Rethinking streets designed for life

In a new op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Yadan Luo, lecturer in the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design’s Department of Landscape Architecture, describes an innovation in Chinatown that uses a movable market stall to turn a roadway into a pedestrian plaza could create temporary community spaces throughout the city. Luo highlights an insight that has emerged post-pandemic, where public agencies increasingly recognize streets as civic infrastructure. The next frontier is to embed flexibility into policy itself, whether through regulatory frameworks or emerging tools like digital twins, IoT sensors, and AI-based analytics, which help cities identify ideal moments to transform streets safely and equitably.