Reimagining Cities with Prof. David Hsu

Paradoxically, urban planning professor David Hsu doesn’t consider himself a “city person,” but he has great appreciation and enthusiasm for cities as places where meaningful steps can be taken toward climate mitigation. In this episode, Prof. Hsu explains that urban planners can help move cities to take action to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the construction, heating, power, and transport sectors. But he observes that the most lasting and successful actions are ones that are implemented democratically, with the consent and participation of the affected communities. To win over those communities, he says, technical experts have to learn to communicate solid facts using math that even a layperson can follow. And they need to learn that sometimes there can be more than one defensible position in response to a given problem—which is why Prof. Hsu often asks his students to read multiple papers that take conflicting positions on a particular problem, and to evaluate which paper’s (or papers’) arguments are more persuasive. Because in the end, it’s people who need to be persuaded to take action against climate change—solutions won’t implement themselves. Relevant Resources: MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal Professor Hsu’s faculty page 11.165J Urban Energy Systems and Policy on MIT OpenCourseWare Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with Us If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517 On our site On Facebook On X On Instagram On LinkedIn Stay Current Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCW If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! Credits Sarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer Dave Lishansky, producer Jackson Maher, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman