Prof. David Autor speaks with Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money about his new research on employment trends in the U.S. showing that cities are no longer meccas of opportunity for workers without college degrees. “We need to carefully examine our assumptions that superstar cities are the land of opportunity for everyone,” says Autor.
Writing for the Financial Times, graduate student Daniel Aronoff highlights Prof. David Autor’s research showing the bleak economic outlook for Americans without college degrees. Aronoff argues the most important less from this work is that, “the economic issue that matters most — maybe the only issue that really matters at all — is education.”
New York Times reporters Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui highlight Prof. David Autor’s new research that shows cities do not offer workers without college educations the same economic opportunities that they did in the past. Autor found that the declining urban wage premium has been caused by the “disappearance of ‘middle-skill jobs’ in production but also in clerical, administrative and sales work.”
In this video, Reuters reporter Matthew Stock explores how researchers at the MIT Senseable City Lab are using big data to help make crowded cities better places to live. Stock explains that researchers hope to use anonymous data to improve public infrastructure and living spaces to “make the metropolis fit for future generations.”
Robotic furniture produced by MIT spinout Ori, which created a furniture system that reconfigures itself with the push of a button or voice commands, could be the solution to living in small spaces, writes Candace Jackson for The New York Times.
Wired reporter Aarian Marshall highlights how MIT is launching a new undergraduate major that will combine computer science and urban planning. Prof. Eran Ben-Joseph explains that the motivation for the major is studying how, “you make a better connection between the training and computation, and what the implication of the work will be, for communities, for policies.”
Boston Herald reporter Jordan Graham writes about Ori, a Media Lab spinout that aims to make apartments more functional and spacious through the use of robotic furniture. Founder and CEO Hasier Larrea, an MIT alumnus, explains that by using technology and robotics, “you can make a 300-square-foot apartment be much more functional than a traditional static 400-square-foot apartment.”
MIT researchers have developed an algorithm that can accurately determine how many taxis a city needs, providing a way to reduce the number of cars on the road, according to Xinhua. “Using the new algorithm, they found the fleet size of cab-hailing service in New York could be cut down by about 30 percent in an optimal scenario.”
Prof. Tod Machover speaks with Mary Louis Kelly and Audie Cornish of NPR’s All Things Considered about capturing the everyday sounds featured in his latest symphony, “Philadelphia Voices.” When recording the Commonwealth Youth Choir, for example, Machover explains that he “asked them to each sing the word Philadelphia in a way that showed something about how they felt about Philadelphia and also something about themselves.”
Prof. Tod Machover details his experience creating “Philadelphia Voices,” which is “the latest in a series of Machover symphonies inspired by cities,” writes Michael Cooper for The New York Times. “To help organize his library of Philadelphia sounds he used software developed at M.I.T. called Constellation, which can analyze hundreds of sound files by volume, frequency and shape, then visually display them.”
Media Lab spinout “Ori” has developed what its founder Hasier Larrea SM ’15 calls a “Swiss Army knife for studio apartments,” writes Andy Rosen for The Boston Globe. A “robotic furniture system,” the compact 8 by 5 foot design can equip even the smallest rooms with a bed, multiple desks, closet, and entertainment system.
Led by senior research scientist Rolland Pellenq, students in the School of Engineering developed a model “that links a city’s ‘texture’ to its night-time UHI (Urban Heat Index),” writes Laurie Winkless for Forbes. The team hopes their research will influence future urban development, especially in very hot or cold climates.
Senior research scientist Roland Pellenq and his colleagues have found that the layout of a city’s streets and buildings impacts the way it heats up. “Scientists found cities with more geometric, grid-like layouts, such as New York and Chicago, had a greater heat island effect than cities with less uniformity, like London and Boston,” writes Brooks Hays for UPI.
Danny Crichton of TechCrunch highlights Media Lab researchers Kent Larson and John Clippinger, who are sorting socio-economic factors into datasets in order to create a model that can guide a community towards success. “Wouldn’t it be great to create an alternative where instead of optimizing for financial benefits, we could optimize for social benefits, and cultural benefits, and environmental benefits,” said Larson.
In an article for The New York Times, graduate student Yonah Freemark writes that making city streets safer can help protect pedestrians and cyclists from careless and malicious drivers. “The side effects of a pedestrian-focused strategy are overwhelmingly positive, even setting aside the lowered potential for death. Air quality improves, people exercise more, neighborhood business expands.”