**First Class 09/03**

Instructors:

Kent Larson 
Luis Alonso

Context: 

Zoning has become the city’s hidden operating system—the invisible code that dictates how urban life unfolds.

It impacts where and how people can live, work, shop, learn, and move. It shapes the supply and cost of housing, the character of neighborhoods, access to everyday amenities, and the prospects of local businesses.

But today’s cities confront overlapping crises: climate risk, housing scarcity, infrastructure strain, demographic shifts, and the reconfiguration of work, retail, learning, and healthcare that is upending traditional urban anchors. The zoning frameworks inherited from the 20th century—built for stability and uniformity—are increasingly misaligned with the volatility and urgency of the 21st. What cities need now is a new, responsive operating system for urban life.

Course Focus:

Students will investigate a radical alternative to static zoning—a dynamic, incentive-based, pro-social framework that treats the city as a living system. This model channels market forces through feedback loops, much like a natural ecosystem, to cultivate what we call civic homeostasis: a state of balance that adapts as conditions change.

San Francisco is now undergoing radical zoning reform, and the City Science group is collaborating with city leaders to help communities understand its impact, and to explore what comes beyond zoning. Students in the class will have the opportunity to contribute directly by:

• Analyzing urban data—from mobility flows and land use to demographic shifts—to decode the hidden patterns shaping communities today.
• Building simulations—both top-down statistical models and bottom-up agent-based systems—to test how interventions ripple through the social, economic, and environmental fabric of the city.
• Designing dynamic incentive structures—to balance housing, workplaces, and daily amenities, while exploring how an AI Urban Advisor could provide city supervisors with continuous feedback—an early form of augmented intelligence for urban governance.
• Prototyping a CityScope platform—to foster transparent, participatory community engagement.
• Experimenting with parametric design and generative AI tools —as engines for reimagining urban rules and forms.

Structure: 

Each week, students will engage with a key theme introduced through a presentation by a guest speaker. The class session then builds on this foundation through discussion, student presentations, and collaborative project work, creating a balance between guided learning and hands-on development

Deliverables:

By the end of the course, each team will deliver a fully developed engagement methodology, a working prototype, and a final presentation that simulates or demonstrates how the tool would be used in a real-world setting.

Weekly assignments, mid-term, and final project.

Enrolment: 

This class seeks highly motivated students with a background in data analytics, engineering, architecture, urban planning, and public policy. Repeatable for credit with permission of instructor.

Questions? Send an email to maitanei@mit.edu