Penn IUR Co-Directors Genie Birch and Susan Wachter write about the promise of geospatial technologies in promoting sustainable urbanization.
That the earth's landscape is changing around us is no secret: urban areas are expanding, population densities are increasing, and green spaces are shrinking. In the midst of this transformation, urbanists, scientists, and policy makers are watching and weighing in, hoping that through better understanding of the dynamics of urbanization and sustainability, the earth can adapt, accommodate, and—yes—even thrive as the global population nears an anticipated 9 billion or more in the next three decades.
The good news is that we now have tools to look squarely at changes in land cover and urban form, to see how they might be shifting the global maps describing the natural and manmade features that affect how people live. Some of the most promising tools are geospatial technologies, methods used to visualize, measure, and analyze earth's features. The most well known are GPS (global positioning systems), GIS (geographical information systems), and RS (remote sensing).
FULL STORY: Geospatial Technologies for a Healthier, More Sustainable, and Increasingly Urban Earth
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research