10.20
Urban Planning
Answering ‘How will we live together?’ at the Venice Biennale
Answering ‘How will we live together?’ at the Venice Biennale
After more than a year of delays, Penn faculty and students were able to participate in La Biennale di Venezia architectural exhibition with both virtual and physical submissions.
Rethinking resilience in the face of climate change
Rethinking resilience in the face of climate change
Hurricane Ida brought record-breaking rainfall and flooding, and stronger, more destructive storms will inevitably come. Being better prepared will require reconsidering how to protect people and their homes.
Protecting and celebrating civil rights heritage and Black histories
Protecting and celebrating civil rights heritage and Black histories
Launched last fall, Penn’s Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights sites is fostering new and ongoing partnerships while preserving the legacy of civil rights in the U.S.
A visual archive of an iconic American boulevard
A visual archive of an iconic American boulevard
A trio of undergraduate students worked this summer with Professor Francesca Ammon to catalog and organize photographs for the digital humanities project ‘Sunset over Sunset.’
Urban renewal, community activism, and green spaces in Historic Germantown
As part of a Summer Humanities Internship, rising junior Leo Wagner conducted research on community responses to infrastructure projects in the mid-20th century and how the member sites are currently using their green spaces.
A new metric for designing safer streets
A new metric for designing safer streets
Penn researchers demonstrate how biometric data can help city planners more proactively design and evaluate the safety of urban infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Americans face looming rent crisis
Americans face looming rent crisis
When the CDC’s eviction moratorium is lifted, 11 million Americans will face housing instability.
Urban planning and politics in Atlanta
Urban planning and politics in Atlanta
Akira Rodríguez’s new book, “Diverging Space for Deviants: The Politics of Atlanta’s Public Housing” explores how the intersection of race and public housing development planning in Atlanta created a politics of resistance.
How has COVID-19 changed ‘superstar cities’?
A new analysis found that overall mobility in large U.S. cities has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, and some are also experiencing changing segregation patterns, with potential implications that could last well beyond the pandemic.
Vincent Reina on fair housing in the U.S., in the city, and in pandemic times
Vincent Reina on fair housing in the U.S., in the city, and in pandemic times
The expert in fair housing and urban planning discusses how cities can address low-income housing policy, neighborhood change, and community and economic development, and how the pandemic has made inequities even more visible.
In the News
The Atlantic
The simplest fix to America’s rent problem
Vincent Reina of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design will be assessing the results of a rental assistance pilot program in Philadelphia that will distribute cash aid rather than vouchers. “There’s been some explorations, but a true, proper evaluation is something that we’ve never really done,” he said. “Cash transfers are often more contentious.”
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The New York Times
De Blasio vowed to make city streets safer. They’ve turned more deadly
Erick Guerra of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design said New York City’s traffic fatality rate, though on the rise, is still three to four times lower than the national average. “In some ways, Vision Zero is aspirational,” he said. “Even in cities that have success, you still see traffic fatalities.”
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The New York Times
Why $46 billion couldn’t prevent an eviction crisis
Vincent Reina of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design spoke about the challenges faced by officials, landlords, and tenants in distributing and accessing federal housing aid amid the pandemic. “We asked state and local governments to do something they’d never done before,” said Reina. “They had to design large programs with complex systems in real time, then modify them in real time—and at the same time, we’re expecting these programs to resolve longstanding problems in the housing market.”
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Vox.com
One way the US could have prevented the fight over the eviction moratorium
Vincent Reina of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design said the U.S. lacks a standardized system for contacting landlords, which complicates rent-relief programs. “There have been calls over time for some national effort around trying to create better national and local owner registry systems, and if there was ever a time this was clearly needed, it is now,” he said.
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Fast Company
This urban planner created a new metric to find a city’s most frightening intersections
Megan Ryerson of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design is using biometric data to identify dangerous zones for urban cyclists. The data “can be used to measure safety rather than waiting for someone to die,” she said.
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Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia home repair grants linked to decreased neighborhood crime, Penn study finds
Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine, School of Arts & Sciences, and Stuart Weitzman School of Design found that the crime rate on a given block was reduced by nearly 22% when the city of Philadelphia funded repairs for even a single house. “The social fabric of a neighborhood is very connected to the physical environment,” said the medical school’s Eugenia South.
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