Artificial Intelligence II - AI as co-pilot in urban and regional planning and international cooperation

Ulrich Graute • 25 April 2024

Imagine, in future planners will have a co-pilot!

The KPMG Future Summit event on AI which I attended on 23 April 2023 [1] did not address directly urban and territorial planning or international cooperation in the field. I was listening to the online event while ironing my shirts (unfortunately, that’s not done by AI yet). What caught my attention was among others the statement by Miriam Kugel, Director of People Science Advisory for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Microsoft. She said that AI will be in future like our co-pilot. While many admin tasks will be taken over by AI more managerial oversight by managers will be needed.

Just imagine all the rules and regulations that have to be consider in planning a city can be considered and factored in by AI. It still will need the planners to identify the best proposals and recommend them to politicians for decision-making. Chris Chiancone, Chief Information Officer at the City of Carralton suggests regarding the use of AI in planning to ‘Picture a tool that can absorb data about a city's current layout, population density, infrastructure, and other factors, and then generate a model of how the city could be restructured to optimize certain objectives.’

Chris Chiancone writes in his paper of 20 June 2023 ‘Revolutionizing Urban Planning with Generative AI: A new Era of Smart Cities’[2]: “At its heart, Generative AI is a type of machine learning that crafts new data instances reflecting its training set. Picture a master artist who, rather than simply duplicating a scene, employs their creativity to produce unique, lifelike outputs from a given input. That's the magic of Generative AI, but in the realm of data. It's the digital world's virtuoso, wielding algorithms and computational power instead of brushes and pigments”. For Chiancone Generative AI brings a unique fusion of creativity and efficiency to urban planning. It's akin to having a supercharged assistant that can process numbers, analyze data, generate models, and make predictions at a pace and scale that humans simply can't compete with. All of this is done with the aim of creating more efficient, habitable, and sustainable cities. According to Chiancone Generative AI is a tool that's not just revolutionizing urban planning, but also holds the potential to significantly enhance the quality of life in our urban habitats. And that ‘supercharged assistant’ corresponds to Miriam Kugels ‘co-pilot’. In spite of all creativity, Chiancone and Kugel understand AI as supportive tools (assistant or co-pilot) and that it needs data strategies, AI governance and capacity building to keep the pilot on track to intended goals. Scenario planning could be one of the big beneficiaries of AI. The planner as pilot of the planning process can modify the scenario setting and ask AI to develop the best scenario accordingly. This way, planners and decision-makers can better test out different options before taking a decision.

Now let’s think ahead a bit further. If AI can support scenario planning AI can also support the inter-sectoral and multi-level coordination of planning process which are often loaded with conflicting interests. AI could extend the scenario planning and apply a Large Language Model to include also all policies, laws and regulations of other relevant policy fields, policy levels plus the rights of citizens and property owners affected by a plan. By combining and comparing all these data AI could either identify win-win situations or generate proposals to bridge conflicting positions. It still will need the planning process and the decision-making but AI could support this process significantly by assuring that all relevant policies, rules and regulations are taken into account. And if new challenges and opportunities emerge, they can be included to proposed scenarios without much delay. And planners assisted by their ‘co-pilot’ might become even more reliable and appreciated authorities in the planning process.

[1] https://kpmg.com/de/de/home/events/uebersicht/kpmg-zukunftsgipfel.html

[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/revolutionizing-urban-planning-generative-ai-new-era-smart-chiancone/

AI and the interrelated web of sustainable development goals

Since 2012 I am working on the post 2015 development agenda of the United Nations which is since 2015 called 2030 Agenda and it includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets. The Agenda is currently off-track but what puzzles me since its launch is how to we can keep track of the fact that goals and targets are an interrelated web. Progress on one goal or target may imply regression on others. How can a zero-sum game or an overall regression be prevented? Here too, AI offers opportunities.

