More than 80% of Americans and over half the world’s population live in urban areas. High-density cities are transforming how people live, work, travel, and manage urban infrastructure. With the nation’s urban areas facing emerging challenges threatening livability, safety, and inclusion, it is the streetscape — neighborhood streets, sidewalks, and public spaces — where a city becomes a home.
The Center for Smart Streetscapes (CS3) is a Gen-4 National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center created in 2022 taking a new approach to smart cities and streets by prioritizing community input, organizational partnerships, and education initiatives in the research process. Based in Harlem, New York, the center is a partnership between Columbia University, Lehman College, Florida Atlantic University, University of Central Florida, and Rutgers University.
Full Mission and Values
Our Foundations
Raising the next generation of smart city innovators through educational programs for high schoolers, undergraduates, graduate students, and K-12 teachers.
Valuing community members as key drivers of research, while achieving the full potential of research through our Diversity and Culture of Inclusion.
Partnering with industry and government to develop an innovation ecosystem that translates research into products, fostering entrepreneurship through our accelerator.
Making streets more livable, safe, and inclusive through research with Columbia, Lehman, FAU, UCF, and Rutgers, spanning five Research Thrusts and three testbeds.
Community at the Heart of Research
CS3's research approach is unique. Community engagement serves as a mechanism for direct use-inspiration, a community-first approach in which residents identify streetscape issues and remain central drivers of how to address them.
Our community members are treated as stakeholders and given opportunities to identify streetscape problems, inform research, and advise on the development of technological applications that address real problems on their streetscape.
Researchers work closely with a diverse cohort of more than 80 non-academic community partners — residents, researchers, students, municipalities, K-12 schools, and industry partners — both as collaborative co-producers of knowledge and as auditors of technology research and development.
DCI and Anonymous Feedback Form
At CS3, we believe diversity and culture of inclusion are essential for creating truly innovative and effective solutions for our communities. Find our full collaboration agreement, rules of engagement, and more at our full DCI page here. We invite you to fill out our DCI Anonymous Feedback Form below, an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback to advance the CS3 community.
Engineering Workforce Development
We are dedicated to broadening participation in the next generation of smart city researchers and innovators through programs for high schoolers, undergraduates, graduate students, and K-12 teachers. We encourage all who are interested to apply for one of our inclusive education programs. Learn more by watching the video, and explore our programs at the link below.
Research
CS3 research builds livable, safe, and inclusive streetscapes in communities by drawing from five engineering and scientific areas, also known as "Research Thrusts": Connectivity & Wi-Edge; Situational Awareness; Privacy, Security, & Fairness; Public Interest Technology; and Streetscape Applications. Click here to view our full research page with recent CS3 research publications, and click on the images below to learn about each thrust.
