URBank: The Open Urbanism Database & App

URBank is an open-access database and web app for comparative archaeological and historical urbanism.
It is designed to support process-based models of cities rather than static definitions, integrating data on chronometrics, demography, spatial geometries, and references into a unified research platform.

This repository includes:

• Database: PostgreSQL/PostGIS schema, constraints, triggers, and seed data (urbank-database/).
• Backend: Flask app providing an API and server-side logic (backend/).
• Frontend: Lightweight JS + HTML/CSS web client for interacting with the database (frontend/).
• Scripts: Utilities for data loading (example python) and deployment (scripts/).
• Config: Nginx and deployment configurations (config/).

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Branch Structure

• main – stable production-ready branch (locked, updated via reviewed PRs).
• stage – staging environment for integration testing.
• dev – active development branch where contributions start.

All contributions should target dev.

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Getting Started

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_ORG/urbank.git
cd urbank

2. Set environment variables

Create a .env file in the project root:

DB_ADMIN_PASSWORD=your_admin_password DB_ENTRY_PASSWORD=your_entry_password DB_READONLY_PASSWORD=your_readonly_password DB_PASSWORD=your_user_password

cd urbank-database
psql -U USERNAME -f setup_db.sql

cd urbank-database
set -a
source ../.env
set +a

psql -U USERNAME -f setup_db.sql --set=DB_ADMIN_PASSWORD="$DB_ADMIN_PASSWORD" \
                                 --set=DB_ENTRY_PASSWORD="$DB_ENTRY_PASSWORD" \
                                 --set=DB_READONLY_PASSWORD="$DB_READONLY_PASSWORD" \
                                 --set=DB_PASSWORD="$DB_PASSWORD"

psql -U USERNAME -d urbank
\dt

4. Backend (Flask API)

pip install -r requirements.txt
flask run

This launches the URBank API (default: http://127.0.0.1:5000).

5. Frontend

Open frontend/index.html in your browser, or serve it locally:

cd frontend
python3 -m http.server 8000

6. Deployment

Nginx config: see config/nginx_urbank.conf for reverse proxy setup.

Server scripts: scripts/start_server.sh, scripts/init_db.sh for automated deployment.

Roadmap & Contributions

Roadmap will be published in ROADMAP.md.

Contributions welcome! Please open an Issue for suggestions or a PR to dev.

Guidelines will be added in CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

URBank is released under dual open licenses:

• Software (backend, frontend, scripts): GNU GPL v3
• Database schema CC BY-SA 4.0

You are free to use, share, and adapt the project provided you attribute URBank and distribute any derivatives under the same license.