The 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. house 65% of the nation’s population, consume a major portion of the nation’s energy resources, are saddled with aging infrastructures, and transport people and goods inefficiently. Cities are responsible for 70 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions and, thus, represent a major opportunity for addressing climate change as well as energy security. Cities are complex multiscale adaptive systems characterized as a dynamic assembly of physiographic, engineered, socio-economic, and human systems.

To date, urban challenges have largely been addressed by focusing on individual urban components and sectors, such as building efficiency, energy supply, transportation, water supply, etc. Understanding the complexity, dynamics, and interdependencies of urban systems, and applying this knowledge to guide the unprecedented urban expansion and renewal that will occur over the next few decades is an imperative with respect to climate, energy, and environmental goals as well as an unparalleled economic opportunity for the U.S. Argonne and UChicago are increasingly collaborating with the City of Chicago and other cities, and Argonne scientists are working with colleagues from other DOE Laboratories to define a national urban science and engineering initiative. This talk will summarize current and planned activities and opportunities in these areas.