Smart cities, smart systems: A comprehensive review of system dynamics model applications in urban studies in the big data era

Abstract

This paper addresses urban sustainability challenges amid global urbanization, emphasizing the need for innovative approaches aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. While traditional tools and linear models offer insights, they fall short in presenting a holistic view of complex urban challenges. System dynamics (SD) models that are often utilized to provide holistic, systematic understanding of a research subject, like the urban system, emerge as valuable tools, but data scarcity and theoretical inadequacy pose challenges. The research reviews relevant papers on recent SD model applications in urban sustainability since 2018, categorizing them based on nine key indicators. Among the reviewed papers, data limitations and model assumptions were identified as major challenges in applying SD models to urban sustainability. This led to exploring the transformative potential of big data analytics, a rare approach in this field as identified by this study, to enhance SD models’ empirical foundation. Integrating big data could provide data-driven calibration, potentially improving predictive accuracy and reducing reliance on simplified assumptions. The paper concludes by advocating for new approaches that reduce assumptions and promote real-time applicable models, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of urban sustainability through the synergy of big data and SD models.

Keywords

Urban sustainability / Smart cities / System dynamics models / Big data analytics / Urban system complexity / Data-driven urbanism

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Gift Fabolude: Writing – original draft, Resources, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Charles Knoble: Validation, Resources, Investigation, Data curation, Conceptualization. Anvy Vu: Resources, Data curation, Conceptualization. Danlin Yu: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Validation, Supervision, Resources, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:

Danlin Yu reports financial support was provided by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, under the grant NJLTS0027-22. The opinions expressed in this study are the authors alone, and do not represent the U.S. Department of HUD’s opinions. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (Grant No. NJLTS0027-22). The opinions expressed in this study are the authors alone, and do not represent the U.S. Department of HUD’s opinions.

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