Duke Initiative for Urban Studies

What is DIUS?

The Duke Initiative for Urban Studies (DIUS) is reopening recruitment for executive team members and fellows for the 2024-2025 executive year. This is a valuable opportunity to contribute to the creation of an interdisciplinary hub for urban studies at Duke, build leadership skills in a growing organization, and leave a legacy of uniquely student-driven curricular change.

Learn more and apply: https://lnkd.in/eGHBaHU5

Calling all Duke students: Join the Urban Studies 101 house course for the fall semester! Register for HOUSECS 59 (32-LEC) in DukeHub

Today’s Urban Studies 101 class hosted local designer-builder Aaron Lubeck of . Aaron spoke about recent changes to the City of Durham’s zoning code, which included eliminating parking minimums and allowing for greater densities outside the Downtown core.

Mayor leads a tour of Downtown as part of the Better Cities Film Festival South

Join Stephen Buckley, former leader of the Philadelphia and Toronto Transportation departments and vice president at Kimley Horn, for a talk on the future of urban transportation. The talk will be at 3:00 on Friday, February 2 in Teer 203!

Thanks, Vaneesha Patel '23 for this awesome write-up in Southern Urbanism about our work at Duke University!

GENERATION NEXT | Inspiring the Next Wave of Urbanists Duke students have created a hub out of nothing—and so can you.

We are excited to announce this great opportunity with ! Visit the link in bio for application information and DM us with any questions you may have 🏙️

We’re excited to see the Duke Magazine profile featuring our co-founders.

Why do we need a program to study cities at Duke? The new book, “Age of the City: Why our Future will be Won or Lost Together”, puts it succinctly: “Cities are now home to more than half of the global population, a share that will rise to two-thirds by 2050. That means the forces shaping life in cities now also shape our world as a whole. Cities throughout history have been the great incubators of human progress, through their power to bring us closer together – something we need now more than ever. Many of the answers to our greatest challenges are to be found in reforming our cities, but if we fail to take action, cities will magnify the perils that lie ahead.”

If You Build It ... They Will Study It When Charlie Colasurdo ’23, Li Chen “Lindsay” Hu ’23 and Zoe Macomber enrolled as Duke freshmen, they had an interest in cities and urban life as both a field of study and possible future career. But each discovered that Duke did not offer what they were looking for – a program focused on ...

Durham designer-builder guest lectured Urban Studies 101 class , speaking about Durham’s recent approval of a slate of zoning reforms. Lubeck was closely involved with the development of Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development (SCAD), a proposal that will:
* Eliminate minimum parking requirements.
* Establish minimum densities of five to eight residential units per acre in commercial and office zones and eliminate maximum residential densities there.
* Allow places of worship to build accessory dwelling units for anyone, not just their staff, and places some limits on their location and level of review.
* Require projects with over 100 units to have at least 5,000 square feet of civic or commercial space.
* Allow planned residential developments that incorporate commercial or office uses to build the components in any order.
* Eliminates site plan review when there are 10 or fewer townhomes and 20 or fewer ADUS.
* Reduces the buffers required around some residential projects. Permits a new housing type, the “detached rowhouse,” a hybrid between a townhome and single-family house.
* Allows ADUs to be built closer to the road and increases the maximize size of an ADU from 800 square feet to 1,000 square feet on single-story units and 1,200 square feet on multiple stories.
* Allows any lot with a structure built before 1950 to be subdivided into small lots. Planning staff say this will help save old homes from demolition.
* Changes many other limitations around yards, driveways, garages and lot size for infill development. There is special emphasis on the requirements restricting corner and flag-shaped lots.

We’re so excited to bring in urbanists from around the world to meet and to see how Durham changes under these new zoning codes.

Find the course on DukeHub as HOUSECS 59 (22-LEC).
Swipe to see highlights from past semesters!🏙️🏢🚃

Swipe to see highlights from past semesters 🏙️ 🏢🚃