The Human Settlements Programme of the United Nations (UN-Habitat) launched in 2022 its report “AI and Cities” [3]. This first more comprehensive review of the relation between AI, cities and urban planning includes among others the recommendation to align AI strategies with SDGs and National and Local Goals (UN-Habitat 2022 AI and Cities, page 100).

[3] https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2022/10/artificial_intelligence_and_cities_risks_applications_and_governance.pdf

While humans often tend to chooseto reduce complexity by raisin picking and focusing on selected goals while ignoring others AI could be asked to monitor developments in a more comprehensive and integrated manner. Fed with all goals and indicators, national strategies and programs to implement the 2030 Agenda and with access to national and other available data AI could draft the SDG implementation report and make proposals on how to get agenda implementation back on track. Again, AI would be just a co-pilot and supercharged assistant. It could and should not not substitute political decision-making but if governed according to jointly agreed rules it could give monitoring and advisory services by the UN more authority and generate proposals for more effective and efficient use of available resources for goal achievement by national, local and other stakeholders. Certainly, it will require investments into data strategies, governance, capacity building and much attention for the just beginning process of AI development and application. The AI rocket is flying on already more than 100 million computers while it is at the same time still under construction. That makes it so urgent to pay attention now.

Picture: At the UN, robot Sophia joins meeting on artificial intelligence and sustainable development with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed

And what comes next?

In this times of multiple crises AI offers risks and a lot of opportunities. AI won’t turn me into a data person or IT nerd but it’s exciting to understand and apply the new opportunities as international expert in urban and regional development. We have to grow up to the challenges of our time and we don’t have the time to wait until our brains grow. Therefore, as analyst and advisor I will be glad to put my penny into the jar of discussing and using AI as co-pilot and to facilitate capacity building at the interface between technology and governance of international, national and local development. Countries like Saudi Arabia are investing heavily in AI. How is your country getting ready?

Please find the first blog post on Artificial Intelligence - Travelling with a rocket still under construction here https://www.ugraute.de/artificial-intelligence-i

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Policies and Governance for Resilient and Sustainable Cities and Regions

There is no alternative to keep building a world community 80 years after World War II

by Ulrich Graute • 8 May 2025

The UN will be put on life support for a while to keep from drowning and gain time for reform. It is likely that In face of the financial and general support crises of the United Nations member states will put the UN on a life support system to keep core functions running. That may gain time but the real UN reform requires nothing less than building a new boat while being on an open and stormy sea. There is much talk about UN reform. Out of panic, there are plans to shrink the UN, cut salaries and shuffle staff around to duty stations which are assumed to be cost-saving. And this in a time of multiple crises, with every day emerging issues and conflicts. Have you every tried to build a new boat on open sea while you sit in an old boat in danger of sinking? That’s the kind of situation the UN and its members are in. The elephant in the room is the future of the world as a community At a conference in Toronto, I learned that the natives in North America are used to plan seven generations ahead. Imagine our politicians would do that! Automatically, they would be forced to think beyond their own lifetime. All of a sudden, the future of the community would be more important and this community would have multiple identities: the identity of the smallest entities (family), neighbourhood, city, region, country and the even the identity of a world community because we humans share all resources in the world and depend on it. Unfortunately, people are also afraid of it because building this community takes time and it is not without risks and possible setbacks. Instead, there is a growing trend to scramble as many resources and power as possible under one leader to bring the own group in the best starting position for a possibly upcoming final fight for survival. Could we survive that? Probably not and certainly, the world would be in a worse condition after that. Some super-rich may survive in a space station on Mars for a while before they realise that they manoeuvred themselves into a dead-end. Germany demonstrated to the world what happens if the world retreats from global community building. My uncles and grandfathers fought in two World Wars that killed a total of about 50 million people in an effort to make Germany great again. Thanks to the Allied Forces this ended 80 years ago on 8 May 1945. Japan went on fighting for a while and gave up after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The slaughtering was so massive that it convinced the countries of the world to establish the United Nations. Today we take this world community (with all the flaws it has) for granted as a stabilisation anchor of the world. But it is an illusion. Without putting skin into the game and investing in its reform, the slaughtering may return. Thus, there is no alternative to jointly building the world community for future generations. SO, LET'S KEEP BUILDING A PEACEFUL AND JUST WORLD COMMUNITY THAT LEAVES NOBODY BEHIND.

