How Supply Chain Data Can Affect Bike Lanes as Much as the Cost of Bread

Picture this chain of events: people living in small homes aren't able to store as much food as people in larger homes, so they might tend to purchase groceries more often. That sort of shopping behavior then leads them to prefer buying their food from close-by neighborhood stores, which might also be smaller and unable to stock as much product as huge supermarkets. And that, in turn, means delivery trucks will need to come more often.

This scenario is a classic example of the complex urban systems that the MIT Megacities Logistics Lab is trying to study. According to Logistics Lab director Edgar Blanco, the question of supply chains has historically only focused on highly industrialized cities like New York, London, or Tokyo, even though the fastest-paced urbanization happening today is unfolding in cities in emerging markets like China or Brazil. That’s why the Lab is developing Km2, a public-access database that maps logistics systems (including retail space, parking areas, deliveries, and traffic disruptions) in rapidly developing cities around the world.