MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Congress Can Secure America’s Clean-Energy Industrial Future Elisabeth Reynolds, Eran Ben-Joseph and Vir Chachra urge US senators to protect the clean-energy tax credits that are now on the chopping block.

Elisabeth Reynolds, Eran Ben-Joseph, and Vir Chacra urge Congress to protect clean-energy tax credits -- which have mobilized billions of dollars in private investment -- to ensure America’s manufacturing strength and ensure its energy security. More: bit.ly/reynoldsManu...

Congratulations to Julia Lodoen (@mitpolisci.bsky.social) and Mrinalini Penumaka (@mitdusp.bsky.social) on receiving the 2025 Jeanne Guillemin Prize! The grant supports ongoing studies by women PhD candidates in the field of international affairs. Learn more here: cis.mit.edu/opportunitie...

On May 17th join us for 'Hacking the Racial Wealth Gap,' a fun 8-hour day of information sharing and problem-solving focused on jobs and entrepreneurship, and closing the racial wealth gap at the MIT Media Lab. Register via: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Learn more: hackingthearchive.mit.edu

Catherine D'Ignazio Emilie Jäger Lecture

Congratulations to @kanarinka.bsky.social from @mit.edu who has been awarded the Emilie Jäger Prize for her research in the field of #DataFeminism. On May 14, she will give a talk entitled "Digital In/Justice and Data Feminism" 👉 digital-in-justice.unibe.ch/index_eng.html

A screenshot of a student project webpage that shows a mobility scale and the cost of living within the area for individual properties

A screenshot of a student project site which shows plots of land on a road with structures loosely outlined

More than half of Bostonians spend more than 30% of their income just to keep themselves housed. Students in Interactive Data Visualization & Society, a class at MIT, worked in teams to build digital tools to tackle this housing affordability challenge in Boston.

More: bit.ly/idvs25

Five individuals stand in a row holding award certificates in front of themselves

Rendering of a site plan

An individual sits in front of a pair of open French doors

The cover of Making Home, showing clothes hanging on a line in front of a mobile home

Awards and honors for case studies, work, community building and influence in the Boston area; three student-teams recognized for urban design excellence; and more in this month's roundup of DUSP community news: bit.ly/duspItm425

Rwandan peacekeepers march at UNAMID’s headquarters in El Fasher during the 2012 commemoration of the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.

How do peacekeeping missions plan for their withdrawal from a conflict zone and why it is so difficult to make peace sustainable? DUSP alumna Silvia Danielak (PhD ‘23) explores in the context of the end of the AU-UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID). More: bit.ly/danielakUnamid

My friend and coauthor Kofi Boone (“The Black Commons” in my co edited book Sacred Civics which is Open Access www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/downl...) at a dinner celebrating his supremely well deserved Kevin Lynch Award from @mitdusp.bsky.social. Kofi, you the man mate!

Waterfront landscape at Condor Street Urban Wild

Volunteers clean up wooded area during Urban Wilds program

Pathway into Sherrin Woods Urban Wilds

Volunteers smile with trash collected at Urban Wilds cleanup

🌎 Happy Earth Day, Boston! We’re proud to protect and celebrate the green and open spaces that help our city thrive.

Huge thanks to our incredible community partners who care for and steward these parks all year long. Let’s keep working together to care for our planet 💚

Photo of Barnstable Harbor with piers, buildings, water and boats.

Learn how the MIT Renewable Energy Clinic utilizes a nonpartisan approach to work with communities considering offshore wind infrastructure to help uncover and address potential challenges.

More: bit.ly/chunOffshore

IC: William Jones via Wikimedia Commons

PATSY HEALEY IS DEAD: Long Live Contingent Universalism Published in Planning Theory & Practice (Ahead of Print, 2025)

As part of a special issue of Planning Theory and Practice remembering and reflecting on the life and work of Patsy Healey, Prof Bish Sanyal @mitdusp.bsky.social has contributed a reflection on how Healey saw the universal and the contingent in planning theory: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Students are led on a tour of a vacant row home in Baltimore, old gray plaster can be seen above a fireplace, with four individuals in the frame of the photo.

How might the #policy, #urbanplanning, and #architecture help design interventions for issues surrounding the City of Baltimore's housing vacancy challenge? A joint MIT/MSU class sees students to collaborate to build pathways to a more just and thriving Baltimore.

More: bit.ly/mitmsuBaltim...

Kofi Boone, winner of the 2025 Kevin Lynch Award, centers his work on democratic design principles and empowerment of communities to help realize a vision of responsive and just urban planning. Register to attend the award ceremony: bit.ly/4j3HTp2

Picture of townhouses, each painted in a shade from black to white, showing a grayscale effect

A new DUSP Open Learning course, Leadership in Planning, offers practical skills and techniques for leading planning initiatives and public organizations.

Learn more and enroll for free: bit.ly/leadershipIn...

Photo of five pairs of muddy boots, shot from above.

Next Wednesday (April 16, 2025) join DUSP and HEET for a discussion about an equitable energy transition in Massachusetts centered on harnessing networked geothermal.

More info: calendar.mit.edu/event/commun...

How can we tap into spirituality, reverence, or deeply held values to drive meaningful civic engagement and systemic change? We Who Engage, a podcast led by DUSP's Ceasar McDowell and MIT alumna Ayushi Roy (MCP '19), explores in its third season. More: bit.ly/weWhoEngage3

IC: Casey Murano

Ananth Udupa dancing

Headshot of David Hsu on the left with an image of power lines and housing on the right

Headshot of Mel King, at a microphone, taken in profile

Protestors demonstrate demanding fair housing

“The ‘Upanayana Project’ blends ‘that history and my lived experience as a queer child being asked to renounce his femininity, his queerness,’” says Ananth Udupa in Cate McQuaid’s @bostonglobe.com piece.

