{"title":"The Metaverse as a virtual form of data-driven smart cities: the ethics of the hyper-connectivity, datafication, algorithmization, and platformization of urban society.","authors":"Simon Elias Bibri, Zaheer Allam","doi":"10.1007/s43762-022-00050-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-022-00050-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Recent advances in computing and immersive technologies have provided Meta (formerly Facebook) with the opportunity to leapfrog or expedite its way of thinking and devising a global computing platform called the \"Metaverse\". This hypothetical 3D network of virtual spaces is increasingly shaping alternatives to the imaginaries of data-driven smart cities, as it represents ways of living in virtually inhabitable cities. At the heart of the Metaverse is a computational understanding of human users' cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior that reduces the experience of everyday life to logic and calculative rules and procedures. This implies that human users become more knowable and manageable and their behavior more predictable and controllable, thereby serving as passive data points feeding the AI and analytics system that they have no interchange with or influence on. This paper examines the forms, practices, and ethics of the Metaverse as a virtual form of data-driven smart cities, paying particular attention to: privacy, surveillance capitalism, dataveillance, geosurveillance, human health and wellness, and collective and cognitive echo-chambers. Achieving this aim will provide the answer to the main research question driving this study: What ethical implications will the Metaverse have on the experience of everyday life in post-pandemic urban society? In terms of methodology, this paper deploys a thorough review of the current status of the Metaverse, urban informatics, urban science, and data-driven smart cities literature, as well as trends, research, and developments. We argue that the Metaverse will do more harm than good to human users due to the massive misuse of the hyper-connectivity, datafication, algorithmization, and platformization underlying the associated global architecture of computer mediation. It follows that the Metaverse needs to be re-cast in ways that re-orientate in how users are conceived; recognize their human characteristics; and take into account the moral values and principles designed to realize the benefits of socially disruptive technologies while mitigating their pernicious effects. This paper contributes to the academic debates in the emerging field of data-driven smart urbanism by highlighting the ethical implications posed by the Metaverse as speculative fiction that illustrates the concerns raised by the pervasive and massive use of advanced technologies in data-driven smart cities. In doing so, it seeks to aid policy-makers in better understanding the pitfalls of the Metaverse and their repercussions upon the wellbeing of human users and the core values of urban society. It also stimulates prospective research and further critical perspectives on this timely topic.</p>","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":"2 1","pages":"22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9330959/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9328626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ling Wu, Qiong Peng, Michael Lemke, Tao Hu, Xi Gong
{"title":"Spatial social network research: a bibliometric analysis.","authors":"Ling Wu, Qiong Peng, Michael Lemke, Tao Hu, Xi Gong","doi":"10.1007/s43762-022-00045-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-022-00045-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A restless and dynamic intellectual landscape has taken hold in the field of spatial social network studies, given the increasingly attention towards fine-scale human dynamics in this urbanizing and mobile world. The measuring parameters of such dramatic growth of the literature include scientific outputs, domain categories, major journals, countries, institutions, and frequently used keywords. The research in the field has been characterized by fast development of relevant scholarly articles and growing collaboration among and across institutions. The <i>Journal of Economic Geography</i>, <i>Annals of the Association of American Geographers</i>, and <i>Urban Studies</i> ranked first, second, and third, respectively, according to average citations. The United States, United Kingdom, and China were the countries that yielded the most published studies in the field. The number of international collaborative studies published in non-native English-speaking countries (such as France, Italy, and the Netherlands) were higher than native English-speaking countries. Wuhan University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard University were the universities that published the most in the field. \"Twitter\", \"big data\", \"networks\", \"spatial analysis\", and \"social capital\" have been the major keywords over the past 20 years. At the same time, the keywords such as \"social media\", \"Twitter\", \"big data\", \"geography\", \"China\", \"human mobility\", \"machine learning\", \"GIS\", \"location-based social networks\", \"clustering\", \"data mining\", and \"location-based services\" have attracted increasing attention in that same time frame, indicating the future research trends.</p>","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":"2 1","pages":"21"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10115482/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9395765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jianpo Wang, Gang Li, Jiaobei Wang, Qifan Nie, Yue Yu, Tingting Xu
