I want to solve

Bringing more joy to built environments

1

build joyful diverse third places

My goal is to understand, facilitate, and build more joyful urban spaces.

This goal encompasses concerns of environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and equitable accessibility. Importantly, my goal goes beyond those goals alone to being about moving our cities to a future where our built environment catalyzes our well-being and happiness.

This goal encompasses concerns of environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and equitable accessibility. Those concerns are table stakes, and must be included in any serious attempt to make our cities better. My thesis is that those concerns are not enough, by themselves, to radically improve our cities. We can, and should, retrofit our cities to make them more equitable and sustainable, but we should also aim to move our cities forward to a future where our built environment catalyztres our well-being and happiness.

In so much of what I’ve seen at MIT, I’ve seen this blend of thinking radically and thinking practically.

Ensuring technology helps rather than hurts our cities

My background is in software, and I do believe technology can help our cities significantly. However, I am not an advocate for integrating technology for technology’s sake, and we must be deliberate and thoughtful about ensuring technology serves the goals we have for our societies and our cities. Anyone working closely with AI, like I have been, must understand this.

Bridge theory with action, mens et manus

Make change that is systematic and resilient

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MIT looks at things systematically

Of all the institutions I’ve researched, MIT is the most interested in treating research areas not as standalone but as integrated systems across multiple disciplines. This is what attracted me to the System Design and Management program, and is what attracts me to doing learn and research more about city planning at MIT. The built environment of a city is not distinct from matters of policy, public health, transportation, economics, and technology. One can see this in the number of labs within the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and the number of other research centers that also work with cities (Transportation, Media Lab, Morningside). It is this integrative approach that first gave me the excitement to begin working

Working with government

Builds cities for everyone

elderly

children

low density