Toward a Future of Healthy and Sustainable Cities — Panel Recap

We’re emerging from a global health crisis, and for the past couple of years we’ve heard about the death of cities as a matter of public health and cost of living, we’ve heard about crime and governance.

As we move forward, where do we go from here?

In an online panel discussion on January 31, 2023, we convened a group of scholars who work on the future of cities to discuss these questions. The discussion was a collaboration between Speculative Futures Philadelphia and the Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities at Thomas Jefferson University. You can find a recording of the one-hour session below.

Some of the big ideas that came up in our conversation:

• Challenges with incorporating very tall buildings into the living fabric of a city, especially as we resort to taller buildings as a solution to growing populations
• A disconnect between where climate-related change is happening (e.g., Europe) and where carbon emissions in the future will be centered (e.g., Africa)
• How many challenges are intermingled: climate resilience, resource distribution, city funding
• The promises and perils of smart city technology, which may enable smarter use of resources but bringing along privacy and security concerns
• Practicing flexibility as a personal strategy for heading into the future

Watch the recording of our panel discussion

On the panel, we heard from:

• Dr. Peng Du, Thomas Jefferson University. His research focuses on net-zero buildings and cities, computational urban design, urban energy modeling, and urban data analytics, incorporating interdisciplinary approaches.
• Dr. Allison Lassiter, University of Pennsylvania. She examines opportunities to use landscape infrastructure and emerging technologies to build resilience and increase adaptive capacity in cities. Her research focuses on urban water management.
• Prof. Frank Lee, Drexel University. He directs the Entrepreneurial Game Studio at Drexel. Among many projects, he has been recently noted for launching SIM-PHL, an urban planning simulator game powered by Philadelphia’s open data.
• Prof. Edgar Stach, Thomas Jefferson University. He is director of the Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities at Jefferson. His current research centers on new developments, innovative techniques, and advanced technologies in architecture for advanced energy-efficiency.

Flyer for the event