Our Publications
Published Research
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The Mansueto Institute faculty, affiliated faculty, and fellows publish research in leading academic journals that is helping to define urban scholarship. This includes new methods for statistical analysis of cities, patterns in urban growth and development, and findings about socioeconomics, built environment, sustainability, and more.
By Category
Crime, Violence Prevention, and Safety
- Riley Tucker (2024) – Do Commercial Place Managers Explain Crime Across Places? Yes and NO(PE) – Journal of Quantitative Criminology
- Dan O’Brien and Alex Ciomek (2022) – Whence the Action? The Persistence and Aggravation of Violent Crime at Addresses, Streets, and Neighborhoods – Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
Design, Land Use, and Planning
- Marc G. Berman, Emily Talen, Riley Tucker (2024) – Quantifying Urban Environments: Aesthetic Preference Through the Lens of Prospect-Refuge Theory – Journal of Environmental Psychology
- Emily Talen (2024) – Designing a Neighborhood – Research Handbook on Urban Design
- Emily Talen (2023) – The Scale of Urbanism – Urban Science
- Emily Talen, Sabina Shaikh (2023) – Our Urban Future: An Active Learning Guide to Sustainable Cities – MIT Press
- Adrian S.Z. Chase (2023) – Urban Planning at Caracol, Belize: Governance, Residential Autonomy, and Heterarchical Management through Time – University Press of Colorado, Boulder
- Adrian S.Z. Chase (2023) – Transformation, Growth, and Governance at Caracol, Belize – Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology
- Zünd Daniel, Bettencourt L.M.A. (2021) – Street View Imaging for Automated Assessments of Urban Infrastructure and Services – Urban Informatics
Economy and Finance
- Sahasranaman A, Bettencourt LM (2021) – Economic Geography and the Scaling of Urban and Regional Income in India – Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
- Anand Sahasranaman, Luís M.A. Bettencourt (2021) – Life Between the City and the Village: Scaling Analysis of Service Access in Indian Urban Slums – World Development
- Bettencourt LMA (2019) – Complex Systems Modeling of Urban Development: Understanding the Determinants of Health and Growth Across Scales – Integrating Human Health into Urban and Transport Planning
Governance
- Marwell, N.P., Marantz, E.A., & Baldassarri D. (2020) – The Microrelations of Urban Governance: Dynamics of Patronage and Partnership – American Journal of Sociology
Health
- Cross, F.L., Wileden, L., Buyuktur, A.G. et al. (2023) – MICEAL Black and Latinx Perspectives on COVID-19 Vaccination: A Mixed-Methods Examination – Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
- Cross FL, Buyuktur AG, Wileden L, et al. (2023) – Black and Latino Perspectives on COVID-19 Vaccines: A Mixed-methods Examination – Journal of Clinical and Translational Science
- Suraj K. Sheth, Luís M. A. Bettencourt (2023) – Measuring Health and Human Development in Cities and Neighborhoods in the United States – npj Urban Sustainability
- Stier, A., Berman, M., Bettencourt, L., et al. (2021) – Evidence and theory for lower rates of depression in larger US urban areas – PNAS
- Stier, A.J., Berman, M.G. & Bettencourt, L.M.A. (2021) – Early Pandemic COVID-19 Case Growth Rates Increase with City Size – npj Urban Sustain
- Bettencourt LMA (2019) – Complex Systems Modeling of Urban Development: Understanding the Determinants of Health and Growth Across Scales – Integrating Human Health into Urban and Transport Planning
Historical and Comparative Urban Studies
- Adrian S.Z. Chase, April Kamp-Whittaker, Matthew A. Peeples (2024) Archaeologies of people and space: Social network analysis of communities and neighborhoods in spatial context – Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
- Adrian S.Z. Chase (2024) – Understanding and calculating household size, wealth, and inequality in the Maya Lowlands – Cambridge University Press
