  • Full-text available

December 2024

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2 Citations

Ocean tide generated magnetic fields contain information about changes in ocean heat content and transport that can potentially be retrieved from remotely sensed magnetic data. To provide an important baseline towards developing this potential, tidal signals are extracted from 288 land geomagnetic observatory records having observations within the 50-year time span 1965–2015. The extraction method uses robust iteratively reweighted least squares for a range of models using different predictant and predictor assumptions. The predictants are the time series of the three vector components at each observatory, with versional variations in data selection and processing. The predictors fall into two categories: one using time-harmonic bases and the other that directly use lunar and solar ephemerides with gravitational theory to describe the tidal forces. The ephemerides predictors are shown to perform better (fitting more variance with fewer predictors) than do the time-harmonic predictors, which include the traditional ‘Chapman–Miller method’. In fitting the oceanic lunar tidal signals, the predictants with the highest signal/noise involve the ‘vertical’ magnetic vector component following principle-component rotation. The best simple semidiurnal predictor is the ephemeris series of lunar azimuth weighted by the inverse-cubed lunar distance. More variance is fitted with predictors representing the lunar tidal potential and gradients calculated for each location/time. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


Satellite monitoring of long period ocean-induced magnetic field variations

December 2024

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2 Citations

Satellite magnetic field observations have the potential to provide valuable information on dynamics, heat content and salinity throughout the ocean. Here, we present the expected spatio-temporal characteristics of the ocean-induced magnetic field (OIMF) at satellite altitude on periods of months to decades. We compare these to the characteristics of other sources of Earth’s magnetic field, and discuss whether it is feasible for the OIMF to be retrieved and routinely monitored from space. We focus on large length scales (spherical harmonic degrees up to 30) and periods from one month up to 5 years. To characterize the expected ocean signal, we make use of advanced numerical simulations taking high-resolution oceanographic inputs and solve the magnetic induction equation in three dimensions, including galvanic coupling and self-induction effects. We find the time-varying ocean-induced signal dominates over the primary source of the internal field, the core dynamo, at high spherical harmonic degree with the cross-over taking place at degrees 13–19 depending on the considered period. The ionospheric and magnetospheric fields (including their Earth-induced counterparts) have most power on periods shorter than one month and are expected to be mostly zonal in magnetic coordinates at satellite altitude. Based on these findings, we discuss future prospects for isolating and monitoring long period OIMF variations using data collected by present and upcoming magnetic survey satellites. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


Physical oceanographic factors controlling the ocean circulation-induced magnetic field

December 2024

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12 Reads

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1 Citation

Oceanic tidal constituents and depth-integrated electrical conductivity (ocean conductivity content, or OCC) extracted from electromagnetic (EM) field data are known to have a strong potential for monitoring ocean heat content, which reflects the Earth’s energy imbalance. In comparison to ocean tide models, realistic ocean general circulation models have a greater need to be baroclinic; therefore, both OCC and depth-integrated conductivity-weighted velocity (𝐓𝛔) data are required to calculate the ocean circulation-induced magnetic field (OCIMF). Owing to a lack of 𝐓𝛔 observations, we calculate the OCIMF using an ocean state estimate. There are significant trends in the OCIMF primarily owing to responses in the velocities to external forcings and the warming influence on OCC between 1993 and 2017, particularly in the Southern Ocean. Despite being depth-integrated quantities, OCC and 𝐓𝛔 (which primarily determine the OCIMF in an idealized EM model) can provide a strong constraint on the baroclinic velocities and ocean mixing parameters when assimilated into an ocean state estimation framework. A hypothetical fleet of full-depth EM-capable floats would therefore help improve the accuracy of the OCIMF computed with an ocean state estimate, which could potentially provide valuable guidance on how to extract the OCIMF from satellite magnetometry observations. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


Estimation of tsunami direction and horizontal velocity field from tsunami magnetic field

