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UrbanCat · Urban Pulse
The Sandpit · Public Demo
Run your own
No login · Pre-computed · Live What-If lever

Five neighborhoods.
One engine.

The Sandpit shows what Urban Pulse computes the moment a planner drops a pin. Drag the What-If lever to rebalance toward essentials or lifestyle and watch the verdict re-derive in real time.

Try your city

Type any city or district. We'll geocode it and morph this demo to the nearest frozen scenario — so the numbers feel like yours, not ours.

Annual value at stake · Dubai South
€16.1M/ yr
band €4.5M–€41.0M

Across 38,400 residents in reach · methodology v2025.07.sQ4

Starter intervention stack could recover€923k/yr— biggest lever today is avoided car-dependency cost.
Verdict
Auto-dependent · Lifestyle-led
driving · 15 min
24.8967°, 55.1614°

Dubai South was master-planned around Al Maktoum International. Within a 15-minute drive you reach logistics parks, Expo City, and the residential clusters at MBR Gardens — but on foot, the picture inverts. The street grid privileges the car, and the Essentials/Lifestyle Ratio reflects a community still being assembled around its commercial spine.

ELR
1.84
Essentials/Lifestyle
Vitality
47/100
Composite
SDG 11
41/100
UN target
Moreno
38/100
15-min city
Transit
22/100
Stop access
Green
9.4%
Of catchment
What if we rebalanced?
stable

Drag toward essentials (groceries, clinics, schools) or lifestyle (cafés, bars, gyms). The verdict re-derives instantly.

LifestyleEssentials
Shift: 0%
38,400
Population
412
/ km²
93.20
km² catchment
Where the value comes from

10 driver flows · ranked by annual €

Avoided car-dependency cost
€6.7M/ yr
38,400 residents × +14.6pp car-share over SUMP 40% (Mediterranean) × €3–€30 per resident-year per pp
Avoided air-quality cost
€5.8M/ yr
38,400 residents × +10.0 µg/m³ PM2.5 over WHO (Mediterranean) × €4–€40 per resident-year per µg/m³
Avoided housing-cost-overburden
€760k/ yr
38,400 residents × +0.9pp rent-to-income over Eurostat 40% (Mediterranean) × €6–€55 per resident-yr per pp
Avoided CO₂ (shadow-priced)
€730k/ yr
38,400 residents × 0.19 tCO₂/yr central × €60–€180 EEA shadow price
Avoided pluvial-flood cost
€634k/ yr
38,400 residents × €17/resident-yr modeled loss (Mediterranean, 53% impervious) × 0.6–1.6× indirect-loss envelope
Avoided environmental-noise cost
€492k/ yr
38,400 residents × +1.6 dB Lden over WHO 2018 (Mediterranean) × €2–€20 per resident-year per dB
Avoided heat-island cost
€421k/ yr
38,400 residents × +1.4°C UHI anomaly (Mediterranean) × €2–€20 per resident-year per °C
Active-transport health value
€417k/ yr
38,400 residents × 11% walkability share × WHO HEAT €40–€180 per resident-year
Transit ridership equivalent
€118k/ yr
38,400 residents × 22/100 transit access × €6–€28 per resident-year
Local retail capture uplift
€0/ yr
38,400 residents × 0pt above vitality 50 × €8–€35 per resident-year per +10pt

Bands sourced from WHO HEAT, EEA, Litman, UITP, JRC LISFLOOD, CNOSSOS-EU and Eurostat SILC. See the full registry in the Engine Room.

ROI calculator · pick interventions

What does each fix actually buy us?

CapEx and lead-time bands sourced from NACTO, World Bank Cycling 2021, ITDP and C40. Annual €-uplift re-uses the same Economic Impact engine as the headline figure.

Protected bike lane (per km)
per linear km
€800k
CapEx
12mo
Lead
€360k
Saves/yr
Payback ~2.2y
Bus-frequency uplift (corridor service plan)
per corridor / yr
€1.8M
CapEx
12mo
Lead
€706k
Saves/yr
Payback ~2.5y
Street tree canopy uplift (per km)
per linear km
€280k
CapEx
8mo
Lead
€64k
Saves/yr
Payback ~4.4y
Ground-floor retail activation (10 frontages)
per 10 frontages
€600k
CapEx
9mo
Lead
€443k
Saves/yr
Payback ~1.4y
Selected stack
0 picks

Pick one or more interventions above to see the cumulative annual €-uplift, CapEx and payback.

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<iframe src="https://urbancat.co/sandpit?id=dubai-south&embed=1" width="100%" height="900" style="border:0;border-radius:12px" loading="lazy" title="UrbanCat · Urban Pulse — Sandpit"></iframe>
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