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The acceleration of data generation has led some to believe that the world can now be understood in dramatically different and productive ways. More importantly, the distinct urban bias in both the people generating the data, and the places about which (and within which) the data are produced have given rise to a new orthodoxy—“urban science”—in understanding cities. Proponents of urban science are gaining ground in shaping the study of cities and urbanization processes in recent years. What is urban science and what role can it play in the future of Asian cities? Drawing on contrasting examples of urban science at work in Phnom Penh, Seoul and Singapore, this presentation big data, and as it propels urban science research, will it reproduce the same fatal shortcoming of past quantitative revolutions in diminishing human agency? If so, how then can citizens be meaningfully involved in urban science? Relatedly, how can researchers who lean towards qualitative approaches contribute to urban science research? Finally, how should policy makers make sense of urban science? These questions will be answered (a) via a sympathetic critique of the urban science paradigm; (b) by deliberating, through various urban-technological innovations, the potential of citizen urban science.
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