Mitigating Spatial Disparity in Urban Prediction Using Residual-Aware Spatiotemporal Graph Neural Networks: A Chicago Case Study

Title

Mitigating Spatial Disparity in Urban Prediction Using Residual-Aware Spatiotemporal Graph Neural Networks: A Chicago Case Study

Publication Type
Conference Paper
Year of Publication
2025
Conference
WWW ’25: Companion Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 2025
Abstract
Urban prediction tasks, such as forecasting traffic flow, temperature, and crime rates, are crucial for efficient urban planning and management. However, existing Spatiotemporal Graph Neural Networks (ST-GNNs) often rely solely on accuracy, overlooking spatial and demographic disparities in their predictions. This oversight can lead to imbalanced resource allocation and exacerbate existing inequities in urban areas. This study introduces a Residual-Aware Attention (RAA) Block and an equality-enhancing loss function to address these disparities. By adapting the adjacency matrix during training and incorporating spatial disparity metrics, our approach aims to reduce local segregation of residuals and errors. We applied our methodology to urban prediction tasks in Chicago, utilizing travel demand datasets as an example. Our model achieved a 48% significant improvement in fairness metrics with only a 9% increase in error metrics. Spatial analysis of residual distributions revealed that models with RAA Blocks produced more equitable prediction results, particularly by reducing errors clustered in central regions, supporting more balanced and equitable urban planning and policy-making.