- Adrian S.Z. Chase (2024) – Urban Levels at Caracol, Belize: Understanding Social Relationships at the Plazuela, the Neighborhood, the District, and the City Levels – Socio-Political Integration of Ancient Neighborhoods, University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archeology Press
- Brian C. Wilson (2024) – Approaching Past, Present, and Future Urbanisms in Goa, India – The Archaeology of Modern Worlds in the Indian Ocean
- Sabina Shaikh, Alan Kolata, and Michael W. Binford (2023) – Home and Away: Drivers and Perceptions of Migration Among Urban Migrants and Their Rural Families in the Lower Mekong River Basin in Cambodia – Migration and Development
- Adrian S.Z. Chase (2023) – Reconstructing and Testing Neighborhoods at the Maya City of Caracol, Belize – Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
- Diane Z. Chase, Adrian Chase, et al. (2023) – Mesoamerican Urbanism Revisited: Environmental Change, Adaptation, Resilience, Persistence, and Collapse – PNAS
- José Lobo, Todd Whitelaw, Luís M. A. Bettencourt, Polly Wiessner, Michael E Smith, and Scott Ortman (2022) – Scaling of Hunter-Gatherer Camp Size and Human Sociality – Current Anthropology
- Rudolf Cesaretti, José Lobo, Luis M. A. Bettencourt & Michael E. Smith (2020) – Increasing Returns to Scale in the Towns of Early Tudor England – Historical Methods
- Scott G. Ortman, Michael E. Smith, José Lobo, and Luís M. A. Bettencourt (2020) – Why Archaeology Is Necessary for a Theory of Urbanization – Journal of Urban Archaeology
- Christopher R. Berry, Edward L. Glaeser (2005) – The Divergence of Human Capital Levels Across Cities – Papers in Regional Science
Housing
- Christopher R. Berry (2019) Taxed Out: Illegal Property Tax Assessments and the Epidemic of Tax Foreclosures in Detroit – University of California Irvine Law Review
Quantitative Methods and Data Analysis in Urban Studies
- Arianna Salazar-Miranda (2024) – Urban Visual Intelligence: Studying Cities with Artificial Intelligence and Street-Level Imagery – Annals of the American Association of Geographers
- Adrian S.Z. Chase (2024) – Measuring inequality: The effect of units of analysis on the Gini coefficient – Cambridge University Press
- Luc Anselin (2024) – An Introduction to Spatial Data Science with GeoDa
- Christopher R. Esposito (2023) – The geography of breakthrough invention in the United States over the 20th century – Research Policy
- Deborah Strumsky, Luis Bettencourt, José Lobo (2023) – Agglomeration Effects as Spatially Embedded Social Interactions: Identifying Urban Scaling Beyond Metropolitan Areas – Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
- Bettencourt, Luís M. A., Zünd, D. (2020) – Demography and the Emergence of Universal Patterns in Urban Systems – Nat Commun
- Bettencourt, Luís M. A. (2020) – Urban Growth and the Emergent Statistics of Cities – Science Advances
- Bettencourt, Luis and Lobo, Jose (2019) – Quantitative Methods for the Comparative Analysis of Cities in History – Frontiers in Digital Humanities
- Zünd, Daniel and Bettencourt, Luís M.A. (2019) – Growth and Urban Development in Prefecture-Level China – PLoS ONE
Race and Equity
- Andrew Stier, Luís Bettencourt, Marc Berman (2024) – Implicit racial biases are lower in more populous more diverse and less segregated US cities – Nature Communications
- Liang Cai (2024) – Exposure of Neighborhood Racial and Socio-Economic Composition in Activity Space: A New Approach Adjusting for Residential Conditions – Social Forces
- Cross, F.L., Wileden, L., Buyuktur, A.G. et al. (2023) – MICEAL Black and Latinx Perspectives on COVID-19 Vaccination: A Mixed-Methods Examination – Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
- Cross FL, Buyuktur AG, Wileden L, et al. (2023) – Black and Latino Perspectives on COVID-19 Vaccines: A Mixed-methods Examination – Journal of Clinical and Translational Science
- Jared N Schachner (2021) – Racial Stratification and School Segregation in the Suburbs: Evidence from Los Angeles County – Social Forces
- Jared N Schachner (2021) – Parental Depression and Contextual Selection: The Case of School Choice – Journal of Health and Social Behavior
