The Urban Pulse: Diagnosing the urbanization process as spiky, cyclical, and asynchronous (opens in new tab)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 24, June 2026. SignificanceUrbanization is traditionally measured as a static outcome. Here we propose the concept of Urban Pulse to capture urbanization as a dynamic process. Inspired by the human pulse, where an electrocardiogram renders invisible activity visible, we ...