The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) set up its Digital Planning Lab in 2013 to harness geospatial and data analytics to strengthen and facilitate planning processes. According to SMU Vice Provost of Research and Professor of Information Systems Steven Miller, simply visualising a problem does not necessarily lead to an understanding of its underlying causes. Especially in a small and highly developed country like Singapore, issues relating to urban planning have evolved to be highly complex and interdependent. SMU Vice Provost of Faculty Matters and Celia Moh Chair Professor of Economics Phang Sock Yong also highlighted the possible price differential of flats located in the suburbs, as well as the location of schools, as factors that have some degree of influence over a resident’s decision on where to live and work. SMU Assistant Professor of Economics Li Jing, who sees strong complementarity between her research and URA’s analysis for urban planning in Singapore, suggests that SMU researchers provide URA with ideas for better integration of disparate data sets and volunteer structural modelling methods, paired with accurate and well-maintained administrative data.