Major gift endows Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities

ITHACA, N.Y. – A foundational gift has endowed and named the Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP), advancing research, teaching and partnerships dedicated to fostering more sustainable and just cities.

The largest single gift to AAP to date, in the amount of $25 million, from architect, retired educator, philanthropist and Cornell alumna Mui Ho, builds on initial support that helped establish the center two years ago. The new funding secures in perpetuity the center’s long-term future and strengthens its mission to catalyze urban transformation through actionable knowledge about how to better plan, design and build thriving cities.

The center aims to help policymakers, communities and other collaborators address urgent challenges facing cities around the world – from climate adaptation to urban mobility to clean air and water.

Cities are at an inflection point, said Victoria Beard, inaugural director of the Mui Ho Center for Cities and professor of city and regional planning. They are vibrant centers of productivity and creativity, generating 80% of the world’s gross national product – but also major contributors of greenhouse gases and rising inequality.

Climate change, a lack of affordable and secure housing, and the coronavirus pandemic, she said, have underscored the fragility of urban living. A few examples: Six hundred million people live on coastlines vulnerable to rising sea levels. The U.S. counts more than 500,000 people homeless, many concentrated in its wealthiest cities. And in the Global South, 70% of residents lack at least one core urban service, such as access to water or waste infrastructure.

“This moment demands that we radically rethink our assumptions and generate new knowledge to ensure our collective urban future,” said Beard, who is also associate dean of research initiatives in AAP.

Toward that end, the Mui Ho Center for Cities has organized faculty research labs into three thematic hubs – for Sustainable Cities; Just and Equitable Cities; and Design and Development.

At a launch event planned this fall, the center expects to share data from the first-ever Global Survey of City Leaders, a survey of local government executive leaders in 125 countries about their priorities and the challenges and opportunities they face. The center has launched two other multi-year initiatives: Urban Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, examining lessons learned from urban climate adaption in cities in the Global South and Global North, and Inclusive Urban Development, focused on how to build cities that address systemic racism and disenfranchisement and support neighborhoods where everyone can live, move and thrive.

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

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