Urban Sprawl as part of the solution for the affordable housing crisis in the USA?!

by Ulrich Graute • 14 April 2025

None of the following supports the idea that urban sprawl is required or even helpful to build sustainable cities. However, it is argued that it may be part of the solution for the crisis of affordable housing in many countries of the world. With this post, I would like to encourage a debate, eg, at the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress #WPC61 on 1-4 December 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1976 and alarmed by rapid and uncontrolled urban growth, particularly in the developing world, the UN General Assembly called for the First United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I) addressing the challenges and future of human settlements. Housing remained at the focus of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme UN-Habitat ever since, and this was reconfirmed at Habitat III in Quito 2016. The New Urban Agenda recognizes and promotes a "right to the city," meaning the right of all inhabitants to have equal access to the benefits and opportunities that cities offer. It emphasizes a vision where urban spaces are designed and used collectively for the benefit of all, including those in informal settlements. Yes a vision, but overall, the Agenda is not very strategic and invites more to raising picking instead of integrated problem solving. Meanwhile, cities keep struggling to cope with fast urbanization, migration and growing demand for larger apartments. Urban sprawl is criticized since the 1950s and 60s because of its large demand for land. No densely populated urban areas have higher costs for the water, energy and transportation grid. In addition, developers often focus on profitable housing development while they don’t care for urban infrastructure, public spaces, schools etc. The New Urban Agenda promotes urban density as a key strategy for sustainable and efficient urban development but that doesn’t help those who a looking for housing now. Conor Dougherty is the author of the book Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and a Reckoning for the American Dream published on 10 April 2025 in the New York Times the article “Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it.” He doesn’t make any effort to paint urban sprawl in rosy colors. Instead, he describes how eg in Princeton, Texas, the nation’s third-fastest-growing city, infrastructure has struggled to keep up with growth. He analyzes how difficult and slow-moving densification efforts in cities are and states, “Even if all the regulatory restraints were removed tomorrow, developers couldn’t find enough land to satisfy America’s housing needs inside established areas. Consequently, much of the nation’s housing growth has moved to states in the South and Southwest, where a surplus of open land and willingness to sprawl has turned the Sun Belt into a kind of national sponge that sops up housing demand from higher-cost cities. The largest metro areas there have about 20 percent of the nation’s population, but over the past five years they have built 42 percent of the nation’s new single-family homes, according to a recent report by Cullum Clark, an economist at the George W. Bush Institute, a research center in Dallas.” For instance, Celina, Texas (picture), has 54,000 residents, compared with 8,000 just a decade ago, and the population is projected to hit 110,000 by 2030. The lack of urbane infrastructure, employment, greenery, and community is striking, but people keep coming because of affordability. While planners and others prefer denser and walkable neighbourhoods like 15-minute-cities, the money to build related infrastructure in addition to houses is often missing or would reduce affordability. A dilemma. There are good reasons to criticize the trend described for the US by Conor Dougherty, but it provides a chance to attain affordable housing for people who cannot find it elsewhere. And the history of these satellite towns has demonstrated that the missing infrastructure, employment and community can be added lateron. It seems, urban sprawl is not the solution, but it might be part of the solution, isn’t it? Let's discuss this here or later on other occasions, like eg the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress 'Cities & Regions in Action: Planning Pathways to Resilience and Quality of Life 1-4 December 2025, in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia #WPC61. Reference: Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it. By Conor Dougherty. The New York Times, April 10, 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/magazine/suburban-sprawl-texas.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

We need the United Nations to be part of the solution, not of the problem

by Ulrich Graute • 8 March 2025

Picture: UN photo

Anatomy of an AI System

by Ulrich Graute • 25 February 2025

Click to see the map in the full scale or download map in pdf format here https://anatomyof.ai/img/ai-anatomy-map.pdf.

