Reinventing Cities ~ Seeking Urban Innovations...

In his NYTimes piece Reinventing America’s Cities: The Time Is Now, Nicolai Ouroussoff writes...

"We long for a bold urban vision. With their crowded neighborhoods and web of public services, cities are not only invaluable cultural incubators; they are also vastly more efficient than suburbs. But for years they have been neglected, and in many cases forcibly harmed, by policies that favored sprawl over density and conformity over difference. Such policies have caused many of our urban centers to devolve into generic theme parks and others, like Detroit, to decay into ghost towns. They have also sparked the rise of ecologically unsustainable gated communities and reinforced economic disparities by building walls between racial, ethnic and class groups. Correcting this imbalance will require a radical adjustment in how we think of cities and government’s role in them."

Ouroussoff goes on...

"...to look at four cities [New Orleans, Los Angeles, The Bronx, and Buffalo] representing a range of urban challenges and some of the plans available to address them. Though none of the plans are ideal as they stand today (and some of them represent only the germ of an idea), evaluated and addressed together as part of a coordinated effort, they could begin to form a blueprint for making our cities more efficient, sustainable and livable."

These are further evidence that the time is now for Metro Ventures seeking out and commercializing Urban Innovations to be the top focus of our attention at MIT and other innovation epicenters. The 4.292 Responsive Cities seminar that Kent Larson and I run is just one small contribution towards this larger goal.