The Sixth Migration: Mobility-Oriented Development & Performance-based Codes for the City of Tomorrow

Emerging transportation technologies have the potential to drastically reshape the landscape of cities and regions. To date, however, debates around new mobility and automated vehicles have focused largely on questions of data-sharing, roadway design, and the interface between public and private sectors. Less attention has been paid to the implications on built form, land use policy, or regional development. Looking back at past movements in land use and regional planning, this lecture considers a potential framework at the intersection between mobility and land use, based on the integration of mobility-as-a-service and performance-based codes. In contrast to transit-oriented development (TOD), which has been characterized by density around fixed transit assets and form-based codification systems, mobility-oriented development (MOD) explores how emerging technologies and trends, such as telecommuting, ride-hailing, and automated vehicles, could radically reshape places beyond the transit shed, without producing the negative externalities produced by auto-oriented development.

David Vega-Barachowitz is an Associate at WXY architecture + urban design and an adjunct professor of urban planning and design at Syracuse University. As a city planner and urban designer, David’s work explores the instrumentality of codes in shaping the built environment. His practice focuses on the development of new tools, research methods, and design perspectives that investigate and challenge the DNA of cities, from zoning and building codes to street and engineering manuals. David has spearheaded a range of projects and initiatives, including the development of neighborhood-based public realm plans, research on new and emerging mobility options, and guidelines for the design and retrofit of public housing complexes. He is a former Senior Urban Designer at NYC Planning and he launched the Designing Cities Initiative at the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO). At NACTO, David spearheaded the production of NACTO’s Urban Street Design Guide (Island Press, 2013) and Urban Bikeway Design Guide (Island Press, 2012), now standard design guidelines for cities across the country. He is co-author of Start-up City: Inspiring Private and Public Entrepreneurship, Getting Projects Done, and Having Fun (Island Press, 2015), which he wrote with Gabe Klein. David holds a Master’s of City Planning from MIT and a B.A. in Urban Studies from Columbia University.