City Lab

In the Fourth Industrial Revolution era, city laboratories are facing new potential to leverage active urban sensing, observe new lifestyles and spatial representation, and enhance urban practice through digital innovation technologies. However, it is essential to emphasise that a city’s socioeconomic status, emergent events, and policy regulations also significantly influence cities. Our focus can extend to cities at various development stages (e.g. growth, renewal, or shrinkage), for diverse demographic groups (e.g. elderly, children, and women), experiencing emergencies (e.g. pandemics and natural disasters), and striving for sustainability (e.g. low-carbon and health). While we cannot predict the future of cities, we can leverage the opportunities derived from the aforementioned technological and analytical advances to actively identify, model, formulate, and develop new urban rules, principles, and solutions to support the invention of new cities. This aligns with the scope of the EPB and provides reference and inspiration for researchers in related fields for explorations in the next decade.