Generic Cities Project

The Generic Cities Project provides approaches for developing scalable disaggregate models of functioning infrastructures in urban infrastructures when: (1) there are severe time constraints (quick turnaround is required); (2) general guidelines (normative properties or policies) applicable across regions are desired; or (3) generic information for specific localities and situations must be generated when detailed data is not available.

Another function of this module is to develop generic algorithms that can be used to solve basic measurement and analysis problems for different infrastructure networks.

Other research efforts have modeled these types of social behaviors by assuming that large numbers of people act in the aggregate like a fluid, whose behavior is governed by differential equations solvable on a computer. Instead, the UIS models the “disaggregated” behavior of each of the individuals in a city, county, state, or country. The UIS “re-aggregates” the individual behaviors by summing over them. The UIS models the behavior not of real people but of synthetic individuals who, in the aggregate, are statistically identical to a real population. This feature makes the UIS modeling “normative.”

The UIS serves as a disaggregate, normative modeling framework for developing and integrating the high-resolution Generic Cities Project.  The UIS and the Generic Cities Project share information at the individual/location level through their respective UPMoST modules