Cities function through interdependent activities. Restaurants rely on offices, retail depends on transit flows, and many services survive because of the places around them.
At SUNLab we uncover these dependency networks between urban activities using large-scale human mobility data. By observing how people move between places, we reconstruct the hidden connections linking sectors of the urban economy [1].
These networks reveal the structural backbone of cities. Activities that sit at the core of mobility networks—such as food, retail, and everyday services—play a central role in sustaining urban interaction and economic life.
Our research shows that these core sectors are also more resilient during shocks, maintaining visitation and social mixing better than peripheral activities [1, 2].
To explore these structures, we built an interactive platform that maps how urban activities depend on each other through human mobility. https://www.socialurban.net/dependency/
References
Yabe, T., García Bulle Bueno, B., Frank, M. R., Pentland, A., & Moro, E. (2024). Behaviour-based dependency networks between places shape urban economic resilience. Nature Human Behaviour, 1–11.
Chen, L., Xu, F., Moro, E., Hui, P., Li, Y., & Evans, J. (2026). Urban mobility network centrality predicts social resilience. arXiv.
Invisible Urban Dependencies, visualization platform.