Sustainability and Environmental Studies
- Emily Talen and Lydia Wileden (2024) The Density Puzzle: What is Known, What is Disputed, and Where to Go from Here – Journal of Planning Literature
- Arianna Salazar-Miranda (2024) – The tradeoff between sustainability and social segregation in 15-minute cities – Nature Cities
- Arianna Salazar-Miranda (2024) – The 15-minute city quantified using human mobility data – Nature Cities
- Elmqvist, T., Andersson, E., McPhearson, T. et al. (2021) – Urbanization in and for the Anthropocene – npj Urban Sustain
- Taajamaa V, Joensuu M, Karanian B, Bettencourt L. (2022) – Seven Steps to Strategic SDG Sensemaking for Cities – Administrative Sciences
- Sahasranaman A, Bettencourt LM (2021) – Economic Geography and the Scaling of Urban and Regional Income in India – Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
- Anand Sahasranaman, Luís M.A. Bettencourt (2021) – Life Between the City and the Village: Scaling Analysis of Service Access in Indian Urban Slums – World Development
- Tian Amy, Zünd Daniel, Bettencourt Luís M. A. (2021) – Estimating Rooftop Solar Potential in Urban Environments: A Generalized Approach and Assessment of the Galápagos Islands – Frontiers in Sustainable Cities
Pre-Prints and White Papers
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Working papers, pre-published articles, white papers, and other pre-published work from scholars at the Mansueto Institute.
By Category
Crime, Violence Prevention, and Safety
Tucker, Riley. O’Brien Daniel T., and Hangen, Forrest. Can a Twitter-Based Measure of Racial Heterogeneity Explain Neighborhood Crime Differences? Proposing an Ambient Population Measure of Social Disorganization (February 27, 2024). CRIMRXIV. Available: https://www.crimrxiv.com/pub/kxlyvjce/release/2.
Riley Tucker and Daniel T. O’Brien. Do Commercial Place Managers Explain Crime Across Places? Yes and NO(PE) (April 25, 2023). https://www.crimrxiv.com/pub/yfdcyxer.
Design, Land Use, and Planning
Lydia Wileden. Examining Shifts in Neighborhood Sentiments Among Residents of SNF Neighborhoods Over Time. (July 2024) Detroit Metro Areas Community Study, University of Michigan. Available: PDF.
Arianna Salazar-Miranda. Understanding Urban Economies, Land Use, and Social Dynamics in the City: Big Data and Measurement. Institute of Labor Economics. (October 2023) https://docs.iza.org/dp16501.pdf.
Luís Bettencourt and Nicholas Marchio. Street Access, Informality and Development: A block level analysis across all of sub-Saharan Africa. (July 30, 2023) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2307.16328
Economy, Finance and Taxation
Mansueto Institute & Center for Municipal Finance. An Analysis of Property Tax Assessments in Detroit. (March 20, 2024) Available: PDF
Christopher R. Berry and Nicholas Marchio. Simulating property tax effects from declines in downtown commercial real estate valuations in Chicago. (October 5, 2023). https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/1/1010/files/2023/10/Loop-CRE-Analysis_October-2023.pdf
Health and Cognition
Marc Berman, Riley Tucker. Evidence for Environmental Influences on Impulsivity and Aggression (October 31, 2023) PsyArXiv Pre-prints. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/epkru/
Andrew J. Stier, Marc G. Berman, Luis M. A. Bettencourt. COVID-19 attack rate increases with city size (March 23 2020). Cornell University arXiv, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2003.10376.
Quantitative Methods and Data Analysis in Urban Studies
Kemp, Jordan T. and Bettencourt, Luís M.A., Statistical Dynamics of Wealth Inequality in Stochastic Models of Growth (December 9, 2021). Cornell University arXiv, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2112.05217.
Anand Sahasranaman, Luís M. A. Bettencourt. Life Between the City and the Village: Comparative Analysis of Service Access in Indian Urban Slums (September 10 2019). Cornell University arXiv, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1909.05728.
