DUSP Domestic Projects 2019

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Bldg. 7-337 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 dusp.mit.edu

DOMESTIC PROJECTS > ECONOMIC

DEVELOPMENT, HOUSING, AND DESIGN

> ENERGY,

SUSTAINABILITY, AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION

> HEALTH > URBAN

AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

SCIENCE, NETWORKED CITIES

AND MOBILITY > URBAN

RETROFITTING, NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING AND DESIGN

DOMESTIC PROJECTS

>> ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, HOUSING, AND

DESIGN Immigration and Hispanic Growth in the US Analyzing the association between Spanish toponymy and Hispanic demographics in order to understand the historical resilience of culturally-driven demographic settlement patterns.

Place: Various Faculty: Albert Saiz Gentrification, Displacement, and Housing Shortages Evaluation initiative to advance understanding of the relationship between zoning regulations, urban growth, and resident perceptions of urban congestion, displacement, and access to amenities.

Faculty: Devin Michelle Bunten Strategies for Community-Led Development Community engagement and development strategies to increase urban density, equal access to economic and social benefits, and promote sustainability.

Place: Austin, TX Faculty: Mary Anne Ocampo, Jonah Susskind Partners: Emancipation Economic Development Council Legal Geography of Immigration Federalism Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s insights about the production of space, this project examines how judicial conceptions of space shape courts’ decision making in the context of challenges to local immigration policies and the effects of those decisions on the experiences of migrants in the United States.

Place: United States Faculty: Justin Steil Urban Planning Implications of Legalized Adult Use Cannabis in the U.S. and Canada Researching existing practices with respect to the adult use market for cannabis to compile a database and recommend best practices with respect to land use and public finance impacts.

Place: California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Canada, other states Faculty: Jeff Levine Revitalizing Urban Main Streets Supporting vitality and improvement of neighborhood commercial districts through preparation of commercial district plans.

Place: Boston, MA Faculty: Karl Seidman, Marie Law Adams, Mary Anne Ocampo Partners: Boston Main Streets Program; Allston Village Main Streets; New Orleans, LA

Hacking the Archive: Codesigning the Next 50 Years of Social Action Transdisciplinary, cross generational public planning project to mine historical archives of countercultural and anti-colonial social movements to support the production of activist-directed qualitative research for future movement building, direct action and healing.

Place: Boston, MA Faculty: Karilyn Crockett MA Life Sciences Biocluster: The Next Chapter Working with state representatives and medical researchers we are building a community-based analytical framework to assess opportunities to deploy life sciences-related in rebuilding Massachusetts Gateway City economies.

Places: Worcester MA, Brockton, MA Faculty: Amy Glasmeier, Teresa Lynch Partners: MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation; Mass Development and their Gateway Cities program; Mass Life Sciences Center >> ENERGY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND CLIMATE

ADAPTATION Political Influence of Utilities Energy utilities have greatly increased their political spending and campaign contributions in the past twenty years. This project seeks to understand the mechanisms and extent to which these incumbent regulated monopolies have corrupted public regulation, and the effects that this has had on a transition to cleaner energy.

Place: United States Faculty: David Hsu Partners: MIT Energy Initiative Malden Works for Waterfront Equity and Resilience Challenges global resilience thinking, addressing urban inequities resulting from climate change adaptation efforts and impacts. The project team brings together community leaders, environmental advocates, government officials, and urban design practitioners to collaborate on the planning, design, and realization of the project.

Place: Malden MA Faculty: Marie Law Adams Partners: Malden Department of Public Works, Mystic River Watershed Association, Malden Redevelopment Authority, Friends of the Malden River, MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Future of Streets Investigating how cities might adapt streets to newly emerging shared, electric, and autonomous transportation technology in ways that maximize multi-modal, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable outcomes.

Place: Los Angeles, CA / Boston, MA Faculty: Andres Sevtsuk Partners: City of Los Angeles DCP / DOT

Urban Informatics for Healthy and Active Living This project investigates how city open data contribute to healthy and active living. It aims to identify data mining opportunities, urban-clinical information integration process, and machine learning applications for cities.

Places: Boston, MA and New York, NY Faculty: Yuan Lai Partners: MIT Laboratory for Computational Physiology

Climate Adaptation in Isle De Jean Charles Examines how local identity and culture are linked to planning processes, with a focus on risk and resilience measures in regard to extensive land loss from subsidence, sea level rise, and erosion. Findings will be used to illustrate what it means to engage in a meaningful and successful managed retreat strategy.

Places: Isle de Jean Charles, LA Faculty: Janelle Knox-Hayes

>> URBAN SCIENCE, NETWORKED CITIES, AND

>> HEALTH AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Disparities in Recovery from Natural Disasters Overcoming persistent market barriers to energy efficiency improvements in rented housing and neighborhood commercial facilities. To pilot proposal and analysis for the Cambridge Central Square neighborhood.

Place: New Orleans, LA and Cambridge, MA Faculty: Mariana Arcaya American Water Shut-Offs Promoting financially sustainable and socially equitable solutions that will make drinking water affordable for all urban residents while ensuring the sustainability of public water and sanitation systems.

