As listeners and viewers to Redesigning Cities 40+ episodes should have figured out – urban design is complicated business! It requires integrating a wide range of social, transportation, energy, and environmental collaborators, infrastructures, networks, and design details into a spatial framework. Luckily Nico Larco, lead author of the Sustainable Urban Design Handbook talks us through this matrix of issues, as well as his research on emerging technologies and new mobility.

What roles do homeownership, the affordable housing crisis, and the law play in achieving the goals of Dr. Martin Luther King’s beloved community? Can housing design, land use policy, and activism overcome political and social barriers to enrich connectedness, neighboring, and belonging – especially today? Drawing on her extensive experience managing transformational change in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors, Natosha Reid Rice speaks to these challenges and shares lessons on how to leverage the power of proximity to curate thriving communities now.

Can Urban AI activate human agency in the performance and design of cities, particularly in relation to climate change? Can the unfair systems that produce climate vulnerability in the first place, expand the role of marginalized stakeholders in climate adaptation? Leading urban tech researcher, Dr. Anthony Townsend examines the role that artificial intelligence innovations could and are playing in empowering such communities. From resilience planning chatbots to synthetic visualizations of flood threats, he maps the possibilities and risks presented by these emerging technologies for the urgent work of responsible participatory climate adaptation. Debra Lam leads a follow-up conversation.