Urban Innovations Working Paper Series
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Hosted on Social Science Research Network (SSRN), the Mansueto Institute’s working paper series is a forum to share knowledge, spur collaboration, and publicize cutting-edge urban science research. This series disseminates early-stage and under peer review research in pursuit of generating the best knowledge and practices around urban development. Papers come from scholars across the University of Chicago and beyond, and touch upon a range of interdisciplinary subjects including housing scholarship, urban architecture and design, neighborhoods and human development, sustainable cities, and data and technological innovation. View the full series and subscribe on SSRN.
Housing
University of Chicago – Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation and Bettencourt, Luís and Talen, Emily. Beyond the Single-Family Home: Zoning, Equity, and Access (June 8, 2023) Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 37. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4473816.
Brandtner, Christof and Ashur, Parham and Srinivasa Desikan, Bhargav. Dynamic persistence of institutions: Modeling the endurance of public housing after Red Vienna, 1870–2009 (November 15, 2022). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 31. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=4277817.
Design, Land Use, and Planning
Soman, Satej and Beukes, Anni and Nederhood, Cooper and Marchio, Nicholas and Bettencourt, Luis, Worldwide Detection of Informal Settlements via Topological Analysis of Crowdsourced Digital Maps (September 27, 2020). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 23, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3701930 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3701930
Saxon, James, Empirical Measures of Park Use in American Cities, and the Demographic Biases of Spatial Models (December 12, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 17. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3502949
Economy and Finance
Governance
Bettencourt, Luís M.A., Why the Internet Must Become More Like a City (July 3, 2022). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 29, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4166118.
Brandtner, Christof and Bettencourt, Luis and Stier, Andrew and Berman, Marc G., Creatures of the State? Metropolitan Counties Compensated for State Inaction in Initial U.S. Response to Covid-19 Pandemic (August 10, 2020). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 21, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3670927
Bettencourt, Luis and Sahasranaman, Anand, Life Between the City and the Village: Comparative Analysis of Service Access in Indian Urban Slums (September 2, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 11. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3448171 This paper has been published in World Development: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105435
Health and Cognition
Tandel, Vaidehi and Gandhi, Sahil and Patranabis, Shaonlee and Bettencourt, Luis and Malani, Anup, Infrastructure, enforcement and COVID-19 in Mumbai slums: A first look (April 30, 2021). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 27, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3837478
Koschinsky, Julia and Marwell, Nicole and Mansour, Raed, Does Health Service Funding Go Where the Need Is? A Prototype Spatial Access Analysis for New Urban Contracts Data (April 22, 2021). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 26, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3832293
Koschinsky, Julia and Marwell, Nicole and Mansour, Raed, A Blueprint for Diagnosing the Readiness of Human Service Contracts Data for Spatial Access Analysis (April 22, 2021). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 25, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3832279
Bettencourt, Luis and Soman, Satej, Systems Architecture for Real Time Epidemiological Prediction and Control (December 14, 2020). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 24, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3748704
Anup Malani, Satej Soman, Sam Asher, Paul Novosad, Clement Imbert, Vaidehi Tandel, Anish Agarwal, Abdullah Alomar, Arnab Sarker, Devavrat Shah, Dennis Shen, Jonathan Gruber, Stuti Sachdeva, David Kaiser, and Luis M.A. Bettencourt, Adaptive Control of COVID-19 Outbreaks in India: Local, Gradual, and Trigger-based Exit Paths from Lockdown (July 2020). NBER Working Paper No. 27532. JEL No. I1. Available at NBER: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27532
Quantitative Methods and Data Analysis in Urban Studies
Sheth, Suraj and Bettencourt, Luis, The Community Human Development Index as a Precision Vulnerability Metric and Risk Indicator (January 18, 2023). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 35. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4328885.
Sheth, Suraj and Bettencourt, Luis, Community Human Development in US Counties: Analysis of the Divergence in Local Life Expectancies Over Time (January 18, 2023). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 34. Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4328853.
Kemp, Jordan and Bettencourt, Luis, The Bayesian Origins of Growth Rates in Stochastic Environments (September 22, 2022). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 30. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=4227165.