December 2024

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1 Citation

During tsunamis, the interaction between moving seawater and the Earth’s magnetic field generates a magnetic field detectable by electromagnetic sensors located on land or on the seafloor. In this study, we introduce new methods for estimating tsunami propagation direction and horizontal velocity fields using tsunami magnetic field data. We derive a transfer function that establishes a relationship between the tsunami magnetic field and the velocity field, emphasizing the alignment between the horizontal magnetic field and the tsunami’s propagation direction. This transfer function was validated with data from the 2009 Samoa and 2010 Chile tsunamis. Our findings show that tsunami horizontal velocities and directions can be accurately determined from these magnetic fields. This advancement enables the use of tsunami magnetic fields to provide comprehensive data for tsunami warning systems and to improve the inversion of tsunami seismic sources. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


Magnetic signals from oceanic tides: new satellite observations and applications

December 2024

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4 Citations

The tidal flow of seawater across the Earth’s magnetic field induces electric currents and magnetic fields within the ocean and solid Earth. The amplitude and phase of the induced fields depend on the electrical properties of both seawater and the solid Earth, and thus can be used as proxies to study the seabed properties or potentially for monitoring long-term trends in the global ocean climatology. This article presents new global oceanic tidal magnetic field models and their uncertainties for four tidal constituents, including M2,N2,O1 and even Q1, which was not reliably retrieved previously. Models are obtained through a robust least-squares analysis of magnetic field observations from the Swarm and CHAMP satellites using a specially designed data selection scheme. We compare the retrieved magnetic signals with several alternative models reported in the literature. Additionally, we validate them using a series of high-resolution global three-dimensional (3D) electromagnetic simulations and place constraints on the conductivity of the sub-oceanic mantle for all tidal constituents, revealing an excellent agreement between all tidal constituents and the oceanic upper mantle structure. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


Properties of tsunami-generated electromagnetic variation observed on islands

December 2024

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1 Citation

Electrically conductive seawater, moving in an ambient magnetic field, generates electromagnetic (EM) variations. Tsunamis are significant contributors to this phenomenon, inducing observable electric and magnetic fluctuations at seafloor and coastal observatories. While understanding of these occurrences in open oceans is robust, knowledge regarding their observation on islands remains limited. This article seeks, through the use of numerical experimentation, to enhance our understanding of tsunami-generated EM (TGEM) variations observed on islands. Utilizing simulations involving conical islands, we identify three key insights regarding EM intensity normalized by the height of incident tsunamis: (i) increased ocean depth surrounding the island amplifies tsunami EM signals, particularly for periods shorter than 20 min; (ii) magnetic field strength at the island is approximately comparable to that observed at the seafloor in the absence of the island when the island radius is smaller than 6 km; and (iii) electric field intensity at the island notably surpasses that observed at the seafloor, especially with smaller island radii (≤ 6 km). Additionally, we establish that employing the ratio of island radius to tsunami wavelength near the island coast facilitates the derivation of empirical functions for this phenomenon. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


On detecting and characterizing planetary oceans in the solar system using a distance-based ensemble modelling approach: application to the Uranus system

December 2024

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10 Reads

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1 Citation

The discovery of Europa’s subsurface ocean has spawned a strong desire by the planetary community to return and assess the ocean’s habitability using the magnetic induction signal that Europa generates. NASA has since formulated and developed the Europa Clipper mission with that same goal, anticipating its arrival in the Jovian system in the early 2030s. In parallel, ESA has developed the JUpiter Icy moons Explorer mission to further investigate the interior of Ganymede and other Jovian moons, scheduled to arrive approximately one year later. As a result, extensive work has now been devoted to developing and refining methods to analyse magnetic induction measurements with the goal of characterizing oceans within icy moons, including those in the Neptune and Uranus systems, which are ideal laboratories for such investigations. We present one such method, involving a distance-based inverse and forward modelling approach that leverages self-consistent interior models used to infer ocean and ice-shell properties of various moons that respond inductively to the dynamic magnetic environments in which they reside. We demonstrate the method on a hypothetical ocean within Umbriel, showing the ocean thickness and conductivity constraints that can be inferred from a Monte Carlo error analysis using a three-flyby mission concept. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


