Municipal governments are typically constituted of an elected mayor, an elected city council, and several departments. Unlike many other levels of government, the mayor is typically not responsible for executive oversight of city departments. Instead, cities appoint city managers to manage their departments. Because of the breadth of implementation and regulatory responsibilities that fall to city governments, they have a significant impact on the success of many programs including those aimed at addressing social welfare through their work with community-based organizations, sustainable development through their planning departments, public safety through their police departments, and mobility through their streets and transportation departments.
The inaugural post of our "Local STEM" series features the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). CUSP brings engineers and scientists together with city governments to tackle urban issues. We interviewed CUSP Executive Director Michael Holland to learn more about their work.
Tim Oolman is an engineer with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering who lives in Charleston, South Carolina. He told us about attending a City Council meeting and a State of the City address to learn more about his home.
ESAL Founder Arti Garg writes about how her work with a municipal task force showed her the connection between local litter abatement and San Francisco Bay health. She encourages readers to learn the role their local government plays in the science policy issues that matter to them.
In the second part of this month's "Postcard", Arti Garg describes a follow-up discussion she had with her city's economic development manager after offering public comments at a city council committee meeting. She wrote a one-page summary proposing that the city prioritize cleantech hardware in its development plan.
In this month’s “Postcard”, Arti Garg describes delivering public comments at a city council committee meeting.
In this month's "Postcard", Griff O’Neill, a physicist by training currently working as an engineer in the semiconductor industry in California, describes how he sat down for coffee with two city council members from his community.
Jennifer Boehme is a marine scientist and advisor at the International Joint Commission in Windsor, Ontario, which is a commission of the U.S. and Canada that has oversight of border waters. She attended a city council meeting to understand local priorities for sustainable development, green infrastructure, and mass transit.
A version of this post appeared on March 7, 2018, on AAAS MemberCentral, which features members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The post is reprinted here with permission. Arti Garg is the founder and chair of Engineers & Scientists Acting Locally (ESAL). She is also a data scientist living in the California Bay Area, where she serves on a municipal task force.
As an innovator and "maker" at the nexus of the built environment, energy, and transportation sectors; John Sarter frequently needs to integrate first-of-their-kind electrical systems with other building technologies. To accomplish this, he uses new materials and construction techniques that exceed, and help to advance, existing codes and local regulations. Even in a forward-looking city like San Francisco, though, the development of a building like Sol Lux Alpha – the first multi-unit residential nanogrid project in the United States – wasn't easy.