Place: Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. Faculty: Lawrence Susskind, Gabriella Carolini Partners: The Center for Water Security and Cooperation, MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative Wellness-Based Development A multi-year, multi-neighborhood assessment of health needs and assets collaboratively conducted with local youth to develop recommendations for reducing healthcare costs in Central Brooklyn pursuant to Medicaid reform mandates.

Place: Central Brooklyn, NY Faculty: Dayna Cunningham, Gretchen Susi

MOBILITY Machine Learning and Zoning Bylaws We will deploy machine learning techniques to analyze the textual content of thousands of digitized zoning codes in the United States, and categorize different aspects of zoning and their emphasis in American cities and towns.

Faculty: Albert Saiz, Eran Ben Joseph Bus Rapid Transit Corridor Design Examine the relationship between the design of bus rapid transit systems and the planning and design of urban environments in Boston and Mexico City.

Place: Boston, MA Faculty: Chris Zegras Partner: MBTA Crowd Sourced City Workshop To investigate the use of social media and digital technologies for planning and advocacy by working with planning and advocacy organizations to develop, implement, and evaluate prototype digital tools.

Places: Boston, MA, and New York City, NY Faculty: Sarah Williams Partners: Center for Urban Pedagogy; Community Labor United; The Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation; Made in the Lower East Side, miLES MIT Cybersecurity Clinic: Strategies for Protecting Critical Urban Infrastructure Developing a new class of non-technical Defensive Social Engineering tools that can protect urban agencies whose services and critical infrastructure that are now under constant cyberattacks.

Place: United States Faculty: Lawrence Susskind, Daniel Weitzman (CSAIL), Howard Shrobe (CSAIL), Greg Falco (CSAIL) Partners: Internet Policy Research Initiative, Public Interest Technology University Network

DOMESTIC PROJECTS

Emotional Travel: Pride, Dependence, and Social Bias This project examines human emotions that are associated with travel behavior, including car pride, car dependence, implicit social bias in mode choice, and emotional responses to waiting.

Places: Various Faculty: Jinhua Zhao Urban Sensing Explores the opportunities provided by pervasive sensing technology deployed in cities. Using extensive sensor data, it is possible to monitor pollution levels down to the level of a single road intersection, improve micro-climate models, as well as continuously monitoring bridges and other components of the road infrastructure.

Place: New York, San Francisco, Boston Faculty: Carlo Ratti Partners: Teck, Cisco, UBER, Allianz, ANAS Innovative Products, Spaces, and Technology This project is about mapping the foundation of innovation to the built environment. The path of innovation is important for understanding the adoption of new technologies and teh system that has developed to bring new products and processes to the market efficiently.

Places: Various Faculty: Dennis Frenchman, David Geltner, and Andrea Chegut Suburbs, Sustainability, and Automated Vehicles Examines suburban city forms particularly in light of the introduction of AV, while considering how designers and planners can help make them more productive, equitable, and ecologically sound in the decades to come.

Place: Various Faculty: Alan Berger Partner: Center for Advanced Urbanism Quantifying Gender Equity of Urban Place Names Exploring methods for automating gender equity assessments of urban toponyms (place names) so that we might compare global cities as well as provide quantitative evidence to inform future renaming and commemoration processes.

Place: Cambridge, Boston, and Buenos Aires Faculty: Catherine D’Ignazio / Data + Feminism Lab Partner: Boston Public Library The Rise of the Platform or ‘Sharing’ Economy in Urban Spaces This project looks at the political economy of ‘disruptive’ market transformation within the rise of the platform or ‘sharing’ economy. It assesses the role of social and plitical institutions in shaping market outcomes across diverse international contects.

Places: Various Faculty: Jason Jackson

>> URBAN RETROFITTING, NEIGHBORHOOD

PLANNING AND DESIGN Networks in Community-Based Planning Examines the extent to which New York State’s Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) program reconfigured the organizational networks of community-based environmental justice organizations and community development corporations that received BOA grants.

Place: New York Faculty: Justin Steil Resilient Cities Housing Initiative Assesses global efforts to produce affordable housing in ways that also contribute to economic livelihood, environmental well-being, personal security and community self-governance.

Places: Various Faculty: Larry Vale Shrinking Cities Shrinking Cities research and studios explore the challenges of rebuilding once-thriving industrial cities characterized by abandonment, contamination, and decline.

Places: Various Faculty: Brent Ryan West Philadelphia Landscape Project Founded in 1987, the West Philadelphia Landscape Project is an action research program that links community development and environmental restoration.

Place: Philadelphia, PA Faculty: Anne Whiston Spirn Partners: Philadelphia Water Department, Aspen Farms Community Garden Land Use & Community Planning Working with towns and cities around Massachusetts students prepare plans for community development and land-use modifications while staying true to neighborhood-specific objectives.

Places: Somerville, Lynn, Arlington Faculty: Viktorija Abolina, Justin Steil, Jeff Levine Partners: Planning department cities of Somerville, Lynn and Arlington The Move Explores how students and practitioners can use eight principles to design more equitable, inclusive, and democratic spaces for civic discourse.

Places: Various Faculty: Ceasar McDowell