Sheth, Suraj and Bettencourt, Luís M.A., Human Development in US Cities and Neighborhoods (November 11, 2021). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 28, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3961750
Lobo, Jose and Alberti, Marina and Allen-Dumas, Melissa and Arcaute, Elsa and Barthelemy, Marc and Bojorquez Tapia, Luis A. and Brail, Shauna and Bettencourt, Luis and Beukes, Anni and Chen, Wei‐Qiang and Florida, Richard and Gonzalez, Marta and Grimm, Nancy and Hamilton, Marcus and Kempes, Chris and Kontokosta, Constantine E. and Mellander, Charlotta and Neal, Zachary P. and Ortman, Scott and Pfeiffer, Deirdre and Price, Michael and Revi, Aromar and Rozenblat, Céline and Rybski, Diego and Siemiatycki, Matthew and Shutters, Shade T. and Smith, Michael E. and Stokes, Eleanor C. and Strumsky, Deborah and West, Geoffrey and White, Devin and Wu, Jingle and Yang, Vicky Chuqiao and York, Abigail and Youn, Hyejin, Urban Science: Integrated Theory from the First Cities to Sustainable Metropolises (January 28, 2020). Report submitted to the NSF on the Present State and Future of Urban Science, 2020. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3526940 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3526940
Bettencourt, Luis and Zünd, Daniel, Demography, Symmetry and the Emergence of Universal Patterns in Urban Systems (October 15, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 15. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3470821 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3470821
Saxon, James, The Local Structures of Human Mobility in Chicago (October 9, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 13. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3467101
Bettencourt, Luís M.A., Complex Networks and Fundamental Urban Processes (June 11, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 8. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3418612 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3418612
Lobo, Jose and Whitelaw, Todd and Bettencourt, Luis and Wiessner, Polly and Smith, Michael E. and Ortman, Scott, Scaling of Hunter Gatherer Camp Size and Human Sociality (May 26, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 7. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3399729
Lobo, Jose and Bettencourt, Luis and Smith, Michael E. and Ortman, Scott, Settlement Scaling Theory: Bridging the Study of Ancient and Contemporary Urban Systems (May 26, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 6. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3427336 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3427336
Bettencourt, Luis, Towards a Statistical Mechanics of Cities (April 9, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 5. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3427349 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3427349
Sahasranaman, Anand and Bettencourt, Luís M.A., Economic Geography and the Scaling of Urban and Regional Income in India (March 27, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 3. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3362578 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3362578
Zünd, Daniel and Bettencourt, Luís M.A., Streetview Imaging for Automated Assessments of Urban Infrastructure and Services (March 25, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 2. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3362580 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3362580
Race and Equity
Stier, Andrew and Sajjadi, Sina and Karimi, Fariba and Bettencourt, Luis and Berman, Marc G. City Population, Majority Group Size, and Residential Segregation Drive Implicit Racial Biases in U.S. Cities (January 27, 2023). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 36. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4342718.
Stier, Andrew and Sajjadi, Sina and Bettencourt, Luis and Karimi, Fariba and Berman, Marc G, Effects of Racial Segregation on Economic Productivity in U.S. Cities (December 6, 2022). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 33. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=4295426.
Sustainability and Environmental Studies
Gonzalez, Ana and Brandtner Christof, Green against the odds: Overcoming institutional barriers to sustainability in cities with pragmatic and progressive resource needs (November 18, 2022). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 32. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=4284821.
Brandtner, Christof, City Action: Civic Capacity and the Greening of the American City (April 21, 2020). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 20. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3581796
Lobo, Jose and Alberti, Marina and Allen-Dumas, Melissa and Bettencourt, Luis and Beukes, Anni and Neal, Zachary P. and Pfeiffer, Deirdre and Shutters, Shade T. and Smith, Michael E. and Stokes, Eleanor C. and Strumsky, Deborah and Wu, Jingle, Graduate Education for a New Sustainable Urban Systems Science: Designing a New PhD Curriculum Integrating Sustainability Science and Urban Science (October 1, 2019). Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Research Paper No. 14. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3466322 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3466322