Interesting food for thought in this 2015 YouTube video. In the video, we see Herman Narula, founder of Improbable, delivering a presentation on large-scale city simulations during CityLabs. Narula elaborates on the possibilities of simulations, which may in some cases even outgrow the potential of data analysis. "You can actually recreate the thing you're interested in," Narula says. Some behaviour may be hard to understand analytically, but using the information at hand, models can be of great help.
You can read more on Herman Narula and his company in this Forbes profile.