At the then-mayor's request, Kontokosta authored a 2012 report evaluating that process. He went beyond identifying the primary drivers of New York buildings' energy efficiency (age, fuel type, location and size of lot, for starters), to find a correlation between neighborhoods with high median building energy use and asthma-related emergency-room visits.

Since then, he and CUSP have continued to explore and compare new data sets, which is why Matthews says Related partnered with them. "He's very interested in how people connect, and how ideas move and how people move through the city," she adds.

Many cities have used information technology to improve how cities work, such as demand-responsive pricing for parking in San Francisco or usage-based road taxation in Singapore. But Hudson Yards is unique, Kontokosta says, "in that we're trying to really measure along multiple dimensions of not just the buildings or the infrastructure, but also how people are interacting with the space, and how the design of the physical space influences activity, public health, and social interaction." He emphasizes that all disclosure of information for the Hudson Yards quantification project is voluntary.

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"I think my view is certainly not the view of some of the larger technology companies, for instance, who are very focused on the physical, and what data can do on physical infrastructure," Kontokosta continues. "My focus is much more on understanding how the data influences behavior, and using the type of information that's now available to really democratize the planning process much more."

Will this behavior-driven approach to "smart cities" become the norm? The next few years should tell, as CUSP looks to dramatically increase its student intake from dozens to hundreds. "I see this as an incredible opportunity to make information more accessible and transparent to people, which will then give them the ability to make better decisions about what kinds of cities they want to live in," Kontokosta says.