Constantine Kontokosta

Urban Informatics in the Science and Practice of Planning

This talk will critically examine the role of data science and analytics in urban planning and public sector decision-making. Kontokosta will discuss real-world applications of data analytics to climate change and energy efficiency, city operations, environmental justice, and problems of systemic bias in algorithmic decision processes. The talk will emphasize the responsible use of large-scale geospatial mobility data to measure, model, and better understand neighborhood inequality in the context of community resilience, mobility networks, and climate action and the need to train the next generation of computational urban planners.

Constantine E. Kontokosta, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning and Director of the Civic Analytics program at the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management. He also directs the Urban Intelligence Lab and holds cross-appointments at the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering (CUE). He is affiliated faculty at the Wagner School of Public Service and was Visiting Professor of Computer Science at the University of Warwick (UK) and a Senior Scholar at the New York Academy of Medicine. Trained in urban planning and computational methods (Columbia), real estate finance and economics (NYU), and systems science and engineering (UPenn), Constantine brings an inter-disciplinary perspective to urban science that connects fundamental research with impact-driven, use-inspired needs. His work leverages large-scale data with computational methods to understand and drive change in urban energy and climate policy, neighborhood dynamics and the impacts of urban development, and bias and fairness in public sector decision-making. He has served on several city and federal advisory committees and boards, including the UNEP Sustainable Buildings and Climate Council, the Americas Board of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and was Vice Chair and Commissioner of the Suffolk County (NY) Planning Commission, where he led initiatives for affordable housing and green building.

Light refreshments will be served. This event is open to Columbia University affiliates with a valid university ID. Any questions on the events can be directed Diana Guo, dg3372@columbia.edu; Vinita Govindarajan, vg2588@columbia.edu; Mauricio Enrique Rada Orellana, mer2245@columbia.edu

The Lecture in Planning Series (LiPS) is co-organized by the MSUP Program and second-year PhD students in Urban Planning: Vinita Govindarajan, Diana Guo, and Mauricio Rada Orellana.