Dual-frequency electromagnetic sounding of a Triton ocean from a single flyby

December 2024

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1 Citation

Triton, the largest satellite of Neptune, is in a retrograde orbit and is likely a captured Kuiper Belt Object (KBO). Triton has a mean density of only 2.061 gm/cm³ and is therefore believed to have a 250–400 km thick hydrosphere. Triton is also one of the few planetary satellites to possess a thick ionosphere whose height-integrated Pedersen conductivity exceeds 10⁴ S, complicating the sounding of Triton’s subsurface using electromagnetic induction. Triton experiences a time-varying magnetic field dominated by two periods, one at 14.4 h, at the synodic rotation period of Neptune (from Neptune’s tilted field) and one at 141 h, at the orbital period of Triton (from large inclination of Triton’s orbit). We show that for most models of ionospheric conductivity, the 14.4 h wave creates a large response from the ionosphere itself and is unable to sound the putative ocean below. However, the 141 h wave penetrates the ionosphere easily and provides information on Triton’s ocean. We introduce a technique that allows us to determine the complex magnetic moments generated at the two key periods from the magnetic data from a single flyby, allowing us to infer the presence of a subsurface ocean. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.



Sensitivity of M2 tidal magnetic signals to seasonal and spatial variations of ocean electric conductivity

December 2024

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2 Reads

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1 Citation

Electrical conductivity of the Earth’s oceans is an important oceanographic parameter related through its dependence on temperature and salinity to the state of the ocean. The tidally induced magnetic field then provides a directly and globally observable physical variable affected by the ocean conductivity spatial and temporal distribution. This contribution addresses two topics of the impact of the ocean conductivity variations on the principal lunar semi-diurnal magnetic signals. First, using high-resolution forward modelling, we investigate the sensitivity of the magnetic field to seasonal conductivity variations. Here, we find that the differences between magnetic signatures calculated for individual monthly conductivity climatologies are small, and localized to the marginal seas of the global ocean. Second, we formulate an inverse method to provide a constraint for the ocean conductivity in the upper 1000 m of the ocean, and test it using a synthetic dataset, demonstrating a proof-of-concept for such an approach. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


Harnessing electromagnetic data for tsunami source estimation: a comprehensive review

December 2024

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1 Citation

Ocean-bottom pressure gauges are widely used for tsunami observations due to their established accuracy and stability. Recent advancements reveal that the magnetic field fluctuates when a large tsunami passes over the ocean, suggesting potential alternatives to pressure gauges in the form of ocean-bottom electromagnetometers (OBEMs). This article offers a comprehensive synthesis of recent findings concerning tsunami magnetic fields and their utility in tsunami source estimation. In addition, we scrutinize the effectiveness of tsunami observations employing OBEMs. Despite the promise of electromagnetometers, it is worth noting that the background noise inherent in electromagnetic observations tends to be approximately 10 times greater than that of pressure observations within the critical tsunami frequency bands. The Earth’s magnetic field sporadically disrupts tsunami magnetic fields, presenting a potential limitation to the utility of electromagnetometers in tsunami detection when compared with pressure gauges. Nevertheless, our investigation underscores the potential of electromagnetic observations in detecting tsunamis propagating over the ocean at magnitudes of a few centimetres. An invaluable advantage of electromagnetometers over pressure monitoring lies in their capability to observe tsunami velocity fields, suggesting a promising avenue for further research and development in tsunami observation technology. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Magnetometric remote sensing of Earth and planetary oceans’.


Artefact design and societal worldview

November 2024

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1 Citation

Technological artefacts are created in accordance with the values and worldviews of their designers. In operation, they act as a medium, facilitating and constraining human interaction with, and perception of, the world. When used on a large scale, they may lastingly affect societal ethos. If institutional structures of domination allocate the resources necessary for artefact design and development to some population groups over others, the direction and extent of such an effect may lead to increased disparity and inequity. While the direct influence of technology on opinion is well-studied, the evaluation of non-epistemic values, assumptions and presuppositions is a hurdle in the way of a deeper understanding of the large-scale effects of asymmetries in worldviews embodied by artefacts. Here, we show that artefacts have a strong potential to bias societal worldviews when they are distributed unevenly across the value spectrum. They can affect the clustering behaviour of agents with regard to worldview, both aiding and hindering intra- and inter-cluster diversity, depending on their distribution and frequency. Our findings underline the distributional sensitivity of worldview dynamics to institutional structures of domination. We highlight the importance of procedural interventions such as participatory design, which explicitly acknowledges existing asymmetries and redistributes power accordingly. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Fair voting outcomes with impact and novelty compromises? Unravelling biases in electing participatory budgeting winners

