Stefan Al

Stefan Al, PHD, is an architect, urban designer, and infrastructure expert at global design firm Kohn Pedersen Fox in New York. Over the years, he served as a TED resident, advisor to the United Nations High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, and professor of urban design at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include Beyond Mobility: Planning Cities for People and Places (coauthored with Robert Cervero and Erick Guerra) and The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream, a Wall Street Journal "best book to read." He is a native of the Netherlands, a low-lying country that would not exist without flood protection.

Adapting Cities to Sea Level Rise

Green and Gray Strategies

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy floods devastated coastal areas in New York and New Jersey. In 2017, Harvey flooded Houston. Today in Miami, even on sunny days, king tides bring fish swimming through the streets in low-lying areas. These types of events are typically called natural disasters.

Beyond Mobility

Planning Cities for People and Places

Cities across the globe have been designed with a primary goal of moving people around quickly—and the costs are becoming ever more apparent. The consequences are measured in smoggy air basins, sprawling suburbs, unsafe pedestrian environments, and despite hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, a failure to stem traffic congestion. Every year our current transportation paradigm generates more than 1.25 million fatalities directly through traffic collisions.