Mapping minds: brain activity data can be used for smart city planning

Your brain activity could reveal how well-adapted you feel in your city. This data is precious for city officials and urban planners.

The percentage of people living in urban environments has increased from 33% in 1960 to 57% in 2023. And the urban population is forecast to more than double its current size by 2050, at which point nearly 7 out of 10 people will live in cities.

Cities are undoubtedly at the core of our civilization, from the earliest traces of urban settlements built over 6,000 years ago in Egypt and Mesopotamia to the massive expansion of the city network during the Industrial Revolution and later on.

While industrial needs have traditionally driven city expansion, the rapid pace of urbanization has created challenges such as a lack of green spaces, increased traffic noise, and social inequalities. Today, urban planning has shifted priorities to focus on community needs, safety, and well-being.

The evolution of technology has also changed how cities are planned, from the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart systems to govern city resources to creating cities tailored to the inhabitants' brain activity.

Mentally mapping your cityIn 1949, New York urban planner and public official Robert Moses made history by proposing the Mid-Manhattan Expressway, a six-lane elevated expressway along 30th Street. While Moses was the mastermind behind major infrastructure projects in New York City, he saw city design as primarily catering to cars and traffic.

But this time, something different happened. The city community started protesting to save neighborhoods and public spaces from the freeway.

The backlash eventually caused Moses to withdraw his support for the project, and the community’s struggle delivered a powerful message that resonated nationwide: cities are meant for people, not cars.

Another American urban planner, Kevin Lynch, took a different approach in the 1960s. He emphasized that every individual forms a "mental map" of their city based on their personal experiences and interactions with the built environment.

For Lynch, city planning was less about functionality or efficiency and more about creating meaningful spaces for people who lived there. This means a need for participatory planning processes, where citizens are involved in the decision-making process.

British scholar Charles Landry, another key voice in urban planning, also discussed intangible aspects of cities – such as the city’s identity, culture, and people's perceptions of urban spaces – that urban planners need to take into account, not only concentrate on physical design.

The rise of neuro-urbanism

Analyzing the mental construction of urban spaces even further, a new interdisciplinary approach emerged – neuro-urbanism. This brings neuroscientists, urban researchers, and architects together to create city designs based on the needs of inhabitants.

A current study by researchers from Michigan State University, with collaborators from the University of Lisbon, is opening the doors to using neuroimaging in city planning to ensure the well-being of residents and visitors.

"Neuro-urbanism has the potential to contribute significantly to the design of cities that prioritize cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being," said Dar Meshi, the lead author of the study. "By prioritizing the well-being of individuals, cities can create environments that are conducive to the overall health and happiness of their inhabitants."

Brain activity might be the answer to urban planning

To shed light on how brains encode information related to urban environments, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 77 US citizens who had never been to Portugal’s capital, Lisbon.While getting the scan, the participants reviewed and rated photos depicting urban environments in the city. The photos were geotagged images posted on the photo-sharing platform Flickr. The density of photos for each region served as a proxy for measuring visitation patterns around Lisbon.

"People typically make decisions to maximize value, and because certain urban areas induce greater value-related brain activity than others, people in the city are more likely to travel to or take pictures of those certain areas," Meshi said.

The study's findings suggest that neural activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a key region in the brain's reward system involved in valuation and decision-making, can predict people's patterns of visiting or avoiding a particular environment.

The results also imply that this region in the brain may be involved in processing a range of value judgments within urban environments, including perceptual, cognitive, social, and cultural values.

"Individuals may be drawn to visit urban spaces not only because of their aesthetic appeal but also due to their sociocultural relevance," Meshi said.

"This could include places with historical significance or social importance, which may not necessarily be aesthetically pleasing, but still hold considerable value."

Researchers believe that neuro-urbanistic approach can contribute to refining urban planning strategies.

"The insights from our study can potentially aid in the development of future human-centric cities, specifically tailored to how our brains perceive and interact with the environment," Ardaman Kaur, a co-author of the study said.