Urban Science for Sustainable Cities: How to Shape the Environmental and Social Performance of Cities Using Digital Tools
Arianna Salazar-Miranda, Doctoral Candidate in Computational Urban Science and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
January 24,12:00-1:00pm CT
1155 E. 60th St., Mansueto Lounge, lunch provided, or via Zoom
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This talk will shed light on how urban environments may be better designed to face the impending challenges of climate change and social inclusion. I will use a wide range of large-scale, high-resolution data and analytical methods to explore this question through two themes. First, I trace the effects of urban development paradigms—normative ideas and policies that planners have used to shape the built environment of cities—on socio-environmental dimensions of urban life, including patterns of sedentarism and social mixing, greenhouse gas emissions, and exposure to environmental risks like heat and flooding. Second, I introduce work on developing digital tools in partnership with cities and communities to inform their sustainability efforts. My approach combines the richness of traditional techniqueswith the power and scope of new data sources. Some examples include a framework to measure street activity in real-time using images and mapping one of Brazil’s largest favelas using LiDAR data.