DUSP International Projects 2019

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

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

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS > AFRICA > ASIA > CARIBBEAN > EUROPE > LATIN

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INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS >> AFRICA

>> ASIA

Conflict and Neighboriless in Post-Genocide Rwanda Focuses on international development in the context of post-conflict and post-disaster rebuilding in Rwanda, at the juncture of neighborly interactions and national policy.

Place: Rwanda Faculty: Delia Wendel

Future of Urban Mobility Explores the safety, comfort and time associated with transportation, getting individuals and goods where they need to be, and when they need to be there. It also aims to reverse the alarming, unsustainable energy and environmental trends associated with transportation.

Place: Singapore Faculty: Chris Zegras, Joseph Ferreira, Carlo Ratti, and Jinhua Zhao Partners: Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology

Digital Matatus Standardizes open transit data for Nairobi’s matatus — the informal and de facto city bus system. Building on past Kenyan-based digital mapping efforts and open source transit standard, the project will result in a comprehensive framework for collecting, opening, and mapping Matatu transportation data toward a mobile and equitable Nairobi.

Place: Nairobi, Kenya Faculty: Sarah Williams Partners: Columbia University Center for Sustainable Urban Development; University of Nairobi: School of Computing and Informatics Property Tax Potentialities in African Capitals: Advancing Critical Collection Capacity Studies property tax potentials within the portfolio of own-source revenues in African cities like Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, focusing on the design of viable models of collection and linkages therein with public infrastructure development.

Place: Ethiopia Faculty: Gabriella Carolini Partners: African Property Tax Initiative at the International Centre for Tax and Development Electricity Adoption in Rural India and Tanzania Seeks to further develop a game-based research strategy to elicit heterogeneous household preferences for electricity technologies and services. Understanding and describing these preferences is critical to off-grid energy business models to help start-up companies, policymakers, and NGOs assess and react to households’ willingness to adopt new electricity technologies and services.

Place: Tanzania and India Faculty: David Hsu Partners: MIT TATA Center Prototyping for Informal Urban Markets Pursues action-based research with local collaborating organizations to explore how cities are and can evolve to support more equitable urban economies.

Place: Durban, South Africa Faculty: Kate Mytty Partners: MIT D-Lab, MIT International Policy Lab, Asiye eTafuleni

MIT – Zhengzhou City Living Lab Program A living lab program in a medium-sized Chinese city to study the challenges and opportunities of China’s rapid urbanization. The aim is to integrate urban-centered technologies with randomized controlled trials to enrich our understanding of the interaction dynamics between human behaviors, urban environment (air quality, weather condition and built environment), and the policy-making process for sustainable urbanization.

Place: Zhengzhou, China Faculty: Siqi Zheng Partners: Zhengzhou City Government, China Promoting Urban Sustainability in the Arctic A five-year study of examining shifting economic profitability in Siberian cities away from natural resource exploration, towards more sustainable alternatives.

Place: Siberia Faculty: Brent Ryan Partners: U.S. National Science Foundation Air Quality Network Optimal Design in Urban India Low-cost air quality sensors now make it possible to measure multiple pollutants at much higher temporal and spatial resolution, This project is developing algorithms and techniques to evaluate the optimal experimental configuration of air quality sensors.

Place: England, India Faculty: David Hsu, Youssef Marzouk (AeroAstro) Partners: MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design >> CARIBBEAN

Climate, Calamity, and Cocoa This ethnographic project analyzes international agricultural development projects aimed at expanding the cacao value chain as part of post-disaster reconstruction efforts in Haiti. The project aims to offer alternative modes of intervention to improve the durability and efficacy of aid.

Place: Haiti Faculty: Erica Caple James

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Empowering Women of Rural Haiti Toward Selfsufficiency Focuses on empowering women of rural Haiti toward self-sufficiency. It seeks to improve access to jobs at fair trade wages, education, health care, and avenues for building sustainable community.

Place: Fond des Blancs, Haiti Faculty: Cherie Miot Abbanat Partners: Haiti Projects >> EUROPE

Application of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) to improve public transit operation Focusing on techniques to improve both rail and bus operations through operations planning and scheduling procedures as well as effective management and control “on the street.”

Place: United Kingdom Faculty: Jinhua Zhao Immigrant Locations and Native Residential Preferences A comprehensive study of the response of Spanish natives’ residence location decisions to immigrant arrivals, combining microdata on exact addresses with distance to amenities and socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods at baseline.

Place: Spain Faculty: Albert Saiz Autonomous Floating Vessels Roboat is developing a fleet of autonomous floating vessels for the city of Amsterdam. We investigate the potential of self-driving technology to change our cities and their waterways. Roboat is intended to have the autonomous platforms combining together to form floating bridges and stages, collect waste, deliver goods, and transport people, all while collecting data about the city.

Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands Faculty: Carlo Ratti, Dennis Frenchman, Fabio Duarte, Daniela Rus (CSAIL), Andrew Whittle (CEE) Partners: AMS Institute Valuing Sustainability in the Artic: Analysis of discourse and practice in Iceland This project analyzes how Iceland institutionalized environmental financial mechanisms such as carbon markets.

Place: Iceland Faculty: Janelle Knox-Hayes

>> LATIN AMERICA

Integrating Informal Settlements Conduct in-depth studies on how to integrate informal settlements into the formal urban fabric of Metropolitan Buenos Aires to design programs and policies that can improve livelihoods, create economic opportunities, affordable housing, and safe communities for local residents.

