For centuries, explorers looked to the stars to help them navigate new worlds. In Baltimore, stargazers aren’t using the night sky to track galaxies explore the Milky Way. Instead, the same modeling and algorithms used to map galaxies is being repurposed for a more pedestrian purpose: urban vacancies. Astrophysicists and city planners are working together to find new ways to manage abandoned buildings and future development. Patterns and Particles As part of an effort to help the city manage housing stock and anticipate residency trends, Baltimore recently partnered with John Hopkins University astrophysicist Tamás Budavári to find a way to detect patterns and predict which parts of the city will thrive, and which areas will end up empty and abandoned. According to Budavári, though astrophysics may have little in common with urban planning, at the core is a fundamental need to detect and detail patterns not readily apparent. “I thought: Can we measure this correlation of clustering of vacant houses the same way we made measurements about astronomy,” Budavári explains in a recent interview with Wired. Data and Diligence Last year, Baltimore Housing Commissioner Michael Braverman contacted Budavári about developing an algorithmic tool capable of predicting the city’s vacancies. Working through the John Hopkin’s Center for Government Excellence (GovEx), Budavári and Braverman are working together to find a proactive approach to the city’s urban planning. The key? Data. GovEx is a three-year program funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The goal of the organization involves aiding municipalities with the collection and analysis of data, so that “governments [can] effectively use data in order to make informed decisions on services that improve people’s lives.” The program also connects 120 partner municipalities across the country, helping each city manage data and share strategies. “We can take what we learn,...

Treaties and international accords can certainly trigger change, but most of the time the real action happens on the ground. Grassroots campaigns and public support can often pick up momentum, powered by the actions of small groups and individuals committed to a cause. As a result, when it comes to global issues like sustainability, renewable energy and climate change, cities have to power to make a big difference. “There is no single solution for solving global climate change,” declares the C40 Cities organization, “but cities have the ability, capacity and will to lead.” “We believe that a global future lies in urban innovation and action,” the group states on their website. “As the majority of future humans will live in cities, it just makes sense that our solution to climate change will reside there too. A Costly Climate While images of starving polar bears and collapsing glaciers have come to symbolize the environmental impact of a warming planet, the economic effects felt by cities are equally significant. According to a new study published in Nature Climate Change, large metrolpolitan areas experience the economic consequences of climate change at a rate three times higher than the less populated regions of the world. Some of the costs are the result of the “urban heat island effect.” Because cities often include huge swathes of land covered in pavement and concrete buildings, the heat those materials absorb is emanated back out into the atmosphere, resulting in temperature increases as high as 19˚F.  Researchers have dubbed Los Angeles an “urban heat archipelago,” for example, because urban sprawl has led to several “islands” spread out across the Los Angeles Basin. “It’s like a whole chain of urban heat islands that run into each other,” explained Gina Solomon, Deputy Secretary for Science...

While the ghosts of the last decade’s housing crisis have (mostly) been put to rest, for many families priced out of their local markets the need for affordable housing remains strong. Like the PC’s infamous “blue screen of death,” the Urban Institute’s map of affordable housing inventory is terrifying to behold. A handful of dark blue swatches in Midwest represent healthy levels of affordable housing inventory. The rest of the country, on the other hand, sits awash in the lightest indigo hues. From barely perceptible azure to the palest cerulean, a majority of states contain less than 50 units per 100 extremely low-income households. More than a third sit at, or close, to zero. As demand for budget-friendly rentals continues to rise, many communities struggle to provide adequate supply. In response to this affordable housing crisis, the White House recently released the Housing Development Toolkit. Part call to action, part policy overhaul, the toolkit’s main purpose it to help cities increase their affordable housing inventory. “The growing severity of unsupplied housing markets is jeopardizing housing affordability for working families,” write the toolkit’s authors, “increasing income inequality by reducing less-skilled workers’ access to high-wage labor markets, and stifling GDP growth by driving labor migration away from the most productive regions,” Accumulated Barriers While New York City’s real estate market is the stuff of legend, until recently most cities were able to supply adequate housing to residents. Unfortunately, several factors have conspired over the last few years to shrink stock and ramp up costs. These “accumulated barriers” are identified by the toolkit as lack of adequate construction, high job growth in areas with low vacancy rates, gentrification, and cost-per-unit increases paired with insufficient public assistance. “The accumulation of these barriers has reduced the ability of many housing markets to...

The future of urban planning lies in not just accessing information, but deploying it as a resource to enhance urban planning and improve the lives of residents. Every minute of every day, data is collected, stored and analyzed. So many of our daily activities now leave behind digital breadcrumbs, from trips to the grocery store to the books we check out of the library. Sometimes it can feel like we’re trapped in a dystopian nightmare reminiscent of 1984, but in reality, data is agnostic and nonpartisan. There is no opinion or bias, just facts and figures. So what’s the upside of all this statistical accumulation? For city planners, data collection provides the opportunity to fundamentally change public works and infrastructure. The more data shared, the better organization possible, from efficient traffic measures to responsive streetlamps. Thanks to organizations like Open Government Partnership and the Open Data Institute, urban planning is now in the midst of a “data revolution.” “We are helping build the data infrastructure for the UK and beyond” ODI CEO Gavin Starks recently declared. “As our economy and society continue to become data-driven, we need to address the fact that data is as important as roads, water and energy.” “Working with our partners and diverse communities, we will continue to support and convene data pioneers, helping them develop open standards, improve data literacy, build trust, address policy, create business models, and tackle challenges that impact everyone. Together, we will help build a robust data infrastructure that enables open innovation – at web scale.” Tracking Transportation According to the US Census Bureau, the average daily commute last about 25 minutes, one way. That’s almost an hour a day spent in traffic, and many nine-to-fivers will tell you that’s on a good day. Between...