Happy 4th of July, LA. We're #1! 🇺🇸

My article "Travel Time Prediction from Sparse Open Data" has just been published in the International Journal of Geographical Information Science. We tackle a longstanding problem of how to predict realistic driving travel times without access to expensive proprietary data. buff.ly/vvSgm6s

Travel time prediction from sparse open data

Travel time prediction is central to transport geography and planning’s accessibility analyses, sustainable transportation infrastructure provision, and active transportation interventions. However...

doi.org

Marc Barthelemy and I recently published an article in Physical Review Letters titled "Universal Model of Urban Street Networks." We present an algorithm to generate urban street networks that reproduce key empirical characteristics. Paper link: doi.org/10.1103/1vj4... Here's a short summary...

I recently published a paper in PNAS Nexus with Marc Barthelemy, Alain Chiaradia, and Chris Webster that addresses the problem of urban networks' elevations: they seem simple enough, but modeling them can be tricky. Open-access paper link: buff.ly/Mt7u2QG Here's a short summary...

How many street intersections do you see in this figure? I published an article recently in Transactions in GIS (open-access: buff.ly/TZoFrrf) and its first sentence sums it up: "Counting is hard." Hear me out... It really is!

The official OSMnx reference paper was recently published open-access by Geographical Analysis: doi.org/10.1111/gean... Years in the making, it describes what OSMnx does and why it does it that way. But wait, there's more! I discuss many lessons learned in geospatial software development, including:

I wrote up the essence of my recent talks in China about why social researchers and policy makers should pay more attention to satellites. Tl;dr: it's never been a better time to use something we've never needed more. Longer form (6mins according to Firefox!): me.darribas.org/2025/05/29/t...

🎙️ New #GLaDpodcast episode! @darribas.bsky.social, @levijohnwolf.bsky.social and I are joined by the amazing @geoffboeing.com (@priceschool.usc.edu) to talk streets, disasters, urban form & open source software. It's a pretty good one, if I do say so myself. #geosky open.spotify.com/episode/4H6K...

Episode 20: Street Smart — A Conversation with Geoff Boeing

The GLaD Podcast · Episode

open.spotify.com

OSMnx 2.0.0 has been released! 🎉 This has been a massive effort over the past year to streamline the package's API, re-think its internal organization, and optimize its code. Today OSMnx is faster, more memory efficient, and fully type-annotated for a better user experience. 🧵

Our recent article has been published in CEUS: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... We use AI to identify topics discussed in LA rental listings' text to understand the subtle language of discrimination and other gatekeeping obstacles to housing. A short thread...

A hybrid deep learning method for identifying topics in large-scale urban text data: Benefits and trade-offs

Large-scale text data from public sources, including social media or online platforms, can expand urban planners' ability to monitor and analyze urban…

sciencedirect.com

I largely quit social media a couple years ago because it had lost most of the fun it used to hold. I've been silently reading my Bluesky feed the past couple of days and it's been... nice. Thanks everyone. Heaven is empty, and all the angels are here.