Sustainable Smart Urban Systems (SSUS) Project

Sustainable Smart Urban Systems (SSUS) Project

The SSUS project at SCIGC looks to develop a new form of urban system; an urban “metastructure.”. The urban metastructure is not simply a set of new, inter-connected infrastructure systems or digital “smart city” systems, such as water systems that are aware of the electricity grid loads and can shed power consumption on demand to prevent grid overload. Rather, the urban metastructure is the “set of physical infrastructures, digital IT technologies, AI algorithms, regulations and policies, renewable energy technologies, financing mechanisms, community engagements, businesses and business models, partnerships, and other institutions that must be created, applied, and sustained in concert with each other to provide of a high quality of urban life in tomorrow’s cities.” The definition of metastructure recognizes that solutions for the challenges of urbanization, environmental pollution, and climate change will not come from a single discipline or a single university. The provision of a high quality of urban life will require the unified, simultaneous creation of new physical infrastructure, digital IT infrastructure, municipal data ownership and governance policies, cyber-security protections, financial resources and risk models, community interactions, entrepreneurial businesses, city departments, and measures of performance or “quality of life”. The creation of these metastructures forms the basis of the SSUS research vision and the types of projects that comprise SSUS research.

See SCIGC Director, Professor Michael Lepech, discuss the new metrics and approaches being used to measure urban quality of life. Click Here for the video.