Affordable Sustainable Housing
Sustainable living tends to have people thinking that you will end up paying more to save energy as wind towers and solar panel roofs tend to be expensive. However, Minneapolis nonprofits Aeon and Hope community managed to design a 90-unit apartment building with half the units set aside as affordable housing (starting at $636/month for a one bedroom).
Such a project however requires a lot of funding in the initial phase. This project cost $36 million but it is 75% more energy efficient and could provide the family more longtime savings. The aim of the project was to make affordable living available to everyone, not just the wealthy.
Investors find themselves assessing the cost vs benefit of such initiatives and are not convinced by the impact. Using data science to study the effects of these projects on the surroundings could convince more investors to make a well-planned decision where it does not feel like a gamble anymore. Some of the work done at CUSP already shows such findings like the work done by the Urban Intelligence Lab showing that business of the food industry near bike share stations has had a growth of 0.2–0.5%.
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