Planning Cities for the Future: Free MIT Software
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Although megacities are booming, many urban dwellers are not thriving in them. MIT has just released free urban-planning software to help local designers and officials create livable spaces in growing cities, where half the world’s population is now settling.
A FastCompany article describes the launch of Urban Network Analysis, an open-source software plug-in for the ArcGIS mapping program: “Taking a cue from social networks and mathematical network analysis methods, the City Form Research Group's program calculates how a cities' spatial layout affects the way people will live in it.” The software takes into account factors such as traffic congestion, pollution, and distance to jobs.
Other News from the School of Architecture + Planning
- Getting Creative: In “The Idea Factory,” The Atlantic profiles how new Media Lab director Joi Ito plans to encourage even more creativity there.
- $1K House: First prototype built from MIT’s effort to construct affordable houses.
- Smartphone Data collection: To help other researchers, the Human Dynamics research group is giving away its phone-based, data-collection system.
- New books address the environment, cities, architecture, angry people, and ‘Creative Magic’