About the challenge of providing advice on governance and development in times of disruption and transition

by Ulrich Graute • 22 February 2025

About the challenge of providing advice on governance and development in times of disruption and transition (English with German captatio ns) Deutsch: Ulrich spricht darüber, wie es ist, in Zeiten von Umbruch, Wandel und vielfachen Krisen als erfahrener Berater zu arbeiten. Obwohl die Situation nicht einfach ist, kann man daraus auch Chancen für effizientere Institutionen und Unternehmen sehen. Erfahrung und Flexibilität sind dabei wichtig, um neue Wege zu finden. English: Ulrich talks about working as an experienced consultant in times of upheaval, change, and multiple crises. Although the situation is not easy, we can also see opportunities for more efficient institutions and companies. Experience and flexibility are important to find new pathways.

Urban politics, planning and economy in the Global South in times of fast developing AI

by Ulrich Graute • 12 February 2025

"The development of highly capable AI is likely to be the biggest event in human history. The world must act decisively to ensure it is not the last event in human history. This conference, and the cooperative spirit of the AI Summit series, give me hope; but we must turn hope into action, soon, if there is to be a future we would want our children to live in." Professor Stuart Russell, IASEAI President and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley Please join me on 13 February 2025 at ARCS 9.0 for my keynote on 'Urban politics, planning, and economy in the Global South in times of fast developing AI' The two weeks before my conference presentation were full of dynamics in the field of AI, its politics, and development. First came the launch of the 500 billion US$ Stargate Project in the USA, followed by the launch of the Chinese open-source large language model (LLM) DeepSeek. On 6 February the International Association for Safe & Ethical AI held its inaugural conference in Paris, France. Prominent AI scientists including Stuart Russel and the 2024 Physics Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton called for international cooperation to ensure safe and ethical artificial intelligence. On 10 and 11 February 2025, France co-chaired by India hosted the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris. The speeches by Heads of State and Government including the President of France, the Prime Minister of India, the President of the EU Commission, and the US Vice President gave the impression of how different countries of the world try to position themselves in a race for AI leadership. Urban politics, planning, and economy, not only in the Global South, need longer-term frameworks. How should digital transformation and urban planning be approached in cities facing multiple crises and the new wave of AI technological innovation? The latter is according to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others unprecedented in scale and speed but it is expected to affect all spheres of life. ARCS 9.0 schedule and Zoom link for Inaugural, plenaries and Valedictory. Date - 13th Feb to 15th Feb 2025 Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/95336599575?pwd=NExxgf8gBoubEfKRhhtbalM1ZYjQph.1 Meeting ID: 953 3659 9575

The 500 bn US$ Stargate Project - Places seem to matter more, Urban Planning and AI governance less or not at all

by Ulrich Graute • 22 January 2025

Source of the picture OpenAI: https://openai.com/index/announcing-the-stargate-project/

Learning to work hands-on for peace from former US-President Jimmy Carter

by Ulrich Graute • 1 January 2025

It was a tremendous privilege in my life to meet Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter for the first time in 1984 (picture) and then again in the summer of 1985 during my internship at Koinonia Farm near Americus, Georgia (USA). Jimmy Carter, who served as the 39th president of the U.S. from 1977 to 1981, died on December 29, 2024, at his home in Plains, Ga. Jimmy Carter was a lifelong farmer who worked with his hands building houses for the poor well into his 90s. I didn't agree with him on all issues (the early 1980s were the time of a new US missile deployment in Germany ordered by Jimmy Carter and a large peace movement against it) but he took the time to discuss it with me and others at Koinonia Farm. That alone was amazing. Even more mind-blowing was that he continued hands-on work on peacebuilding and house renovation for the poor around the world with Habitat for Humanity International well into his 90s. If in my career providing hands-on support became more important than climbing my own career path, this was also due to the example Jimmy Carter gave in the decades after his Presidency. I learned a lot from him about working for peace with humbleness, love, and perseverance. Read more in the New York Times about why Jimmy Carter was known as much for his charity and diplomatic work later in life as he was for his single presidential term, which ended in 1981. https://lnkd.in/d9qxSmTM *. *. *. *. * Note: This post was first published on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/posts/graute_learning-to-work-hands-on-for-peace-from-activity-7279396908270309376-BBjV?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

