Becky Loo

Prof. Becky Loo

Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
orcid

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

30Years (1997-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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1 September 2010 in Landscape and Urban Planning
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
BLBecky Loo
Becky Loo
CCCynthia Chen
Cynthia Chen
ECEric T.H. Chan
Eric T.H. Chan

1 April 2013 in Journal of Transport Geography
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
ZGZhan Guo
Zhan Guo
BLBecky Loo
Becky Loo

26 June 2023 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
ZFZhuangyuan Fan
Zhuangyuan Fan
Fan ZhangFan Zhang
Fan Zhang
BLBecky Loo
Becky Loo
CRCarlo Ratti
Carlo Ratti
A longstanding line of research in urban studies explores how cities can be understood through their appearance. However, what remains unclear is to what extent urban dwellers’ everyday life can be explained by the visual clues of the urban environment. In this paper, we address this question by applying a computer vision model to 27 million street view images across 80 counties in the United States. Then, we use the spatial distribution of notable urban features identified through the street view images, such as street furniture, sidewalks, building façades, and vegetation, to predict the socioeconomic profiles of their immediate neighborhood. Our results show that these urban features alone can account for up to 83% of the variance in people’s travel behavior, 62% in poverty status, 64% in crime, and 68% in health behaviors. The results outperform models based on points of interest (POI), population, and other demographic data alone. Moreover, incorporating urban features captured from street view images can improve the explanatory power of these other methods by 5% to 25%. We propose “urban visual intelligence” as a process to uncover hidden city profiles, infer, and synthesize urban information with computer vision and street view images. This study serves as a foundation for future urban research interested in this process and understanding the role of visual aspects of the city.

1 January 2015 in Travel Behaviour and Society
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
YCYuk-Shing Cheng
Yuk-Shing Cheng
BLBecky Loo
Becky Loo
RVRoger W. Vickerman
Roger W. Vickerman