Urban informatics : using big data to understand and serve communities This book is an onramp to the study of urban informatics intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate level methods courses that want to maintain a linkage with substantive themes relevant to communities (and individual learners with similar goals; also see Q 9). It is developed from my experience as Director of Masters of Science in Urban Informatics at Northeastern University and the primary instructor for the introductory course Big Data for Cities since 2014. Importantly it is ostensibly a methods textbook that introduces the reader to the tools of data management analysis and manipulation using R statistical software but it also has a pervasive conceptual curriculum