GLOBAL URBAN INDICATORS AN ANALYSIS OF URBAN INDICATORS USING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SCIENCE (GIS)

Unsolicited Proposal to the Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research by the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science

Background

The Office of Policy Development and Research, Department of Housing and Urban Development, is interested in sponsoring projects with government agencies, academic institutions and private organizations to assist in developing and evaluating policies and programs intended to improve the quality of life in urban areas of emerging nations. In order to improve the urban quality it is necessary to:

• Gain knowledge of the existing state of urban quality within cities in emerging nations.

• Establish a quantitative baseline used to evaluate effectiveness of new policies.

• Transfer expertise in collecting and evaluating urban indicators.

• Foster future longitudinal studies.

The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) is a non-profit organization of universities and other research institutions dedicated to advancing our understanding of geographic processes and spatial relationships through improved theory, methods, technology and data. UCGIS members include the nation’s best GI Science research and educational universities, professional societies, and private affiliates.

UCGIS has three missions:

• To foster multidisciplinary geoscience research and education.

• To promote the use of geographic information science and geographic analysis.

• To serve as the coherent and persuasive voice of the geographic information science research community.

UCGIS has identified urban and regional planning as one of the critical GI Science applications areas. UCGIS is interested in partnering the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to further GI Science research in this critical application area.

The UCGIS Board of Directors has unanimously approved this unsolicited proposal that requests support from the HUD for a project—Global Urban Quality: An Analysis of Urban Indicators using Geographic Information Science (GIS)—that will use geographic information systems (GIS) technology to evaluate urban indicators in developing countries.

Overview

The Global Urban Observatory of the United Nations notes that “Most cities in the developing world are suffering from an information crisis which is seriously undermining their capacity to develop and analyze effective urban policy. They have neither a sustained nor systematic appraisal of urban problems and little appreciation of what their own remedial policies and programs are in fact achieving.” There is little capacity to evaluate the quality of life in the cities of developing countries, and almost no capacity to evaluate this quality within neighborhoods or other smaller areas of large urban environments to understand the dynamics of changing conditions within these smaller areas.

Developing countries can afford neither the technology nor the training required to refine their analyses to a micro level. The proposed project would support the Urban Indicators Programme of the United Nation’s Global Urban Observatory by using UCGIS member institutions to train personnel in developing countries on the application of geographic information systems for disaggregating the macro level Urban Indicator data that is available to a micro level. Through the use of GIS technology, the analysis can be refined to a “micro” level, disaggregating country data on indicators to cities and even to sub areas within cities to help evaluate the spatial dynamics of urban quality within larger metropolitan areas.

The objectives of the three-year project are to:

Many UCGIS institutions are currently involved in urban indicator research of this nature. Through this project, five UCGIS universities will be paired with institutions in emerging nations to carry out internet-based training and analyses in the project’s first year. Spatial and attribute databases that can be used over the internet by local government policymakers, researchers, and national and global agencies that are involved with urban issues will be developed and provided. By providing internet access to the maps and data, knowledge about cities and sub-areas within cities will be available on a widespread basis.

Format

A symposium of urban indicator researchers will be held at the beginning of the project. This symposium will: 1) demonstrate of the capacity of UCGIS member institutions to perform the analyses; and, 2) investigate the availability of data in the developing countries for the analyses. The symposium would consist of invited presentations from UCGIS member universities describing work currently being done on urban indicators and on related GIS activities within developing countries. Participants would include invited researchers from UCGIS institutions, HUD and the United Nation Urban Indicators program.

The project would pair five UCGIS member institutions with institutions in emerging nations for training on the analysis of indicators of urban quality (Urban Indicators) in developing countries. The five institutions would be chosen through a competitive process. The UCGIS Research Projects Committee, in cooperation with the Office of Policy Development and Research, will develop a request for proposal. The Research Project Committee will evaluate the proposals, and the five best proposals will be recommended to the Office of Policy Development and Research for approval. The five selected universities will develop and present web-based training programs.

At the conclusion of the first year, a second symposium will evaluate the success of the program. Invited participants will evaluate the training, provide recommendations for expanding the program, and identify the resources and funding sources to expand the project in the second and third year.

Deliverables

UCGIS will coordinate all administrative details of the two symposia including:

• Development of participant list

• Development of program

• Invitations

• Meeting arrangements.

UCGIS will identify five member organizations to be responsible for developing web-based training programs on the application of geographic information systems for urban indicator modeling. The UCGIS Research Projects Committee will provide consistent project oversight, coordination. Selected universities will provide final reports.

Following the second symposium, UCGIS will coordinate the final report. The report will include a web site containing:

• Training programs and data sets

• Analytical strategies used

• Conclusions on applicability of analysis strategies.

Timeframe

The project is anticipated to cover three years. The level of effort for the first year is defined above. The table below provides a general timetable.

General information

President:                                             William Huxhold
                                                            414 229-6954
                                                            hux@uwm.edu

Chair, Research Projects Committee:      Dr. Max Egenhofer
                                                            207 581-2114
                                                            max@spatial.maine.edu

Executive Director:                                 Susan McDonald Jampoler
Office address:                                     43351 Spinks Ferry Rd., Leesburg, VA 20176
Voice:                                                   703 779-7980
Fax:                                                      703 771-1635
Email:                                                   execdir@ucgis.org
Web site:                                              http://www.ucgis.org

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