This and more in the monthly roundup of DUSP community news: bit.ly/duspInt325

A city skyline image (of London) is shaded blue, with nodes and icons overlaid to represent data extracted from the urban environment

Does urban science -- using computational methods & data analysis to address urban planning challenges -- perpetuate historical racial inequities & if so, how could we realize a reparative urban science? Wonyoung So explores in an article for @planningtheory.bsky.social. More: bit.ly/soReparative...

Row of houses with lights on located on a canal in Amsterdam

Many people are living in energy poverty - meaning they spend at least 8% of their annual household income on energy - a new study shows how coaching & data can help reduce their consumption & costs.

More: bit.ly/energyPoverty

Side-by-side headshots of Paloma Duong, Frank Schilbach, and Justin Steil

Please join us in congratulating Justin Steil, named a 2025 MacVicar Faculty Fellow, recognizing his exemplary and sustained contributions to undergraduate education at MIT.

More via Meghan Burke's MIT News coverage: bit.ly/macvicarSteil

A map of the globe, with colored dots denoting natural landscape features and helping to outline land mass. 8 cities are highlighted, which are part of the study.

How might we better understand how we perceive and value nature in our urban environments? A new paper from researchers at MIT's Senseable City Lab and TU Delft, leverages #ai to help generate a model for measuring how we sense nature.

More: bit.ly/sensingNature

5 by 4 photo grid featuring researcher headshots; pics of researchers giving presentations or lab tours, working with students, and working with people in the field; along with other water and food images like water in jars, crop plants in a lab, and a hand holding a shrimp

For 10 years, MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Water & Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) has supported food & water research across the Institute, including work by DUSP community members Yasmin Zaerpoor (PhD '19), Jonars Spielberg (PhD '25), Andrea Beck (PhD '20), Bish Sanyal, & Larry Susskind. More: bit.ly/jwafs

Screenshot of two pages from Serhiy Rodionov’s team’s presentation “Re: Maripol.” the left page features examples of redevelopment sketched over an existing screen, shown at scale and from an isometric point of view. The right page shows an example, from Switzerland, of multi-use, human-scale and dense housing development.

A rendering of the unnamed peninsula in Maripol, envisioning how the space could be transformed to be part of green space, a transportation network, and space for the public use.

A virtual Community Recovery Academy that leans on MIT’s expertise, offers online trainings and digital spaces for co-learning with Ukrainian city officials and DUSP faculty members, with the aim of planning for recovery after the war.

More via MIT News: bit.ly/ukraineRecov...

Headshot of Liz Reynolds

How will the United States incorporate advanced manufacturing into its industrial base? And why is it critical for policymakers to consider advanced manufacturing for the future of US production systems? Elisabeth Reynolds offers expert testimony for Congress: bit.ly/reynoldsCong...

Carlo Ratti stands in front of water with arms outstretched

A bus, in a designated bus lane, is stopped because an illegally parked delivery vehicle

Drawing attention to the public health concerns of transportation in American cities, the challenges facing reconstruction efforts in Gaza, urging us to “rethink how we design for a world altered by climate impacts,” and more in this month's roundup of DUSP community news: bit.ly/225inTheMedia

Today @ MIT, 6:30 pm: What lessons can the US learn from Zurich's commitment to public benefit and nonprofit housing, implemented through a cooperative model of resource sharing? (In-person only) @sheila-a-dillon.bsky.social @masshousing.bsky.social @mitdusp.bsky.social

mailchi.mp/6fd2a0761829...

Individuals gather in a gallery space at MIT to celebrate the launch of the second volume of Silt

entwined, the second volume of the student publication, Silt, explores our relationship with land and space. "Our second volume establishes Silt as a home for creative work that swirls across physical and digital space,” write co-editors Lucy Corlett and Olivia Fiol.

More: bit.ly/siltVolume2

On left, the green cover to the book says, “Solidarities and Struggles in the Face of Climate Crisis; The Equitably Resilient City; Zachary B. Lamb and Lawrence J. Vale.” On right is a portrait of Vale.

The Equitably Resilient City, named the 2025 Best Book in Urban Affairs Award, explores "how people look at problems more holistically — to show how environmental impacts are integrated with their livelihoods."

Learn more via Peter Dizikes ' MIT news coverage: bit.ly/valeEquitabl...

“A woman’s place is in a safe city: Designing feminist cities through Nirbhaya Funds” by Radhika Radhakrishnan in association with the MIT Data+Feminism Lab. In the backdrop, a train runs between Mumbai and Kolkata, with protesters holding up placards demanding justice and safety for cis-women, trans, and queer persons in both cities.

Championing a Vision of Safe Cities that Centers Women and Trans-Queer Experiences -- our project featured on @mitdusp.bsky.social -- dusp.mit.edu/news/champio...

Race, profit, and algorithms: Neighborhood-level analysis of iBuyers’ profit margin iBuyers are firms that use automated valuation models (AVMs), streamline home buying processes, and provide all-cash offers to purchase homes. Although the previous literature has explored the role...

Since I'm new here, I am introducing myself my sharing some of my recent research "Race, profit, and algorithms: Neighborhood-level analysis of iBuyers’ profit margin" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....