November 2024

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8 Reads

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1 Citation

Participatory budgeting, as a paradigm for democratic innovations, engages citizens in the distribution of a public budget to projects, which they propose and vote for implementation. So far, voting algorithms have been proposed and studied in social choice literature to elect projects that are popular, while others prioritize a proportional representation of voters’ preferences, for instance, the rule of equal shares. However, the anticipated impact and novelty in the broader society by the winning projects, as selected by different algorithms, remains totally under-explored, lacking both a universal theory of impact for voting and a rigorous unifying framework for impact and novelty assessments. This article tackles this grand challenge towards new axiomatic foundations for designing effective and fair voting methods. This is through new and striking insights derived from a large-scale analysis of biases over 345 real-world voting outcomes, characterized for the first time by a novel portfolio of impact and novelty metrics. We find strong causal evidence that equal shares comes with impact loss in several infrastructural projects of different cost levels that have been so far over-represented. However, it also comes with a novel, yet over-represented, impact gain in welfare, education and culture. We discuss the broader implications of these results and how impact loss can be mitigated at the stage of campaign design and project ideation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Analysing macroscopic traffic rhythms and city size in affluent cities: insights from a global panel data of 25 cities

November 2024

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36 Reads

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1 Citation

The world is undergoing a rapid process of urbanization. Currently, it is estimated that over 55% of the global population resides in urban areas, a figure projected to reach nearly 70% by 2050. This trend is accompanied by a spatial reorganization of human activities on a global scale, bringing about significant changes in mobility patterns and urban traffic management capabilities. Consequently, it is imperative to evaluate, on a broad scale, how city size influences traffic capacity. This study aims to analyse on-road traffic patterns using a diverse dataset comprising cities of varying population sizes, geographical extents and global locations. Specifically, we conduct an analysis encompassing 25 cities primarily situated in several European countries (France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), as well as in North America (Canada) and East Asia (Japan and Taiwan). Our findings shed light on how physical aspects related to urban form influence mobility patterns, offering insights for the implementation of more effective and sustainable traffic management policies. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Empowering minorities and everyone in participatory budgeting: an agent-based modelling perspective

November 2024

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1 Citation

Currently, there are increasing attempts to better involve citizens in political decision processes. A successful approach in that regard has been participatory budgeting (PB), which allows citizens to propose projects and then decide how to distribute a given budget over them. Meanwhile, the literature on collective intelligence (CI) has also shown the ability of groups to solve complex problems. Thus, by combining CI and PB, it should be possible for citizens to identify problems and create their own solutions. In this article, we study this possibility by using agent-based models. Specifically, we first show that a system combining CI and PB produces solutions that strongly penalize minorities if the solution quality depends on group size. Then, we introduce an approach that can overcome this issue. Indeed, by using a common knowledge base for the storage of partial solutions, the quality of solutions of minorities can benefit from the work of the majority, thereby promoting fairness. Interestingly, this approach also benefits majorities, as the quality of their solutions is further improved by the work of the minorities, thus reaching better solutions for everyone. This stresses the potential and importance of an open innovation approach, which is committed to information sharing. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Resisting technological inevitability: Google Wing’s delivery drones and the fight for our skies

November 2024

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3 Citations

Efforts to realize on-demand delivery drone networks present a stark example of how the technology industry seeks to dominate new markets, regardless of societal consequences. Analyzing the most advanced of these efforts—Google Wing’s operations in Australia since 2017—we identify the instrumental role of narratives of technological inevitability (of tech expansion, and societal adaptation) in catalyzing new sky-based commerce. Yet the interest of this case study lies in a twist. Google Wing’s rollout in Australia’s capital, Canberra, initially proceeded as a textbook example of tech expansion. However, citizen engagement and public governance dramatically intervened and, we argue, disrupted the logic of technological inevitability. This article is the first to analyze these dynamics, many of which originated with Bonython Against Drones (BAD), a community action group forged from those who first lived under Google’s food delivery drones. The article exposes the flawed logic of technological inevitability as the enabling force of tech expansion; characterizes the governance failures that help install corporate visions for public goods; animates the potentialities of communities living with new technologies; and identifies the sky itself, as both a public commons and a vital, living habitat, as a key future locus for participatory governance. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Computational diplomacy: how ‘hackathons for good’ feed a participatory future for multilateralism in the digital age