{"title":"Modeling of emergency support capacity and optimization of delivery service system for urban living materials under uncertain situations: a case study of Xi'an City during COVID-19 epidemic.","authors":"Jianpo Wang, Gang Li, Jiaobei Wang, Qifan Nie, Yue Yu, Tingting Xu","doi":"10.1007/s43762-022-00076-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-022-00076-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought a heavy burden and severe challenges to the global economy and society, forcing different countries and regions to take various preventive and control measures ranging from normal operations to partial or complete lockdowns. Taking Xi'an city as an example, based on multisource POI data for the government's vegetable storage delivery points, logistics terminal outlets, designated medical institutions, communities, etc., this paper uses the Gaussian two-step floating catchment area method (2SFCA) and other spatial analysis methods to analyze the spatial pattern of emergency support points (ESPs) and express logistics terminals in different situations. It then discusses construction and optimization strategies for urban emergency support and delivery service systems. The conclusions are as follows. (1) The ESPs are supported by large-scale chain supermarkets and fresh supermarkets, which are positively related to the population distribution.The spatial distribution of express logistics terminals is imbalanced, dense in the middle while sparse at the edges. 90% of express terminals are located within a 500 m distance of communities, however, some terminals are shared, which restrict their ability to provide emergency support to surrounding residents. (2) In general, accessibility increases as the number of ESPs increases; under normal traffic, as the distance threshold increases, the available ESPs increase but accessibility slightly decreases; with a traffic lockdown, the travel distance of residents is limited, and as ESPs increase, accessibility and the number of POIs covered significantly increase. (3) The spatial accessibility of the ESPs has a \"dumbbell-shaped\" distribution, with highest accessibility in the north and south, higher around the second ring road, slightly lower in the center, and lowest near the third ring road at east and west. (4) With the goal of \"opening up the logistics artery and unblocking the distribution microcirculation\", based on \"ESPs + couriers + express logistics terminals + residents\", this paper proposes to build and optimize the urban emergency support and delivery service system to improve the comprehensive ability of the city to cope with uncertain risks.</p>","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":"2 1","pages":"47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9789736/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10458304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The projected impacts of smart decline on urban runoff contamination levels.","authors":"Rui Zhu, Galen Newman","doi":"10.1007/s43762-021-00002-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s43762-021-00002-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There has been mounting interest about how the repurposing of vacant land (VL) through green infrastructure (the most common smart decline strategy) can reduce stormwater runoff and improve runoff quality, especially in legacy cities characterized by excessive industrial land uses and VL amounts. This research examines the long-term impacts of smart decline on both stormwater amounts and pollutants loads through integrating land use prediction models with green infrastructure performance models. Using the City of St. Louis, Missouri, USA as the study area, we simulate 2025 land use change using the Conversion of Land Use and its Effects (CLUE-S) and Markov Chain urban land use prediction models and assess these change's probable impacts on urban contamination levels under different smart decline scenarios using the Long-Term Hydrologic Impact Assessment (L-THIA) performance model. The four different scenarios are: (1) a baseline scenario, (2) a 10% vacant land re-greening (VLRG) scenario, (3) a 20% VLRG scenario, and (4) a 30% VLRG scenario. The results of this study illustrate that smart decline VLRG strategies can have both direct and indirect impacts on urban stormwater runoff and their inherent contamination levels. Direct impacts on urban contamination include the reduction of stormwater runoff and non-point source (NPS) pollutants. In the 30% VLRG scenario, the annual runoff volume decreases by 11%, both physical, chemical, and bacterial pollutants are reduced by an average of 19%, compared to the baseline scenario. Indirect impacts include reduction of the possibility of illegal dumping on VL through mitigation and prevention of future vacancies.</p>","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8653986/pdf/nihms-1752045.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39710322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding the urban life pattern of young people from delivery data","authors":"Yining Qiu, Jiale Ding, Meng-Xue Wang, Linshu Hu, Feng Zhang","doi":"10.1007/s43762-021-00027-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-021-00027-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44042965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Influence of urban land-use change on cold-air path occurrence and spatial distribution","authors":"Laura Grunwald, Stephan Weber","doi":"10.1007/s43762-021-00026-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-021-00026-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48471464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Latent factor analysis and measurement on sustainable urban livability in Siliguri Municipal Corporation, West Bengal through EFA and CFA model","authors":"Amit Adhikari, T. Roy","doi":"10.1007/s43762-021-00023-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-021-00023-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41804302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A morphological history of urban centers in Qingdao","authors":"Haofeng Wang, Xiaojun Rao","doi":"10.1007/s43762-021-00021-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-021-00021-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47167728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An iterative local search based hybrid algorithm for the service area problem","authors":"Yunfeng Kong","doi":"10.1007/s43762-021-00018-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-021-00018-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":72667,"journal":{"name":"Computational urban science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s43762-021-00018-7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45661659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}