GSSS 2019-Project Presentations

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Presentation Schedule

2019 Global Sustainability Summer School Presentations Friday, July 26

Time | Group | Title

9:00 AM – Group 1 – City Scaling of Bike Data

9:15 AM – Group 2 – Modeling complexity and scale

9:30 AM – Group 3 – SDGs - Data-derived arguments for a more granular approach to the SDGs

9:45 AM - Group 4 – Urban Shrinkage and the Sustainability Gap

   10:05 AM – Break (25 min)

10:30 AM – Group 5 – Commutety - social connectivity for improved shared/public transit

10:50 AM – Group 6 – Cycling in São Paulo - using impact data to create a vision for cycling

11:20 AM – Group 7 – Dragging Change - mobilizing informal economies for greener cities in the global south

   12:00 PM – Lunch Break (1 hour)

1:00 PM – Group 8 – Analysis of EV Charging Stations

1:20 PM – Group 9 - Lighttime - night lights and energy scaling in cities

1:50 PM – Group 10 – SDGs and City Level Interventions

   2:30 PM – Break (30 min)

3:00 PM – Group 11 – Taking the “Pulse” of the City

3:20 PM – Farewell

Groups & Titles & Abstracts

Group 1
City Scaling of Bike Data

Cycling for everyday purposes offers many co-benefits. Its ability to advance social good and sustainability (broadly defined) crosses many urban systems, including energy, climate change, local/personal economies, education/youth development, public health and social connectivity. Efforts to promote this advantageous mode of travel, as well as to understand the determinants of bicycling mode choice, have been advanced over several decades. Yet, progress has been slow. Less than 1% of Americans currently ride bicycles to work, for example. In recent years, cities have been the site of increased interest, however, with cycling rates growing in cities much faster than the national average. This growth has been uneven between cities, raising an important question. Why are some cities so far ahead of others in bicycle transportation? As the act of choosing to bike for purposeful transportation is a sociotechnical system, with dependence upon both socioeconomic and infrastructure dimensions, the scaling theory of cities may offer interesting insights into this question. It is with this motivation that this project was undertaken.

Scaling of cities theory mathematically explains empirical data that suggests that urban properties scale according to power relations. Social quantities are theoretically expected to scale according to a factor of 1.15, while infrastructure is expected to scale by a factor of only 0.85. The theory proposes that social network effects explain the observed superlinear behavior of social quantities with city size and that economies of scale in the denser environments that accompany population growth explain the sublinear growth of urban infrastructure.

Biking data is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, though not always in machine-readable form. This project examined two parameters expected to scale superlinearly with city population in accordance with expected social outputs of cities (number of bike commuters and number of daily trips by bike). The impact of time on the scaling factor was also explored for the former variable. Infrastructure-related variables were also examined (number of bike share bikes and two composite measures of ‘bike friendliness’, BNA or bicycle network analysis, and PeopleforBikes City Rating). BNA captures bicycle network comfort and accessibility to places, while City Ratings additionally include factors that address ridership, equity and speed of network transformation.

As predicted by theory, both socioeconomic variables were found to scale superlinearly with city size and number of bike share bikes was found to scale sublinearly. The two indicators of “bike friendliness” did not correlate with population. These parameters may correlate with urban density, a factor that can be impacted by collective decision making. The pattern of individual cities in the regressions were explained in many instances, but anomalies were identified that warrant further investigation.

Despite evidence suggesting strong interest in biking, it has not been normalized in American society and may be in early stages of adoption, which could explain differences between expected scaling factors and empirical ones. This preliminary research suggests that bike behavior and infrastructure may indeed be characterized by city scaling laws and warrants deeper exploration as a means of understanding the emergence of bike cultures.

Participants: Susan Grasso

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Group 6
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Group 7
Dragging Change

The objective of the dragging change research project is to identify a best-practice model for including informal / slum neighborhood communities in the global climate change response. Formal governance generally has limited reach in less developed countries. Where it does reach, it is limited to top-down, regulatory control of a relatively small formal sector. To the extent that the informal / slum community is engaged, the relationship is often confrontational where the desired outcome is the removal of the community. Compounding these difficulties is the reality that climate change is generally not among the primary or immediate concerns of the informal / slum neighborhood communities. Drawing upon generally accepted network theory, while proposing a more sophisticated understanding of the weak – strong relationship distinction, the proposed research project provides a framework for behavioural change at the slum / informal neighbourhood community level, while maintaining reference to formal governance concerns.

Participants: Claudia Brochert, Sarah Brown, Jennifer Giroux, Matthew King, Isabella Perez, Andrew Gardiner

Group 8
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Group 10
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Group 11
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