Future of Suburbia
We are living in a global suburban age. Modern suburban development has endured in our cultural imagination for almost a century. While statistics demonstrate that the amount of the world population in metropolitan areas is rapidly increasing, rarely is it understood that the bulk of this growth occurs in the suburbanized peripheries of cities. Domestically, over 69% of all U.S. residents live in suburban areas; internationally, many other developed countries are predominately suburban, while many developing countries are rapidly suburbanizing as well. By 2030, an estimated half a million square miles (1.2 million square kilometers) of land worldwide will become suburbia. Suburbanization is a contemporary global phenomenon.
With the success, growth, and increasing global social and economic dependence on suburbs, the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism believes it is time to explore how they may be improved through better design and planning. What new land tenure models are needed to ensure that suburbs will become the frontier of innovation, tapping into flexible land-use to enable experimental economies, programs, and building? What technological innovations and productive systems will be embedded within suburban development to allow for self-sufficiency, or even perhaps to become a net producer of food, water, and energy? How do new forms of suburbs in these contexts evolve over time?
The Future of Suburbia conference will outline four design frameworks that project a future that is heterogeneous, experimental, autonomous and productive. Each of these themes will be explored by panelists from a broad array of fields including: design, architecture, urban planning, history and demographics, policy, energy, mobility, health, environment, economics, and applied and future technologies.
Join us in conversation to discuss the Future of Suburbia.
Keynote
Future of Suburbia
Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago
In conversation with Joel Budd, The Economist
Heterogeneous
In the future, suburbs will represent the most socio-economic diverse forms of urbanism and will leverage that characteristic to create innovative education, employment and cultural crossovers. How do we prime suburbs for this heterogeneity?
Panel discussion with Jed Kolko, David Rudlin (URBED), Ali Modarres (University of Washington). Moderated by Joel Kotkin (Chapman University)
Productive
In the future, suburbs will be leading exemplars of sustainable living; sequestering carbon, harvesting and producing their own energy, integrating advanced agricultural systems, and promoting net zero waste and water systems. What productive systems will be embedded within suburban development to promote self-sufficiency?
Panel discussion with Prof. Joan Nassauer (University of Michigan), Prof. Susannah Hagan (University of Westminster), Mitchell Joachim (Terreform One). Moderated by Peter Del Tredici (Harvard Graduate School of Design).
Global Snapshots
Ellen Lou (SOM), Sebastián Fernández Cortina (INFONAVIT), Matthew Niederhauser
Autonomous
In the future, suburbs will be autonomously resilient to environmental pressures, collectively sensing and responding to their surroundings. With the widespread adoption of high-speed autonomous highways, greater distances will be traversed in the same amount of time. How will the adoption of autonomous vehicles permit new suburban territories to emerge; and at the local level, how will redundant spaces from vehicle storage be repurposed?
Panel discussion with Nick Roy (MIT CSAIL, AeroAstro), Dr. Knut Sauer (Hyperloop Tech), Eran Ben-Joseph (DUSP, MIT). Moderated by Joseph Coughlin (MIT, AgeLab).
Experimental
In the future, suburbs will become the frontiers of innovative land-use, built within the framework of permanent flexibility that is able to adapt to new economic opportunities, demographic shifts or new technologies. How do we ensure that flexible land tenure models permit innovation, and enable experimental economies, programs and building?
Panel discussion with Robert Geolas (Research Triangle Foundation), Paul Feiler (CITE), David Neustein (Other Architects). Moderated by Allison Arieff (SPUR).