LN.
Leonardo Nicoletti
The UK entered 2021 in the grip of a dangerous third wave of the pandemic, despite Lockdown 3.0 over Christmas, driving down trips taken by people to depressed levels last seen in Lockdown 1.0, reducing economic activity for Q1. Time spent at home closely tracks the severity of lockdowns and mandates to work from home (WFH). Underpinned by the UK’s advanced digital infrastructure and services, WFH is providing resilience to Gross Value Added (GVA) creation, while staff in B2C activities are furloughed. The City of London is emblematic of the potential for outsourced GVA creation under WFH. Its skilled and highly paid staff are too valuable to employers to risk exposure to the virus. WFH, largely preserving GVA, will anchor the future of work.
This report contains a visual narrative on the impact of COVID-19 on mobility in the Greater London Area (GLA). We use data from The Health Foundation, Google and the Greater London Authority to visualize how the pandemic has impacted the use of public transportation, visits to essential services, leisure activities, and work-life over the course of 2020. We also visualize the potential economic impact of the pandemic for the GLA, with the central business district having suffered disproportionally from reduced mobility.
Together with Mikhail Sirenko and Trivik Verma at the TU Delft Computational Urban Science and Policy (CUSP) lab, we have developed an open source computational framework to assist planners in the design of more equitable accessibility policies. Our framework uses open data, network science and machine learning to measure equality in access to infrastructure for any city in the world.
This report contains an analysis of the tree canopy cover and impervious surfaces in Metro Vancouver. Measuring tree canopy cover is a relatively simple way to determine the extent of the urban forest and the magnitude of services it provides. Impervious surfaces are associated with many of the negative effects of urbanization such as increased temperatures (the ‘Urban Heat Island’ effect) and flood risk, along with impacts to stream health through disrupted hydrological cycles and poor water quality.
When implemented in the right location, solar energy provides many benefits. UBC, Vancouver campus, has extensive roof area that could be used for implementation of solar energy facilities such as Photovoltaic solar arrays. However, whether it is beneficial to implement these facilities depends on a variety of influencing factors. This study provides an assessment of UBC campus and its spatial, architectural, and geographical attributes to determine the suitability of UBC rooftops for implementation of solar energy capture facilities. A solar suitability index, ranking all 537 UBC roofs from most suitable for solar energy facilities to least suitable for solar energy facilities is developed.
Together with Mikhail Sirenko and Trivik Verma at the TU Delft Computational Urban Science and Policy (CUSP) lab, we have developed an open source computational framework to assist planners in the design of more equitable accessibility policies. Our framework uses open data, network science and machine learning to measure equality in access to infrastructure for any city in the world.
