School of Design

PHILADELPHIA- The 40,000 vacant parcels in Philadelphia cause $3.6 billion in reduced property values, cost more than $20 million per year in city maintenance and nets the city  $70 million less in property taxes, according to a report on the vacant land management system in Philadelphia released this month by the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Philadelphia.

Today, Dr. Eugénie Birch, co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research (IUR), signed a partnership agreement with UN-HABITAT, the UN agency that focuses on urban affairs.  The agreement certified the role that the University of Pennsylvania and  Penn IUR will play in the World Urban Campaign, which aims to unite the public and private sectors together with civil society, to elevate sustainable urbanization to the top of the agenda for governments around the world.

Today, Eugenie Birch and Susan Wachter, co-directors of the Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) announced that Dr. Camille Cates Barnett, formerly Managing Director of the City of Philadelphia, will become a Penn IUR Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. With support of a William Penn Foundation grant to Penn IUR, Dr. Barnett will research best practices and innovations in urban governance, as well as pen articles on those topics and guest lecture in Penn IUR’s undergraduate urban research colloquium.
 

PHILADELPHIA –- Engineers, design architects and cell biologists from the University of Pennsylvania will use a National Science Foundation grant to utilize the flexibility and sensitivity of human cells as the models for next-generation building “skins” that will adapt to changes in the environment and increase building energy efficiency.