Mobile Computing, IoT and Big Data for Urban Informatics: Challenges and Opportunities

Over the past few decades, the population in the urban areas has been increasing in a dramatic manner. Currently, about 80% of the U.S. population and about 50% of the world’s population live in urban areas and the population growth rate for urban areas is estimated to be over one million people per week [1, 2]. By 2050, it has been predicted that 64% of people in the developing nations and 85% of people in the developed world would be living in urban areas [1, 2]. Such a dramatic population growth in urban areas has been placing demands on urban infrastructure like never before [1].