The United Nations risks drowning in its mandates, conferences and external expectations. Could Artificial Intelligence help the UN?

by Ulrich Graute • 2 December 2024

In 2024, for the first time since 2000, the Parties to the United Nations Rio Conventions on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification faced a very busy 3 months, moving from large Conferences of Parties (COP) in Cali (Colombia) for biodiversity in October to Baku (Azerbaijan) for climate in November to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) for desertification in December. On top of this Triple-COP, there was the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the UN Summit of the Future in September in New York (USA) while UN-Habitat held its World Urban Forum in Cairo (Egypt), and let’s not forget the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-5) which ended last weekend in Busan, South Korea. No real breakthroughs were reported but I noticed many promises to double future efforts. There is a lot that can be critically reviewed about the events, eg what’s the purpose of moving approximately 100.000+ delegates, UN staffers, and other participants worldwide if the necessary political will to agree and resources available are insufficient and the outcomes are limited accordingly? But such a critique would be a bit unfair since I don’t know how many new ideas and initiatives were born during those official meetings, side events, and informal chats that might bloom up in upcoming years despite of the multicrises we’re living in. What needs to be criticized is that the UN System is not progressing on its task to implement its many mandates more “synergistically” by targeting policies, programs, and initiatives to jointly address the goals of the Rio Conventions, SDGs, etc. Instead, the conferences referred to each other but worked mainly within their silos. This is not appropriate in a world full of interrelations and interdepensies. Well, no individual or group can follow up on every aspect, and swarm intelligence of conferences with thousands of participants each seems to be no functioning alternative. But what else could be done? To give an example: How about building an AI-based Large Language Model (LLM) trained with the UN Charter, all UN declarations, national and subnational resolutions, regulations, and programmes? AI Agents for the different conventions and agendas should then be asked to coordinate and propose “synergistic” proposals across policy levels. Of course, the use of artificial intelligence should be wisely supervised by a team of AI experts and professionals from all affected fields. I wouldn’t expect AI applications to solve all problems but to better inform decision-makers and UN agencies on integrated scenarios. This could help to increase efficiency, avoid duplicating efforts, and increase the overall problem-solving capacity of the UN. I would be happy to support such work with my governance and development experience across all policy levels. Picture source: https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/cop-nature-climate-adaptation-mitigation

THE GLOBAL STAGE FOR CITIES AND REGIONS AT THE UN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE BAKU (COP29), NOVEMBER 2024

by Ulrich Graute • 14 November 2024

Since the first climate COP in 1995, the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency has been representing local and regional governments at the processes under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The LGMA also represents ISOCARP - International Society of City and Regional Planners and Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments. ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability acts as the Focal Point of LGMA. The 2015 Paris Agreement marked a turning point, recognizing the essential role of these governments in enhancing Nationally Determined Contributions NDSs and driving transformative climate action. The LGMA is atively present in Baku with a robust agenda, numerous partners, and an esteemed delegation of political leaders representing local and subnational governments. At the center of the presence is the Multilevel Action & Urbanization Pavilion as the global stage for the city and region climate agenda during COP29. The Pavilion brings into focus not only the challenges and needs, but also the accomplishments and commitments of local and subnational actors on climate action. The Pavilion is open from 12 to 22 November in the Blue Zone, Area E, Pavilion I15. We are looking forward to welcoming you at the High-Level Opening on 12 November at 10:00 AM. Please find the agenda of LGMA attached. Please visit also the Youtube channel of ICLEI Global for daily updates https://lnkd.in/dddDCKtA Ulrich Graute - ISOCARP Online Delegate at COP29 and Chair of the ISOCARP Scientific Committee