Research

Sensors, mobile phones, cars, cameras, and drones are just some of the devices that are almost continuously collecting data in the metropolis. The wealth of data in cities is staggering, making them ideal spheres for data science applications such as machine learning, but also critical focal points for ensuring privacy, security, and fairness in the use of those data. For this effort to be optimal, data generators, analyzers, and users need to coordinate their efforts and aims. The Metropolis Project catalyzes and serves as a connection hub for such interdisciplinary endeavors.

Professors Ramaswami, Bou-Zeid, Mandal, and Meggers have been collaborating to understand patterns of heat stress and developing technologies and urban design strategies at the nexus of heat stress mitigation and India’s energy transition. Metropolis Awardees PhD students Neha Agarwal and James Coleman work with a team of post docs on this project. Summer 2024 work has resulted in a key journal paper in "One Earth".

Several Metropolis faculty will be partnering on a report of the United Nation’s International Resources Panel, on Decarbonizing Global Metro Regions with Climate Resilience, Health and Equity Co-Benefits. The IRP is a sister organization to the IPCC and the IPBES. The report will be led by IRP Panel Member, Professor Anu Ramaswami. Sections on heat resilience will involve the works fo Professors Bou-Zeid and Mandal, and policy and governance will involve Professor Bradlow and Beda-Geuder. Princeton faculty will work with researchers from other international research Universities, as well as urban planners and policymakers from global cities. The report has been commissioned in the prior year with Professor Ramaswami making a presentation in Nairobi, Kenya, in May 2024. An initial set of Global Metro regions has been identified and includes: Chennai, India, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Shanghai, China, Iloilo City, Phillipines, and Accra, Ghana.

The Metropolis Project takes advantage of Princeton’s small size and history of cross-disciplinary connections to create opportunities for scholars and students in the engineering and physical sciences to explore connections to their peers in the humanities, social sciences, and arts. Focal themes include inequalities of access to new urban technologies, the economics and policy of the urban technosphere, and science and technology as socio-material phenomena. A key partner on this theme is the Princeton Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities.

As the world population becomes increasingly urbanized, securing cities from natural and human-made disasters and health hazards is increasingly critical to our well-being. Princeton researchers are developing novel materials, adaptable structures, advanced hazard prediction, health monitoring technologies, and other innovative solutions to keep our physical, cyber, and health infrastructure secure and resilient. The Metropolis Project collaborates with various other centers on campus, and with various companies and external organizations, to support this research.

Cities integrate human and engineered systems, but they also critically depend on natural Earth systems within and outside of their political boundaries. Understanding the interaction of cities with the surrounding Earth systems, particularly as the latter change due to human action at a global scale, has never been more urgent. Princeton is a world-leader in environmental and Earth sciences, and the Metropolis Project extends these strengths to the interaction of urban and Earth systems.

Cities in the 21st century will increasingly become an amalgam of the conventional physical infrastructure and the new cyber-physical systems that guide and modulate many aspects of day-to-day life. These include smart sensors and actuators, robots, drones and driverless cars, and smart buildings, to name a few. The Metropolis Project supports the development of these cyber technologies, as well as their safe, effective, beneficial, and equitable deployment in cities.

Autonomy and electrification of transport modes in the city will have an outsized impact on urban energy systems, socio-economic equity, land use, and environmental quality in the coming decades. The benefits and drawbacks of this transformation are uncertain, and a deliberate effort is needed to ensure an outcome that positively impacts all citizens. The Metropolis Project is the coordinator of multiple ongoing projects that deal with this challenge.