Place: Buenos Aires, Argentina Faculty: Bish Sanyal, Louise Elving Partners: SPURS/Humphrey, Metropolitan Buenos Aires, Ecological Coordination Metropolitan Area State Society, Comite de Cuenca del Rio Reconquista Assessing the Resilience of Urban Housing A team from the Resilient Cities Housing Initiative has been assessing the experience of residents living two newly-constructed low-income housing communities in Colombia.

Place: Cartagena and Barranquilla, Colombia Faculty: Larry Vale Partners: Fundación Mario Santo Domingo; LCAU Laboratory for Territorial Innovation A platform to support local leaders in the Pacific region of Colombia, a place marked by extraction and structural violence, in exploring new development paradigms rooted in Afro-identity that seek to create shared wealth.

Place: Pacific Region of Colombia Faculty: Dayna Cunningham, Shey Rivera Partners: MIT CoLab Developing a Resilient Energy Infrastructure Utilizing knowledge and technical skills to collaborate with a local community groups in Puerto Rico to develop a plan for a resilient energy system.

Places: Salinas, Puerto Rico Faculty: David Hsu Partners: University of Puerto Rico, IDEBAJO Civic Design in San Pedro Explore design principles for creating public engagement practices necessary for building inclusive civic infrastructure in cities. This project will develop a public engagement plan for the city of San Pedro Garza García, located in the municipal area of Monterrey, Mexico.

Place: Monterrey, Mexico Faculty: Ceasar McDowell, Javier Leal Transit Oriented Development Proposing new design typologies, assessing social benefits and costs, working through financial models, and evaluating incentive structures available in local regulations for the viability of TOD. Place: Guadalajara, Mexico Faculty: Chris Zegras, Brent Ryan, Onesimo Flores

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS MIT-Harvard Mexico Negotiation Program Enhancing the tools and strategies available to government, private sector, and activists involved in water, energy, and environmental negotiations at the local, federal, and transboundary scales through in-depth negotiation teaching, research, and training programs.

Place: Mexico Faculty: Bruno Verdini Partners: MIT Science Impact Collaborative & MITHarvard Public Disputes Program >> MIDDLE EAST

Industrial Urbanism: A New Model For Retrofitting Israeli Cities Aims to develop new urban models to integrate manufacturing into the built environment.

Places: Israel Faculty: Eran Ben-Joseph Partners: Tel-Aviv University Optimizing Stormwater Infrastructure in Istanbul This project assess historical trends and projected changes in regional precipitation events in order to evaluate the future impacts of increased storm events on Istanbul’s existing drainage system and guide the design of more resilient infrastructure—including several large-scale stormwater wetlands.

Faculty: Alan Berger, Jonah Susskind Partners: Bogazici University, Istanbul Municipality Designing Sustainable Neighborhood Typologies for Native Housing in Abu Dhabi This project used Emirati neighborhoods in Abu Dhabi, UAE as a case study to explore the potential for arid regions to reduce operational carbon emissions through technology adoption, better housing and landscape design, renewable energy transitions, and carbon sequestration from tree planting.

Faculty: Alan Berger, Khaled Al Awadi Partners: Masdar Institute >> GLOBAL/MULTI-REGION

Displacement Research and Action Network A global network to build new theory and evidence on the increasing incidence of mass displacement around the world.

Faculty: Rajagopal Balakrishnan Partners: ESCR-Net; United Nations Eminent Domains Examines the back-story and lasting legacy of iconic urban design interventions. Examples include, Haussmann’s Paris, the forced transition from Tenochtitlan to Mexico City, the invention of Shenzhen, China, and the”slum clearance” that led to Washington D.C.’s Federal Triangle, among other sites.

Faculty: Larry Vale

High Speed Rail, Accessibility, and Agglomeration How does high speed rail impact urban and regional growth in terms of economic agglomeration, land cover change and policy growth? To what extent may capacity constraints influence the accessibility contribution by the high speed rail? This project aims to explore these questions using the high speed rail systems.

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

Faculty: Brent Ryan Trends and Cycles in Regional and City Growth Research project to explore factors of regional and economic growth.

Faculty: Amy Glasmeier Partners: Cambridge University; Utrecht; and Queens, Canada Science Diplomacy Build methods and skills for PHD students engaged in STEM and social science fields to effectively translate scientific research into policy, political will, and action.

Faculty: Larry Susskind, Paul Berkman, Maria Ivanova Partners: National Science Foundation; Tufts University, Harvard Law School Climate Change Adaptation in Megacities Analyzes how socio-economic values shape development and reception of planning responses to climate change in global megacities cities.

Faculty: Janelle Knox-Hayes Subway Network and Urban Vibrancy program Explores comparatively the impact of rail transit investment on the amenity mix, real estate prices, and other urban vibrancy aspects of surrounding areas.

It takes advantage of the higher availability of urban big data and open data platforms to dialogue with practitioners and real-world problems in a crosscontext perspective.

Faculty: Siqi Zheng, Christopher Zegras Partners: Tsinghua University, Insper Urban Network Analysis Tools Developing spatial network analysis tools for modeling walkability and development impacts on pedestrian activity.

Faculty: Andres Sevtsuk Partners: Various