  The visual dimension of cities has been a fundamental subject in urban
studies, since the pioneering work of scholars such as Sitte, Lynch, Arnheim,
and Jacobs. Several decades later, big data and artificial intelligence (AI)
are revolutionizing how people move, sense, and interact with cities. This
paper reviews the literature on the appearance and function of cities to
illustrate how visual information has been used to understand them. A
conceptual framework, Urban Visual Intelligence, is introduced to
systematically elaborate on how new image data sources and AI techniques are
reshaping the way researchers perceive and measure cities, enabling the study
of the physical environment and its interactions with socioeconomic
environments at various scales. The paper argues that these new approaches
enable researchers to revisit the classic urban theories and themes, and
potentially help cities create environments that are more in line with human
behaviors and aspirations in the digital age.
