UrbanVLP: A Multi-Granularity Vision-Language Pre-Trained Foundation Model for Urban Indicator Prediction

Urban indicator prediction aims to infer socio-economic metrics in diverse urban landscapes using data-driven methods. However, prevalent pre-trained models, particularly those reliant on satellite imagery, face dual challenges. Firstly, concentrating solely on macro-level patterns from satellite data may introduce bias, lacking nuanced details at micro levels, such as architectural details at a place. Secondly, the lack of interpretability in pre-trained models limits their utility in providing transparent evidence for urban planning. In response to these issues, we devise a novel Vision-Language Pre-Trained Model (UrbanVLP) in this paper. Our UrbanVLP seamlessly integrates multi-granularity information from both macro (satellite) and micro (street-view) levels, overcoming the limitations of prior pre-trained models. Moreover, it introduces automatic text generation and calibration, elevating interpretability in downstream applications by producing high-quality text descriptions of urban imagery. Rigorous experiments conducted across six socio-economic tasks underscore UrbanVLP's superior performance. We also deploy a web platform to verify its practicality.