Artificial Intelligence and Fuzzy Cognitive Map for Supporting Urban Decision-Making During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The growing complexity of urban landscapes due to the Covid-19 and the fast technology evolution make central a rethink of urban governance, in or-der to understand how decision-making processes are boosted by the application of smart technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data analytics. Although there is much evidence that innovative technology is crucial to fight the Covid-19, the analysis of the literature highlights the poor attention paid in the study of the urban governance framework based on emerging technologies during the pandemic. Based on these considerations, the work aims to propose a decision-making support model for the urban local governments. By following a methodological framework based on a Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM), a first experimentation has been conducted on a popular social network, Twitter, in reference to an Italian city. The impact analysis through the Fuzzy Cognitive Map suggests that Covid-19 emergency is highlighting the necessity to pay attention to the priorities of local governments: if, from one hand, new efforts are required regarding social welfare and health sector, on the other hand, improvements in air quality in cities during lockdown periods bring out the environmental impacts of anthropogenic activities.