---
title: "SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities: research papers"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) was addressed by 26,866 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (11,273), economics (9,606) and AI (2,791). It is #7 of the 17 goals by papers from 2023 to 2025 (9,700)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/11-sustainable-cities-and-communities
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/11-sustainable-cities-and-communities.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) was addressed by 26,866 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (11,273), economics (9,606) and AI (2,791). (as of 2026-10-31)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-10-31T17:45:59+09:00
window: 2026-10-02 to 2026-10-31
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities

Papers in the tracked journals on UN Sustainable Development Goal 11, Sustainable cities and communities. OpenAlex assigns a paper to each UN Sustainable Development Goal that its classifier scores above 0.4 from the paper's text; a paper can belong to several goals or to none.

All 17 goals: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/sdgs.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) was addressed by 26,866 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (11,273), economics (9,606) and AI (2,791).
- It is #7 of the 17 goals by papers from 2023 to 2025 (9,700).
- 3,735 of them were published in 2025, against 1,749 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Hong Kong Polytechnic University (463), Beijing Jiaotong University (437) and Tongji University (354).
- The journals publishing most of them were Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies (1,097), Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice (1,053) and Transport Policy (938).
- The most-cited of them is “Graph neural network for traffic forecasting: A survey” (Expert Systems with Applications, 2022), with 1,336 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 778 | 877 | 935 | 970 | 1,127 | 1,064 | 1,086 | 1,344 | 1,528 | 1,564 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 720 | 796 | 804 | 947 | 1,035 | 917 | 982 | 997 | 1,211 | 1,197 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 73 | 94 | 110 | 153 | 220 | 359 | 381 | 436 | 519 | 446 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 57 | 92 | 69 | 83 | 111 | 97 | 125 | 127 | 112 | 94 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 46 | 58 | 62 | 88 | 89 | 77 | 79 | 88 | 85 | 102 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 20 | 18 | 18 | 26 | 41 | 34 | 44 | 92 | 182 | 141 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 32 | 38 | 40 | 65 | 45 | 39 | 37 | 39 | 37 | 34 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 9 | 9 | 13 | 13 | 20 | 11 | 15 | 30 | 21 | 29 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 7 | 13 | 7 | 7 | 14 | 9 | 10 | 15 | 22 | 25 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 17 | 8 | 9 | 7 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 4 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 10 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| All categories | 1,749 | 1,998 | 2,066 | 2,361 | 2,716 | 2,623 | 2,782 | 3,183 | 3,735 | 3,653 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 1,097 |
| 2 | [Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-a-policy-and-practice.md) | 1,053 |
| 3 | [Transport Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transport-policy.md) | 938 |
| 4 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 743 |
| 5 | [Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-e-logistics-and-transportation-review.md) | 658 |
| 6 | [Land Use Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/land-use-policy.md) | 631 |
| 7 | [Research in Transportation Business & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-transportation-business-management.md) | 432 |
| 8 | [Transportation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation.md) | 363 |
| 9 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 329 |
| 10 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 323 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 463 |
| 2 | [Beijing Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-jiaotong-university.md) | 437 |
| 3 | [Tongji University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tongji-university.md) | 354 |
| 4 | [Southeast University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southeast-university.md) | 310 |
| 5 | [Tsinghua University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tsinghua-university.md) | 243 |
| 6 | Delft University of Technology | 222 |
| 7 | Southwest Jiaotong University | 209 |
| 8 | University of Hong Kong | 200 |
| 9 | [National University of Singapore](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/national-university-of-singapore.md) | 179 |
| 10 | [Beihang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beihang-university.md) | 176 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 5,603 |
| 2 | United States | 2,157 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 1,053 |
| 4 | Hong Kong | 870 |
| 5 | Australia | 713 |
| 6 | Germany | 599 |
| 7 | Italy | 561 |
| 8 | Canada | 560 |
| 9 | Netherlands | 547 |
| 10 | India | 426 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 773 |
| 2 | mode choice | 357 |
| 3 | Chinese cities | 349 |
| 4 | traffic congestion | 338 |
| 5 | autonomous vehicles | 326 |
| 6 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 315 |
| 7 | sustainable transport | 295 |
| 8 | [mixed-integer linear programming](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mixed-integer-linear-programming.md) | 293 |
| 9 | public transport | 291 |
| 10 | [CO2 emissions](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/co2-emissions.md) | 289 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,336 | 25.6 | [Graph neural network for traffic forecasting: A survey](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2022.117921) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2022-06-23 | Weiwei Jiang, Jiayun Luo |
| 2 | 1,253 | 15.1 | [Internet of Things is a revolutionary approach for future technology enhancement: a review](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-019-0268-2) | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 2019-12-01 | Sachin Kumar, Prayag Tiwari, Mikhail L. Zymbler |
| 3 | 1,225 | 16.4 | [Self-driving cars: A survey](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2020.113816) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2020-08-04 | Claudine  Santos Badue, Rânik Guidolini, Raphael  Vivacqua Carneiro et al. |
| 4 | 1,189 | 17.7 | [Environmental regulation, green technology innovation, and industrial structure upgrading: The road to the green transformation of Chinese cities](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105247) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2021-03-26 | Kerui Du, Yuanyuan Cheng, Xin Yao |
| 5 | 1,162 | 11.1 | [The consequences of spatially differentiated water pollution regulation in China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2018.01.010) | [Journal of Environmental Economics and Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-environmental-economics-and-management.md) | 2018-02-01 | Zhao Chen, Matthew E. Kahn, Yu Liu et al. |
| 6 | 1,017 | 8.8 | [Deep learning for short-term traffic flow prediction](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2017.02.024) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2017-03-17 | Nicholas G. Polson, Vadim Sokolov |
| 7 | 911 | 11.3 | [On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102442) | [Journal of Development Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-development-economics.md) | 2020-02-14 | Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Nancy Qian |
| 8 | 873 | 13.2 | [Heterogeneous green innovations and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105269) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2021-04-28 | Le Emily Xu, Meiting Fan, Lili Yang et al. |
| 9 | 868 | 8.4 | [Autonomous vehicle perception: The technology of today and tomorrow](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2018.02.012) | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 2018-03-08 | Jessica Van Brummelen, Marie O’Brien, Dominique Gruyer et al. |
| 10 | 856 | 15.5 | [Innovation in emerging economies: Research on the digital economy driving high-quality green development](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.03.041) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2022-03-25 | Dan Ma, Qing Zhu |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 31, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/11-sustainable-cities-and-communities

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-sdgs-11-sustainable-cities-and-communities,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/11-sustainable-cities-and-communities}},
  urldate = {2026-10-31},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).