Nicolas Büttner
Biographic Data
| ID | 4621597 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicolas Büttner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicolas |
| FAMILY NAME | Büttner |
| SIGNATURE | BÜTTNER N |
| AFFILIATIONS | ETH Zurich |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4486-3217 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 4 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 4 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Large-scale slum mapping in sub-Saharan Africa's major cities
Around half of sub-Saharan Africa's urban population lives in slums, yet data on the spatiotemporal development of slums remains scarce, impeding policies to alleviate urban poverty and inequality. We propose a solution to this problem by applying deep learning to open-access satellite imagery to map slums in 529 major cities across sub-Saharan Africa and track their spatiotemporal development. Our model produced 10m resolution ‘slum probability …
Local inequality and crime
This paper investigates the relationship between socio-economic inequalities of various dimensions and crime at the local level in South Africa. It uses a novel panel dataset of police precincts that combines crime records from the South African Police Service with socio-economic data from two population censuses and household surveys. The identification exploits variation of inequality and crime across time and space, controlling for socio-econo…
Self-supervised learning unveils urban change from street-level images
Cities around the world are grappling with multiple interconnected challenges, including population growth, shortage of affordable and decent housing, and the need for neighborhood improvements. Despite its critical importance for policy, our ability to effectively monitor and track urban change remains limited. Deep learning-based computer vision methods applied to street-level images have been successful in the measurement of socioeconomic and …
The Fertility Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa
Despite recent economic growth and reductions in child mortality in many African countries, the region has experienced a slow fertility transition. In this study, we explore whether the slow structural economic change on the continent can explain this discrepancy. We construct a unique panel dataset combining Demographic and Health Surveys and nighttime light intensity data (an indicator of industrialization) from 57 countries at the subnational …
Large-scale slum mapping in sub-Saharan Africa's major cities
Around half of sub-Saharan Africa's urban population lives in slums, yet data on the spatiotemporal development of slums remains scarce, impeding policies to alleviate urban poverty and inequality. We propose a solution to this problem by applying deep learning to open-access satellite imagery to map slums in 529 major cities across sub-Saharan Africa and track their spatiotemporal development. Our model produced 10m resolution ‘slum probability …
Self-supervised learning unveils urban change from street-level images
Cities around the world are grappling with multiple interconnected challenges, including population growth, shortage of affordable and decent housing, and the need for neighborhood improvements. Despite its critical importance for policy, our ability to effectively monitor and track urban change remains limited. Deep learning-based computer vision methods applied to street-level images have been successful in the measurement of socioeconomic and …
The Fertility Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa
Despite recent economic growth and reductions in child mortality in many African countries, the region has experienced a slow fertility transition. In this study, we explore whether the slow structural economic change on the continent can explain this discrepancy. We construct a unique panel dataset combining Demographic and Health Surveys and nighttime light intensity data (an indicator of industrialization) from 57 countries at the subnational …
Large-scale slum mapping in sub-Saharan Africa's major cities
Around half of sub-Saharan Africa's urban population lives in slums, yet data on the spatiotemporal development of slums remains scarce, impeding policies to alleviate urban poverty and inequality. We propose a solution to this problem by applying deep learning to open-access satellite imagery to map slums in 529 major cities across sub-Saharan Africa and track their spatiotemporal development. Our model produced 10m resolution ‘slum probability …
Local inequality and crime
This paper investigates the relationship between socio-economic inequalities of various dimensions and crime at the local level in South Africa. It uses a novel panel dataset of police precincts that combines crime records from the South African Police Service with socio-economic data from two population censuses and household surveys. The identification exploits variation of inequality and crime across time and space, controlling for socio-econo…
Geography (4 works) · Economics (3 works) · Population (3 works) · Cartography (2 works) · Demographic economics (2 works) · Demography (2 works) · Demography (2 works) · Economic growth (2 works) · Land Use and Ecosystem Services (2 works) · Sociology (2 works)