Equitable Communities and the Built Environment

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Designing for Life

Through a better understanding of the built environment – our cities, homes, and infrastructure – and its relationship to equity and justice, we can develop and implement better design choices and policies that can support a sustainable future and foster inclusive communities.

Sustainable Development

The United Nations projects that nearly 70% of the world’s populations will live in cities by 2050. Across the globe, the trend toward urbanization is driving resource needs and impacts with water, food, and energy while disparately impacting low income/minority populations.  

To that end, determining and implementing sustainable, healthy, and affordable solutions for urban areas is essential and urgent.

Moreover, it will require extensive interdisciplinary collaboration to adequately meet the needs of infrastructure, planning, finance, energy, engineering, transportation, utilities, and more.

Penn State has a strong history of innovative built environment solutions, and researchers continue to focus on creating equitable communities.


Working together and across disciplines, researchers from Penn State and beyond are are redefining the future of cities and the built environment through investigations of living materials, adaptive architecture, and dynamic infrastructure.

Equitable Communities and the Built Environment Research

 

Featured IEE Researchers

Professor, John and Willie Leone Department of Energy & Mineral Engineering (EME)
Associate Professor, Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Education

Equitable Communities and the Built Environment News

Featured Stories

Governor recognizes Penn State program for 30 years of geospatial data service

The Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA) program, established by Penn State in 1995, is celebrating 30 years of helping the commonwealth use data to make better decisions, from protecting the environment to planning for emergencies.

$1.74M grant to fund Eastern Fire Network

| psu.edu

As large wildfires become more frequent in the eastern U.S., a new research initiative based at Penn State will develop big-picture goals for future study. Erica Smithwick, director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at the University, will lead the effort.