Monitoring urban fabric for data-driven planning and decision-making

The event offers attendees the opportunity to be part of the EuroFab project, gathering their perspectives on how Earth Observation and AI can substantially change the way urban fabric data is produced and made available for monitoring and what is its relevance and applicability in evidence-based urban and regional planning and policy. EuroFab paves the road for a world where stakeholders, from local authorities to supranational organisations, are able to track and monitor the pattern of urban development in detail directly relevant for planning, linking the information on the structure of neighborhoods to local expertise and communities, while allowing for a regional and international comparison using the same data and perspective, delivering a context allowing direct transition of planning experience.

In policy, equality of opportunities to live in a desired neighborhood typology is often neglected. Housing (in)equality, a phenomenon that describes the uneven distribution of housing opportunities and outcomes across different social groups, is often seen at the level of buildings and their quality, or from the perspectives of availability or affordability, and less so focusing on the wider perspective of housing as a means of living in a place. The “place” aspect is often substituted by the “neighborhood effect”, drawing attention back to the socio-economic range and forgetting the physical structure of cities. EuroFab provides a platform where the two aspects of cities - for one, their population and, for the other, their built-up form – can meet and interact, resulting in evidence with a direct link to urban planning.

The speakers will introduce different perspectives on data production and use, from local authorities to international organisations and research institutions. The scope is to facilitate a wider discussion that actively involves the participants and seek their direct contribution affecting the outcomes of the project resulting in enhanced applicability of academic outputs and neighborhood-level evidence for policy decisions, primarily related to housing and its shape.

The objective is to gather insights into existing knowledge, research endeavors, operational practices, information gaps, and previous experiences with urban analytics products and services, including those based on traditional mapping as well as satellite Earth Observation data. The discussion will inform EuroFab and help to define user needs for a novel data product that is truly applicable and sustainable, and which can provide a detailed picture of the type of urban development taking place in a region of concern without the need to assemble alternative data which are hard to generate, collect and work with.