AI - The Future of City Planning

What happens when you mix video games and city planning?  

Fredericton-based company Black Arcs is ‘gamifying’ city planning, giving us the option to not only create predictive models based on real-time data, but to do so in a way that is interactive, visually appealing, and easy for the public to understand. 

(Contributed) Jake Arsenault, CEO of Black Arcs at the 2023 EDAC conference.

Founded in 2015, Black Arcs has quickly risen as a pioneer in the field of digital twin technology. The company's mission is to provide widespread access to meaningful predictive models, allowing professionals, corporations, governments, and the public to visualize and understand the potential consequences of various decisions on urban development and infrastructure.   

Black Arcs' core innovation, Citisketch, is designed to create compelling digital twins of communities. The program itself is run from a web browser and navigates like an online video game.  

(Contributed) screenshot of Citisketch showing disease modelling example in Sackville, NB.

“This is not an analytical technology, it's really built as a social technology,” said Jake Arsenault, CEO of Black Arcs. “The design, UX [user experience], algorithms, how its structured from the ground up is actually radically different from how anybody else built technology”. 

At its core, Citisketch is a social civic engagement tool. 

Citisketch offers detailed, real-time simulations that model the population's behaviour and lifestyle patterns. Colourful dots of light representing households, vehicle or pedestrian movement, or even heat maps can be overlaid on a map of a community of your choosing.  

Depending on the data input into the model, citizens will interact or react to their environment. Removing access to a road in one section of the model will force citizens to take an alternate path to their destination 

“You can literally change the model – move stops and things – and see how that would perform,” said Arsenault. 

Imagine you had the opportunity to make a change in your community. You might think that you want more parking or an alternative bus route. While these ideas seem perfect in theory, there’s no way for you to understand the complexity or effects these changes could have. This program offers a visual, so you can see in real-time how your additional parking wants would affect your community. 

“We’re making it tactile,” said Arsenault “The software handles complexity, you can touch it, see it, play with it, and then understand it”. 

(Contributed) Luke Robertson, Director of Operations at Black Arcs and Sylvia Cesaratto, Consul General of Canada in Miami.

Black Arcs' commitment to empowering communities and decision-makers to make informed choices about urban development embodies the innovative spirit of Atlantic Canada.   

There is also potential to use the program for economic modelling. their digital twin technology will not only simulate aspects of city life but also analyse the local economy, making it a valuable tool for economic development. 

“This technology is not just a tool for urban planning; it’s a game-changer for economic development. This program has the capacity to empower our communities to make data-driven decisions that spur growth, attract investment, and create vibrant, sustainable economies,” said Sarah Corey Hollohan, CEO of Ignite, the regional economic development agency for the Capital and Western New Brunswick regions. 

Black Arcs' success story is a testament to the power of innovation and collaboration. By enabling individuals and communities to understand the outcomes of their decisions, Black Arcs is playing a vital role in shaping the future of urban development. 

"If we model a community, to model any of it, we have to model everything, that’s how the technology works,” said Arsenault.  

Once the base of the community is modelled, it can be adapted to accommodate different data sources. The more data inputted into the program, the more specific or complex of a scenario that can be created. 

Most recently, Black Arcs was awarded the Most Promising Start-Up or Business Diversification award from the Atlantic Canada Aerospace and Defence Association (ACADA). 

(Contributed) the 2023 ACADA Industry Excellence Award recipients. Jake Arsenault (center, left)

Using their city model, they were able to connect it to data from existing disease models to create a pandemic modelling toolkit. They are continuing work with researchers who consult with public health to create a model for future pandemic management and planning.   

This technology has endless potential. From economic planning to energy modelling, Citisketch’s comprehensive and engaging interface is set to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of cities, making Black Arcs a truly promising start-up in the world of AI-powered urban planning.