As cities work hard to help residents thrive, the neighborhoods they live in are often the front lines of some pretty tough challenges. Simultaneously keeping housing affordable, properties maintained, neighborhoods safe, and businesses open are all efforts that require a robust understanding of how investments and policies shape outcomes across both space and time. Fortunately, experts like Dr. Ken Steif are leading the way.

Dr. Steif leads the Master of Urban Spatial Analytics (MUSA) program at the University of Pennsylvania and is the founder of Urban Spatial, a firm that combines spatial analysis, econometrics and predictive analytics to help government, business and the non-profit sector allocate limited resources across space. Dr. Steif and his team were recently featured by The Atlantic’s CityLab and Next City for their work building a model to predict gentrification in 29 U.S. cities.

GovEx’s own Carter Hewgley sat down with Dr. Steif to explore his work and passion for spatial analysis. During their conversation, they discussed the MUSA program and Urban Spatial’s work predicting gentrification and land values for the Philadelphia land bank, topics of particular interest for any city confronting challenges with affordability or blight.

To learn more about Dr. Steif’s work, check out this post in CityLab, which features his work at Urban Spatial, and check out the MUSA program.
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