The rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping urban computing and intelligence, marking the next frontier of sustainable smart cities. This book explores the transformative potential of deep generative models (DGMs), hybrid architectures, and foundation models (FMs) in redefining the urban landscape. These technologies enhance environmental sustainability, climate resilience, infrastructure performance, operational efficiency, spatial organization, and livability through innovative approaches to urban planning, design, and management—often via digital twins and other emerging technologies.
DGMs enable synthetic data generation, data augmentation, data imputation, scenario simulation, and predictive modeling, offering deeper insights into complex urban and environmental systems. Hybrid architectures integrate generative and conventional models to improve robustness, scalability, adaptability, and flexibility across diverse urban operational and planning tasks. FMs extend these capabilities by enabling multi-modal knowledge generalization, cross-domain integration, large-scale simulation, advanced reasoning, and adaptive decision-making under uncertainty. Strengthened by integrative frameworks and cross-disciplinary insights, these technologies offer powerful tools for developing sophisticated urban and environmental solutions. They advance how urban ecosystems are environmentally and strategically planned, efficiently and dynamically managed, aesthetically and functionally designed, and spatially and contextually organized.
Rich in conceptual frameworks, theoretical insights, operational models, applied innovations, practical case studies, and policy guidance, this book equips researchers, planners, designers, technologists, and policymakers to harness generative intelligence in shaping adaptive, context-aware, and continuously refined urban environments that are ecologically responsible, climate-resilient, and future-ready. Essential for anyone exploring the frontier of GenAI-driven sustainable urban development, it offers actionable insights to guide the next generation of sustainable smart cities.