City Science - MIT Media Lab

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City Science - MIT Media Lab

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We work on new strategies for the places where people live and work, and mobility systems.

We propose that fundamentally new strategies must be found for creating the places where people live and work, and the mobility systems that connect these places, in order to meet the profound challenges of the future. We are investigating how new models for urban architecture and personal vehicles can be more responsive to the unique needs and values of individuals though the application of disentangled systems and smart customization technology. We are developing technology to understand and respond to human activity, environmental conditions, and market dynamics. We are interested in finding optimal combinations of automated systems, just-in-time information for personal control, and interfaces to persuade people to adopt sustainable behaviors.

10/14/2026

Can AI predict how people’s attention will shift next week?

Social Simulation Arena tests simulations against the real future. Each week, systems submit predictions before new results are published. We lock the predictions, compare them with new observations, and publish the scores.

From public opinion to Google searches and Wikipedia’s top 10, the goal is a shared test of how well simulations reflect human behavior.

We welcome participating teams, data partners and research collaborators. Enter your simulator, contribute real-world data, or work with us on new tasks, methods and results analysis.

Explore: https://social-simulation-arena.com/
Get in touch: [email protected]

10/07/2026

We simulated a country 25 years into the future.

The model uses System Dynamics: residents, jobs, rents, electricity, water and the other indicators are stocks and flows, solved together year by year under four growth assumptions. Depending on which one you pick, Andorra ends up with 72,000 people in 2049 or 175,000.

None of these are predictions. They’re conditional futures, and the point of the model is to see what each set of assumptions implies for housing, infrastructure and services before anyone commits to it.

If you work on small-country planning, housing or infrastructure, I’d like to hear where you think the model is wrong.

Authors: Marcel Bartumeu Raméntol, Parfait Atchadé, Adrián Mora Carrero,
Kent Larson, Luis Alberto Alonso Pastor and Marta Domènech, at MIT Media Lab City Science and Andorra Recerca + Innovació.

Link to publication: https://lnkd.in/gdSF7Hkm

10/01/2026

Want to build the cities of the future with us? Applications are open.

Join City Science group at the MIT Media Lab as a master’s student through the Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

📅 Deadline: December 15, 2026

Apply here: https://www.media.mit.edu/graduate-program/apply/

09/28/2026

Please welcome three new faces to City Science this semester!

María Caballero — visiting master’s student from Tecnun, Spain. María is developing a transferable Agent-Based Mobility Model in GAMA, working toward mobility simulations that can travel from one city to the next without being rebuilt from scratch.

Raquel Ferrando — visiting master’s student from UPM, Spain. Raquel focuses on the validation of generative urban simulations using telecom and mobility data — making sure these models can actually be trusted for real urban decision-making.

Monica Gomez-Gutierrez — visiting researcher from City Science Lab @ Guadalajara, Mexico. Mónica joins us from one of the labs in the City Science Network, strengthening the exchange between MIT and the University of Guadalajara (UdeG).

Welcome, María, Raquel and Mónica — so glad you’re here. 🎉

09/24/2026

The City Science Summit lands in Donostia / San Sebastián on November 4–6.

An international network of researchers, institutions and professionals gathering around one idea: the space between disciplines isn’t empty. It’s where transformation happens.

Talks · workshops · live demos · networking

📍 Kursaal & Tabakalera
📅 Nov 4–6, 2026
🔗 Save your seat — link in bio

09/21/2026

A few months ago, I was walking through New York with my father-in-law, who has earned the right to notice hills before the rest of us do.

On the way back, I chose a different route. He noticed.
“It’s the Manhattan grid,” I said. “All routes are basically equal.”
He pointed at the hilly sidewalk: “Not really.”

We often analyze cities as if their grids are flat. Shortest paths, accessibility, walkability - much of our spatial analysis treats the city as a 2D object. But even the flat ones are 3D.

That conversation became Gridnberg: grid + berg, “a grid on a mountain.”
It’s a public, reproducible, topography-aware pedestrian routing dataset and web app for NYC

Link in bio for info.

09/17/2026

NEW PUBLICATION: CityScope Guadalajara

Excited to share our latest work published in Springer! An Integrative City-Science-Based Tool for Improving Decision Making in Urban Planning.

The study of cities may represent a difficult task due to their dynamic and complex nature. Cities show many emergent behaviors, thus designing and deploying interventions based on one single perspective is probably insufficient for reasoning about the consequences of such changes (on infrastructure, laws, or technology, etc.). As a natural response, urban planning must evolve and adopt new tools that take into consideration the urban systems components (citizens, government, industry, infrastructure, natural resources, etc) and the relationships between them. This work presents CityScope Guadalajara: an interactive agent-based analysis, simulation and visualization tool that allows testing interventions in virtual urban scenarios. The CityScope Guadalajara’s architecture permits non-technical users to “become” urban planners, transforming the case study through a tangible user interface (based on a 3D-printed model) and re. User’s movements change simulation model parameters and permits recomputing key performance indicators on three main axes: diversity, functionality and sustainability. The selected case-study was the University Cultural District, in Zapopan, Mexico.

Read full article: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-21596-3_13

Authors: Gamaliel A. Palomo Briones, Alejandro Padillla-Lepe, Monica L. Gomez-Gutierrez, Raquel E. Padilla-Gracia, Juan R. Álvarez-Padilla, Juan P. Jiménez-Cervantes, Mario Siller, Carlos J. Vega-Gómez, Luis Alonso, Arnaud Grignard, Sergio Roldan, Kent Larson & Mayra E. Gamboa-González

09/15/2026

Yeehaw 🤠

Far West vibes at Kent and Maria’s to celebrate the start of the semester — the City Science way.

Between the hats, the boots, and the laughter, it was the perfect reminder that the best research starts with a great team.

09/10/2026

“Text me when you get home.”

For many women, the journey home involves deciding which streets to avoid, whether to take a longer route, or how late feels too late to walk alone.

We wanted to understand how these decisions shape everyday life, and how urban design could help.

Working with women in informal neighbourhoods, we combined conversations, walks and GPS mapping to understand where they felt unsafe and why.

We also simulated journeys after dark to explore what changes to lighting, street activity and transport could mean for the walk home. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357100989_An_agent-based_model_to_evaluate_the_perception_of_safety_in_informal_settlements)

The carousel shares some of this work, alongside improvements residents built in their own neighbourhood.

Our latest study is now published in npj Urban Sustainability, available open access.

Link in bio. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-026-00358-5)

What would make your walk home feel safer?

09/08/2026

Big thanks to our visiting students Ivan Piris and Jason Huo for an amazing semester in the lab! 🙌

Ivan worked on mobility mode choice modeling with GPS data, while Jason designed last-meter delivery robots. Thanks for everything!

Excited to see what you do next! ✨

Address

20 Ames Street
Cambridge, MA
02142

Website

https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/city-science/

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