Urban Systems - Publications - Faculty & Research

Profile

Inessa Lurye

curiosity drew her into urban studies, which in turn drew her into professional work on urban issues. At McKinsey, Inessa consulted with the Harlem Children’s Zone, helping them expand their services from... View Details

26 Apr 2011
Op-Ed

HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day

work together to create all aspects of the urban environment. Also necessary are new systems and processes for helping cities operate efficiently and effectively, including the use of new information and... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Energy; Utilities

10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Cable TV: From Community Antennas to Wired Cities

John Walson launched the first commercial cable television system in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, an Appalachian town eighty-six miles from Philadelphia. 1,2 Walson worked as a lineman for Pennsylvania Power & Light and also owned a... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas R. Eisenmann; Media & Broadcasting; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation

09 Apr 2021
Blog Post

Reflections on Student Conferences in 2020

energy transition, while another session with Lauren Faber O’Connor, Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of LA Mayor’s Office explored urbanization and the future of the grid. In between sessions, the Club encouraged networking in a... View Details

01 Jun 2016
News

Ears to the Ground

division. When Ralph Clark (MBA 1993) took over as CEO of ShotSpotter in 2010, he inherited a groundbreaking technology and a broken business model. The company uses sensors, strategically placed throughout an urban area, to instantly... View Details

Keywords: Jason Feifer; photography by Vance Jacobs

05 Dec 2023
Blog Post

Taking Learning Beyond the Classroom

Grasso of Urban Mining Industries, protagonists of the case, "Harvard University and Urban Mining Industries: Decarbonizing the Supply Chain", facilitated by Professors Shirley Lu and Robert Kaplan. The case... View Details

24 Feb 2016
News

Did William Alden Invent the Car of the Future in the 1960s?

Alden envisioned a hybrid system he called the StaRRcar—a “car-like train” with small pods that a passenger could call like a taxi and would ride on rails directly to the desired destination. It was an idea ahead of its time, Adi... View Details

01 Jun 2013
News

Education Innovation

populated, in part, by HBS alumni. Doug Lemov (MBA 2004) is pushing to "reteach" teachers, equipping practitioners with real-world skills to improve learning ("5 Bright Ideas"). Scott Given (MBA 2010) and his fellow charter school reformers are forcing a... View Details

Keywords: Elementary and Secondary Schools; Educational Services

01 Jun 2013
News

Minding The Gap

woes. But the improbably massive, Gothic-style building on a hilltop at 3220 The Alameda rises far above its gritty surroundings, as does the reputation of the school it houses. In an urban school system... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Blagg, Deborah; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Educational Support Services; Educational Services; Elementary and Secondary Schools; Educational Services

01 Sep 2017
News

City of Dreams

more concrete (sometimes literally) world of doing that affected a great many more people in far more fundamental ways. For the next seven years, he served as an urban development specialist for the Asian Development Bank, working on... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photographed by Alice Carfrae; Sri Lanka; Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development; Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development; Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development; Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development

11 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 11

systems that place these leaders in positions of power, Indispensable sheds new light on how we may be able to identify the best leaders and what lessons we can learn, from both the process and the result. Profiling a mix of historic and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

China’s 60-Year Road from Revolution to World Power

This was a growth fueled above all by private enterprise, urban and rural, in what we may now consider the first "golden age" of Chinese capitalism. This new economic activity began and spread outward from China's centers of... View Details

Keywords: by William C. Kirby

24 Apr 2014
News

A bold experiment in education

city after the first year, on track to move the school from an “F” to a “C” in two years. London’s Sunday Telegraph declared NOCP “part of the boldest experiment in education reform seen in the United States.” Says Kleban: “We are part of a broader revolution to... View Details

04 Jan 2016
News

Taking Time Out for a Challenge

After living in Sierra Leone from 2006 to 2010, where she worked as a founding board member of the Welbodi Partnership, which supports the country’s health system in delivering essential services to women and children, HBS doctoral... View Details

Keywords: ebola; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

14 Dec 1999
Research & Ideas

From Spare Change to Real Change: The Social Sector as a Beta Site for Business Innovation

Despite its long economic boom, America's social problems abound. To ensure future economic success, the country needs dramatic improvement in public schools, more highly skilled workers, jobs with a future for people coming off the welfare rolls, revitalized View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

01 Feb 1997
News

Mexico on the Brink: A Conversation with Juan Enriquez-Cabot (MBA '86)

From 1988 to 1993, Juan Enriquez-Cabot was CEO of SERVIMET, a for-profit urban development entity of the Mexico City government which grew 4,000 percent during his tenure and became the city's largest revenue source after taxes. In 1993,... View Details

15 Mar 2010
News

Solving the Water Challenge

Keywords: Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development; Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development; Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development; Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development

01 Mar 2009
News

Having a Ball

founder and CEO of a Virginia technology company, snapped it up through his Stafford Foundation. “We’ve gotten away from the core values that made America great,” Stafford told the Washington Post (December 4, 2008). “We just need to get back to caring about each... View Details

Keywords: Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support; Government; Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations; Personal Services

01 Jun 2009
News

Porter Helps Jerusalem Mayor with Economic Development

a press briefing, Barkat explained that he has adopted Porter’s cluster-based development approach to focus on three existing areas of strength: culture and tourism, health care and life sciences, and outsourced medical and financial services. Until now, “Jerusalem has... View Details