Kinder Institute to host renowned urban planner Mariela Alfonzo

Rice University
Office of Public Affairs/News and Media Relations

NEWS RELEASE

Amy McCaig
713-348-6777
amym@rice.edu

Kinder Institute to host renowned urban planner Mariela Alfonzo

HOUSTON – (April 7, 2015) – Renowned urban planner Mariela Alfonzo will be the featured speaker at a public presentation titled “Improving Houston’s State of Place: The Economic Case for Making Houston More Walkable” at Rice University 6 p.m. April 13 in the Anderson-Clarke Center’s Hudspeth Auditorium. The event is free but RSVPs are requested by the host, Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

WHAT: “Improving Houston’s State of Place: The Economic Case for Making Houston More Walkable.”

WHEN: 6 p.m. Monday, April 13.

WHERE: Hudspeth Auditorium, Anderson-Clarke Center, Rice University, 6100 Main St. 

According to Alfonzo, walkability is increasingly tied to both emerging market preferences and business success. Some 80 percent of millenials want to live in walkable places, and 58 percent of venture capital in the top five U.S. markets in 2011 went to firms located in walkable areas. Her presentation will show how data-driven storytelling can pave the road for people-first urban design, even in face of auto-dominated landscapes like Houston.

Alfonzo is the founder of State of Place, an urban data analytics platform that helps placemakers identify and economically justify optimal urban design, planning and development projects that create thriving places that people love and that pay off in the marketplace. She also is a research assistant professor at New York University, where she examines the challenges to sustainable urbanization in China. In 2014, she was recognized as one of the Urban Land Institute’s “40 under 40” and in 2013 she was awarded a Fulbright to examine walkability in China. She holds a doctorate in urban planning from the University of California-Irvine.

For more information on the event or to RSVP, visit http://kinder.rice.edu/marielaalfonzo/

Members of the media interested in attending may RSVP to Amy McCaig, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777. 

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