November 2024

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This article explores the role of hackathons for good in building a community of software and hardware developers focused on addressing global sustainable development goal (SDG) challenges. We theorize this movement as computational diplomacy: a decentralized, participatory process for digital governance that leverages collective intelligence to tackle major global issues. Analysing Devpost and GitHub data reveals that 30% of hackathons since 2010 have addressed SDG topics, employing diverse technologies to create innovative solutions. Hackathons serve as crucial kairos moments, sparking innovation bursts that drive both immediate project outcomes and long-term production. We propose that these events harness the neurobiological basis of human cooperation and empathy, fostering a collective sense of purpose and reducing interpersonal prejudice. This bottom–up approach to digital governance integrates software development, human collective intelligence and collective action, creating a dynamic model for transformative change. By leveraging kairos moments, computational diplomacy promotes a more inclusive and effective model for digital multilateral governance of the future. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Cities beyond proximity

November 2024

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1 Citation

The concept of ‘proximity-based cities’ has gained attention as a new urban organizational model. Most prominently, the 15-minute city contends that cities can function more effectively, equitably and sustainably if essential, everyday services and key amenities are within a 15-minute walk or cycle. However, focusing solely on travel time risks overlooking disparities in service quality, as the proximity paradigm tends to emphasize the mere presence of an element in a location rather than bringing up more complex questions of identity, diversity, quality, value or relationships. Transitioning to value-based cities by considering more than just proximity can enhance local identity, resilience and urban democracy. Fostering bottom–up initiatives can create a culture of local care and value, while predominantly top–down governing strategies can lead to large inequalities. Balancing these approaches can maximize resilience, health and sustainability. This equilibrium has the potential to accompany sustainable growth, by encouraging the creation of innovative urban solutions and reducing inequalities. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


No one-size-fits-all: Multi-actor perspectives on public participation and digital participatory platforms

November 2024

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1 Citation

This paper explores the perspectives of different urban actors regarding public participation in the context of the increasing incorporation of digital technologies and urban platforms. The study is based on three workshops with local governance actors, six semi-structured interviews with academics in the fields of public participation and digital technologies and a citizen survey with 260 respondents. The results provide multi-perspective insights into the challenges of participatory processes and are synthesized into three contributions: (i) guidelines for effective public participation, including factors that encourage or discourage citizen engagement; (ii) guidelines for designing participatory platforms, highlighting specific features that promote digital engagement (i.e. social media, gamification and user-friendly interfaces), and (iii) a typology of digital participation platforms to connect the diverse needs of actor groups with the various possibilities provided by new technologies. The guidelines provide concrete recommendations to support both urban practitioners and interface designers in designing participatory strategies and platforms, respectively. Recognizing that there is no-one-size-fits-all platform, the typology provides a framework for the assessment and further development of digital platforms for public participation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Participatory design based on opinion pooling

November 2024

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2 Citations

We focus here on methods for locating future urban development, ranging from entire towns to site designs. These methods articulate the urban design problem in terms of a series of factors pertaining to different measures of land suitability that are represented as spatial surfaces or maps. In realistic problems, these factors inevitably conflict with one another, and we thus define various design methods that enable us to select optimal locations for development based on weighting these factors in different ways. We begin with methods for resolving conflicts between the suitability maps using simple averaging with equal weights and then introduce methods for representing the interactions between the factors as a hierarchy for how these factors can be related to each other following an order for their differential weighting. We then generalize this method to ways in which a variety of individual experts can pool their knowledge of the problem to achieve a consensus solution using a process of group dynamics. The implication is that these kinds of dynamics might be used to enable effective public participation where conflicts between opinions can be resolved collectively. We are currently exploring this through methods of geodesign where networks of stakeholders, planners and designers can be brought together to solve these problems both empirically as well as formally. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Large language models (LLMs) as agents for augmented democracy

