Isaiah D. Murray
“I grew up on the Southside of San Antonio and currently attend Cornell University, where I’m studying urban planning and information science with a minor in inequality studies. I was studying abroad in Rome during the Spring 2018 semester when I received an email from the Rivard Report and saw San Antonio had an Urban Future Lab. I was happy to hear we have a think-tank in San Antonio focused on the future of the city and wanted to be a part of the conversation and the current momentum of urban transformation. I immediately called the UTSA architecture program and asked to speak with Dr. Petrov. After a few video chats and email exchanges, the opportunity to intern came about and here I was. Once I met Dr. Petrov and the rest of the interns, I was passionate about the work we were doing and the larger purpose. The Urban Future Lab has been a place where everything is possible. It is a space for brain meshing and idea delving. We identify possibilities for our city, test them, critique them, reinvent them, and add our own seasoning.”
On the app and software development the Urban Future Lab interns worked on during the summer:
“The purpose of the software is to develop a community-driven application with an artificial intelligence (AI) component. Our goal is to accurately identify the assets on the Southside of San Antonio and make this known to activate inactive assets.”
Susana Maria Ruiz Sors
“I was born and raised in Tampico, a city on Mexico’s Gulf Coast. I’m a senior at UTSA studying Economics and Public Administration, but my biggest interest has always been urban design. In May of 2018 I browsed the UTSA College of Architecture, Construction and Planning website and discovered the Urban Future Lab. After reading the lab’s mission statement, I felt my personal goals were aligned with the lab’s, so I reached out to Dr. Petrov to see if I could become part of it. The Urban Future Lab makes me feel I’m having a clear, direct, positive impact on the world around me and in the lives of others.”
On the importance of interdisciplinarity in the Urban Future Lab:
“Having multiple points of view coming from diverse people of different disciplines, ethnicities, backgrounds, and cultures is extremely helpful when dealing with subjective issues that affect whole communities. We inspire, motivate and, most importantly, ground each other.”
On collective knowledge:
“Collective knowledge is collective memories, attitudes, sentiments. This is not necessarily the physical city itself, but how people live within it. It is the culture, or lifestyle of a particular community, the mindset under which it perceives the world around it and interacts with the world around it. The authentic condition of a community feeds into the attitudes and perceptions of a collective and the members of it.”
Adri Lintz
“I was born in El Paso but have lived in San Antonio for most of my life. I grew up understanding the city through an interesting lens. San Antonio wasn’t ‘cool.’ Locals didn’t go to the Riverwalk or explore the city further than their side of town. I didn’t question our continuously expanding suburban environment, and lacked a deep appreciation for our unique music, language and traditions. I recently graduated from UTSA with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture, which ended up fostering four years of adoring the city I had grown up in. I had a complete shift in my view of my city, and I now see the unique ‘puro-ness’ that makes it completely exceptional from any other place.”
On data:
“Within the first few weeks researching San Antonio’s South Side, we immediately noticed a schism between what GIS and demographic metadata was saying and how it differed from the actual “climate” of the communities. We had the goal to identify what made and shaped the strong social and cultural identity of San Antonio’s South Side. In the form of assets, we mapped and diagrammed tangible realities and community narratives as part of our engagement process to hear their stories.”