Equitable Communities and the Built Environment

How communities, planning, infrastructure, and design shape equitable, sustainable outcomes

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, Architectural Engineering
Assistant Professor, Architectural Engineering

Equitable Communities and the Built Environment News

Featured Stories

Institute of Energy and the Environment welcomes 15 new faculty members

Fifteen faculty members have joined the Institute of Energy and the Environment (IEE), reflecting the institute’s growing interdisciplinary reach. Together, they bring expertise that connects energy systems, environmental processes and human dimensions, opening new pathways for collaboration and shared research efforts.Bruce Logan, director of the Institute of Energy and the Environment, said the group reflects the range of career stages represented across IEE’s research network.

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.