November 2024

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3 Citations

We explore an augmented democracy system built on off-the-shelf large language models (LLMs) fine-tuned to augment data on citizens’ preferences elicited over policies extracted from the government programmes of the two main candidates of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election. We use a train-test cross-validation set-up to estimate the accuracy with which the LLMs predict both: a subject’s individual political choices and the aggregate preferences of the full sample of participants. At the individual level, we find that LLMs predict out of sample preferences more accurately than a ‘bundle rule’, which would assume that citizens always vote for the proposals of the candidate aligned with their self-reported political orientation. At the population level, we show that a probabilistic sample augmented by an LLM provides a more accurate estimate of the aggregate preferences of a population than the non-augmented probabilistic sample alone. Together, these results indicate that policy preference data augmented using LLMs can capture nuances that transcend party lines and represents a promising avenue of research for data augmentation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Co-designing transport models as a heuristic planning tool

November 2024

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1 Citation

Recently the transportation sector has witnessed several new technologically driven disruptions that have amplified the complexity of city planning and policymaking. Traditional well-established processes of decision-making in urban planning and transportation are proving insufficient to deal with this degree of complexity and uncertainty. This paper proposes an alternative approach, combining qualitative and normative urban design, with quantitative and predictive transport modelling. This requires urban designers and transport modellers to co-create goal-driven and agile transport models that act as a heuristic tool to guide planning decisions in early design stages. Heuristic modelling is informed by design optioning and vice versa in an iterative loop. A case study is presented to demonstrate how this approach is operationalized to study the impacts of automated vehicles on urban planning. Design workshops are used as a method to elicit responses from stakeholders, which are used to co-create the simulation models. This collaborative process grounds the research in real-world practice and enhances the communication of design proposals and research findings across disciplines. By integrating design thinking methods with agent-based transport simulations, this approach provides a better understanding of emergent effects in complex urban systems and improves stakeholder engagement in the planning process. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Mapping sidewalk accessibility with smartphone imagery and Visual AI: a participatory approach

November 2024

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1 Citation

Evaluating sidewalk accessibility is conventionally a manual and time-consuming task that requires specialized personnel. While recent developments in Visual AI have paved the way for automating data analysis, the lack of sidewalk accessibility datasets remains a significant challenge. This study presents the design and validation of Sidewalk AI Scanner, a web app that enables quick, crowdsourced and low-cost sidewalk mapping. The app enables a participatory approach to data collection through imagery captured using smartphone cameras. Subsequently, dedicated algorithms automatically identify sidewalk features such as width, obstacles or pavement conditions. Though not a replacement for high-resolution sensing methods, this method leverages data crowdsourcing as a strategy to produce a highly scalable, city-level dataset of sidewalk accessibility, offering a novel perspective on the city’s inclusivity; fostering community empowerment and participatory planning. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Addressing the urban congestion challenge based on traffic bottlenecks

November 2024

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72 Reads

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1 Citation

Historically, urban congestion and street life quality depended on city network hierarchies, shaped by land use and street layout. Yet navigation apps have shifted focus to travel time as the key route selection factor, challenging traditional urban structures. We review the development of an innovative approach to urban traffic management that leverages real-time data for the identification and analysis of traffic bottlenecks. This approach, combined with urban planning, aims to improve traffic flow and tackle modern urban challenges. It includes real-time bottleneck detection and cost, congestion analysis and designing a decentralized traffic management system that can serve planners. Based on complex system principles, it promises dynamic traffic optimization, merging urban planning with digital advancements. The research demonstrates the potential of different applications of the proposed methodologies to predict significant congestion from early bottleneck formation, offering urban planners a powerful toolset for reasserting their role in shaping the urban experience. This article posits that a nuanced understanding of traffic dynamics, coupled with advanced traffic management technologies, can restore the influence of urban planning in the digital era, fostering more liveable, equitable and efficient urban environments. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


Complex systems perspective in assessing risks in artificial intelligence

November 2024

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1 Citation

In this article, we identify challenges in the complex interaction between artificial intelligence (AI) systems and society. We argue that AI systems need to be studied in their socio-political context to be able to better appreciate a diverse set of potential outcomes that emerge from long-term feedback between technological development, inequalities and collective decision-making processes. This means that assessing the risks from the deployment of any specific technology presents unique challenges. We propose that risk assessments concerning AI systems should incorporate a complex systems perspective, with adequate models that can represent short- and long-term effects and feedback, along with an emphasis on increasing public engagement and participation in the process. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance’.


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