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1. Pilot project purgatory? Assessing automated vehicle pilot projects in U.S. cities

   https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-01006-2  

   McAslan, Devon; Najar Arevalo, Farah; King, David A.; Miller, Thaddeus R. (December 2021, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications)

   Abstract Pilot projects have emerged in cities globally as a way to experiment with the utilization of a suite of smart mobility and emerging transportation technologies. Automated vehicles (AVs) have become central tools for such projects as city governments and industry explore the use and impact of this emerging technology. This paper presents a large-scale assessment of AV pilot projects in U.S. cities to understand how pilot projects are being used to examine the risks and benefits of AVs, how cities integrate these potentially transformative technologies into conventional policy and planning, and how and what they are learning about this technology and its future opportunities and risks. Through interviews with planning practitioners and document analysis, we demonstrate that the approaches cities take for AVs differ significantly, and often lack coherent policy goals. Key findings from this research include: (1) a disconnect between the goals of the pilot projects and a city’s transportation goals; (2) cities generally lack a long-term vision for how AVs fit into future mobility systems and how they might help address transportation goals; (3) an overemphasis of non-transportation benefits of AV pilots projects; (4) AV pilot projects exhibit a lack of policy learning and iteration; and (5) cities are not leveraging pilot projects for public benefits. Overall, urban and transportation planners and decision makers show a clear interest to discover how AVs can be used to address transportation challenges in their communities, but our research shows that while AV pilot projects purport to do this, while having numerous outcomes, they have limited value for informing transportation policy and planning questions around AVs. We also find that AV pilot projects, as presently structured, may constrain planners’ ability to re-think transportation systems within the context of rapid technological change. 

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2. The JUST GROW framework: conceptualizing how city regions can govern urban agriculture for equity and sustainability

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2025.1653448  

   Baur, Patrick; Jennings, Rose; Aliu, Sheriff; Calo, Adam J; Farhangi, Mosen; He, Yukun; Kanki, Kiyoko; Koch, Ann-Kristin; Kiyoyama, Yohei; Martin, Michael; et al (November 2025, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems)

   City regions hold much potential for advancing sustainable and just food system transformations. A mosaic of models for producing more food in and around cities is emerging that promises shorter supply chains, increased food access, plant-based solutions and robust community resilience. Models for urban agriculture range from backyard and community gardens to rooftop farms to plant factories, representing tremendous diversity in the cropping systems, technologies, skills, and organizational forms used to grow food. Amidst this flourishing, concerns over inequitable distributions of the benefits and risks of expanding urban agriculture underscore the need to center justice in determining the right mix of models. City regions need innovative governance approaches to strategically, sustainably, and equitably manage this emerging mosaic at the city region scale and considering its full social-ecological ramifications. The JUST GROW framework addresses this need by incorporating three interlinked principles of justice into a comprehensive governance process of collective knowing, inclusive deliberation, and intentional action. We offer strategies for building collaborative capacities among community, government, and research stakeholder groups to cocreate indicators and invest in the data infrastructure needed to measure outcomes that matter for sustainability and equity. Our framework also creates a pathway to proactively construct responsibility to act on this knowledge bank by aligning authority, capacity, and motivation within representative governance networks. The long term goal of the JUST GROW framework is to build a process for food producers, urban planners, municipal agencies, community groups, and civil society organizations to help city region food systems (CRFS) better provide key benefits from urban agriculture—including positive environmental impacts, supporting vibrant food cultures, land access, livelihoods, and food security—for all people now and into the future. 

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3. “Where Am I?”: Unraveling Challenges in Smart City Data Cleaning to Establish a Ground Truth Framework

   https://doi.org/10.1109/PerComWorkshops59983.2024.10503068  

   Asad, Sarah; Powell, Breanna; Long, Christopher; Nicklas, Daniela; Lagesse, Brent (March 2024, IEEE)

   In the growing era of smart cities, data-driven decision-making is pivotal for urban planners and policymakers. Crowd-sourced data is a cost-effective means to collect this information, enabling more efficient urban management. However, ensuring data accuracy and establishing trustworthy “Ground Truth” in smart city sensor data presents unique challenges.Our study contributes by documenting the intricacies and obstacles associated with overcoming MAC randomization, sensor unpredictability, unreliable signal strength, and Wi-Fi probing inconsistencies in smart city data cleaning.We establish a framework for three different types of experiments: Counting, Proximity, and Sensor Range. Our novel approach incorporates the spatial layout of the city, an aspect often overlooked. We propose a database structure and metrics to enhance reproducibility and trust in the system.By presenting our findings, we aim to facilitate a deeper understanding of the nuances involved in handling sensor data, ultimately paving the way for more accurate and meaningful data-driven decision-making in smart cities. 

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4. Toward Ethical GeoDesign in the Urban Digital Twin Era

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X251359233  

   Ye, Xinyue; Goodchild, Michael (July 2025, Journal of Planning Education and Research)

   GeoDesign is undergoing a methodological shift through its integration with Urban Digital Twins (UDTs) and artificial intelligence (AI), moving from static spatial analysis to interactive and justice-oriented planning practices. This editorial reframes GeoDesign as both ethical and civic efforts. While digital twin technologies enable participatory planning and multiscalar data integration, they also raise concerns about bias, transparency, and governance. The six contributions in this special issue examine frameworks for ethical design, participatory tools, data interoperability, housing policy modeling, and planning pedagogy. Collectively, they advance the field of Ethical GeoDesign, emphasizing accountability, representation, and equity in UDTs. 

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5. Enhancing the quality and social impacts of urban planning through community-engaged operations research

   https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083211054851  

   Fabusuyi, Tayo; Johnson, Michael P (May 2022, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science)

   While inquiry in operations research (OR) modeling of urban planning processes is long-standing, on the whole, the OR discipline has not influenced urban planning practice, teaching and scholarship at a level of other domains such as public policy and information technology. Urban planning presents contemporary challenges that are complex, multi-stakeholder, data-intensive, and ill structured. Could an OR approach which focuses on the complex, emergent nature of cities, the institutional environment in which urban planning strategies are designed and implemented and which puts citizen engagement and a critical approach at the center enable urban planning to better meet these challenges? Based on a review of research and practice in OR and urban planning, we argue that a prospective and prescriptive approach to planning that is inductive in nature and embraces “methodological pluralism” and mixed methods can enable researchers and practitioners develop effective interventions that are equitable and which reflect the concerns of community members and community serving organizations. We discuss recent work in transportation, housing, and community development that illustrates the benefits of embracing an enhanced OR modeling approach both in the framing of the model and in its implementation, while bringing to the fore three cautionary themes. First, a mechanistic application of decision modeling principles rooted in stylized representations of institutions and systems using mathematics and computational methods may not adequately capture the central role that human actors play in developing neighborhoods and communities. Second, as innovations such as the mass adoption of automobiles decades ago led to auto-centric city design show, technological innovations can have unanticipated negative social impacts. Third, the current COVID pandemic shows that approaches based on science and technology alone are inadequate to improving community lives. Therefore, we emphasize the important role of critical approaches, community engagement and diversity, equity, and inclusion in planning approaches that incorporate decision modeling. 

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