Prof. Carlo Ratti speaks with CNN reporter Paula Newton about the future of cities and the potential impact of vacant office spaces. “We need to meet in a physical space,” says Ratti. “Maybe not in the old office tower, but the physical space is very important. It’s the way we sustain and enrich our social networks.”
MIT researchers have found that interactions between people from different economic backgrounds have dropped significantly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, reports David Scharfenberg for The Boston Globe. Scharfenberg notes the “the phenomenon could hurt low-income people in direct ways – they’ll lose connections to better-off people – and indirect ways.”
Adjunct Professor Emeritus Mel King, a political activist whose 1983 mayoral campaign helped ease racial tensions in Boston, has died at 94, reports Richard Sandomir for The New York Times. King’s work included “teaching in the urban studies and planning department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1970 to 1996,” writes Sandomir. “There, he started a Community Fellows Program for leaders nationwide.”
Researchers at MIT have co-authored a paper in which they used honeybees to study the microbiome of cities. Since bees “tend to forage within a mile radius of their hives in urban areas, there’s valuable information about a city or even a neighborhood in the honey they produce, on their bodies and in the debris that lies at the bottom of hives,” writes Linda Poon for Bloomberg.
MIT researchers have developed a low-cost air quality sensor that can be 3-D printed using open-source instructions and used by people around the world, reports Kristin Toussaint for Fast Company. “The reason we started this project was because we wanted to democratize environmental data,” explains research scientist Simone Mora. “We’re not just opening the data we’ve collected so far, but we hope to funnel a huge development in terms of sensors deployed in the streets, and in turn [make] the data collected available to everyone.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Carlo Ratti and Robert Muggah of the SecDev Group explore the pushback against 15-minute cities and how the concept behind creating more accessible neighborhoods could “facilitate the meaningful and sustained in-person connections that the internet cannot.” They note that "the concept could be the solution to bridging our divides. By creating more open, integrated, and healthy neighborhoods, it is possible to restore the in-person connections that are an antidote to polarization.”
Postdoctoral fellow Timur Abbiasov speaks with Guardian reporter Henry Grabar about his research examining the relationship in neighborhoods between local errands and the geography of amenities. Abbiasov and his colleagues found that “the more commerce, parks and services in a neighborhood, the more people travelled locally, whether in the country’s most walkable cities or its least.”
Bloomberg reporter Akshat Rathi spotlights Sublime Systems, an MIT startup developing new technology to produce low-carbon cement. “Sublime’s solution involves splitting the cement-making process into two steps,” explains Rathi. “The first step is to make calcium—the key element in limestone—in a form that’s ready to chemically react with silicon—the key element in sand. Sublime reduces energy use and carbon emissions in this step by avoiding limestone and using electricity, rather than coal-fired heat.”
Writing for the Daily News, Prof. Carlo Ratti and Harvard Prof. Edward Glaeser highlight a new report by the “New” New York Panel aimed at reimagining New York City. “This is the moment to embrace the ‘New’ New York Panel’s three-pronged approach of reducing the unnecessary regulations that limit entrepreneurship, investing in New York’s children and creating exciting, safe, walkable streetscapes,” Ratti and Glaeser write.
Researchers from MIT and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions have been developing an electric autonomous trash boat, reports Sarah Holder for Bloomberg. The boats “could reduce noise, pollution, and congestion, thus improving the quality of Amsterdam’s historic cityscape.”
Hasier Larrea MS ’15 - CEO of Ori, a company that creates expandable tiny apartments - writes for Newsweek about his journey and inspiration for developing expandable housing options. Larrea writes that Ori is focused on creating, “expandable urban apartments that are more flexible, functional, affordable and sustainable—in short, living spaces that can suit the amazing diversity of people who want to live in the world's most incredible cities.”
Writing for Bloomberg News, Prof. Carlo Ratti and Robert Muggah of the Igarapé Institute make the case that cities should use venture capital strategies to manage risk and spur innovation. “To do so, local governments need to change their approach to procurement,” they write. “If administrators pay more close attention to what venture capital can teach them, then the city — one of the first, greatest ventures in human history — will be able to continue to invest in a shared, prosperous tomorrow.”
The Emerald Tutu, a climate resiliency project in Boston led by Gabriel Cira ’08, is developing a system of floating wetlands designed to reduce coastal flooding by knocking down waves, reports Hannah Chanatry for WBUR. The Emerald Tutu was the winning project at the 2018 MIT Climate Changed Ideas competition. “Fundamentally, it’s like a giant sponge that fits around urban coastlines like we have here in Boston,” said Cira. “It buffers those coastlines from the intense effects of coastal storms.”
Professor Carlo Ratti participated in this year’s Manifesta 14 in Kosovo, where “artists show how they want to reconquer their city from traffic and big capital,” reports Sandra Smallenburg for NRC. “Together with students from the University of Pristina, he reclaimed the outdoor space by simply painting it with yellow paint and delimiting it with garden furniture,” said Smallenburg.
Professor Carlo Ratti and his colleagues developed the Urban Vision and Urban Program for Manifesta 14, a nomadic European biennale in Kosovo, which “proposes a new methodology for reclaiming public space in the city,” writes Maria-Cristina Florian for ArchDaily. “Cities around the world are currently going through an extraordinary time marked by crises but also potential for a renaissance,” said Ratti.