Critical Technologies: Urban Tech for Social Impact

The ongoing pandemic highlighted long-standing social inequalities. These inequities have manifested themselves in various ways and along multiple fracture lines (e.g. race and ethnicity, class, and disability) leading to limiting access to opportunity and public space in cities. Despite mounting inequality – and although theory, social research, and policy indicate the need for more equitable urban environments – social issues that lack spatial definitions remain hard to incorporate into the planning processes. There is a growing need for effective, technology-based, spatial tools to understand the mechanisms that create and distribute disparities through the city.  

This conference will focus on the spatial dimensions of inequality in cities and will explore ways for technology to promote more equitable cities. It will bring together academic researchers from Cornell University, Cornell Tech, and the Technion, with practitioners from both NYC and Tel Aviv Planning Departments. The conference will map existing methodologies and planning tools regarding urban challenges based on state-of-the-art research in the field.

The conference will follow five main questions in five panels: Why, What, How, Who, and Where. Why is it important to harness technology to create more equitable cities; What can technology contribute to cities?  How can current technologies contribute to societal challenges? This will be exemplified through research projects from the three academic departments, ranging from data-driven urban research to, mixed reality, visualization, simulations to art. The closing session will cover the Who and Where? through a panel of decision-makers and examples of decision environments.

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