Center for Urban Environmental Research (CUER) (1985 to present)

Established in 1985 as the Institute of Urban Environmental Research and recently re-chartered by the University as the Center for Urban and Environmental Research, CUER was created to provide opportunities for Geography faculty and students to engage in innovative research and actual urban development activities that exceed the normal boundaries of academic courses.

Under co-directors David Rain and Ryan Engstrom, CUER is a vehicle for externally funded research, an opportunity for faculty release time and a financial support for students. Furthermore, it gives students and teachers the opportunity to fulfill the University's commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and community service. Many projects established under the aegis of CUER have evolved into substantial long-term research and development activities in the Greater Washington area.

In the past two years, CUER has become an important vehicle for student geospatial training and support through tailored short-term projects undertaken in cooperation with university departments and offices, local non-profit organizations, bilateral and multilateral agencies, government organizations, and private institutions.

In response to requests received by the Center for geospatial solutions to various research questions, the department refocused the mission of the center to one that harnesses this new technology-driven dimension of urban and environmental research. CUER is the only organization within the university with the requisite skill and training programs to offer these types of analyses.

Some of the collaborative projects include:

• The World Bank
  CUER continued its fruitful collaboration with the World Bank following the successful completion of the Nepalese GIS project in 2006. CUER developed and delivered a tailored GIS workshop using World Bank GIS data and field office scenarios.
• Academy for Educational Development (AED)
  CUER worked with AED to build a spatial data inventory for Equatorial Guinea that relates to a census of schools currently being conducted there. Map products produced by CUER were recently presented to the Minister for Education in Equatorial Guinea.
• Pan American Development Institute
  CUER geocoded and developed a series of maps charting civil society organizations and activities, for the Cuba Development Initiative.
• National Institutes of Health
  This project is entitled “Health, Poverty and Place: Modeling Inequalities in Accra Using Remote Sensing and GIS.” CUER Project Team: Drs. Engstrom and Rain, with assistance from grad students Sarah Antos and Christi Ludlow in collaboration with colleagues from the Harvard University School of Public Health and the San Diego State University.
• Cartographic Services for Publication
  CUER completed a number of small projects that entailed cartographic products for publication for a number of independent authors. CUER Project Team: Nuala Cowan, and multiple student researchers.
• Children's Hospital
  CUER is currently working on two projects with Children's Hospital/GW Medical Faculty. The first examines child immunization rates for DC residents and the potential correlation between those rates and access to primary care providers. This work is being conducted in conjunction with Dr. Linda Fu. The second project analyzes the spatial pattern of HIV//AIDS in the District of Columbia, and was conducted in conjunction with Deborah Quint.
• GWU Office of Real Estate in conjunction with Casey Trees
  As part of a service learning initiative, Dr. Lisa Benton-Short's, Building Cities class (GEOG 187), worked with the GWU Office of Real Estate and DC environmental non-profit Casey Trees to create a tree/vegetation inventory of the campus. These data were used in class projects to suggest “green” additions to the proposed campus plan. All data from the project were presented to both organizations.
• GWU Office of Government, International & Community Relations
  In celebration of President Knapp's Inauguration in November 2007, the Office of Government, International & Community Relations commissioned a series of maps to illustrate community based partnerships among GWU Schools , and district organizations. Due to the success of this series of maps, CUER has been asked to extend this project to map GW governmental, and eventually GW business partnerships in the District.
• GWU Institute for Crisis Risk and Disaster Management (ICDRM)
  CUER and ICDRM recently proposed a collaborative effort to expand and enhance the application of geospatial technologies for funded research and academic programs. This proposal, which was submitted as an REF proposal to the University, requests partial funding to support a postdoctoral scientist for a period of three years as a dedicated resource to institutionalize and expand the current level of informal and resource constrained collaboration.
• GWU School of Business
  This project examines the spatial proximity of critical infrastructure to major rail lines, and is currently determining a methodology to determine a Criticality Index for particular lines, based on economic, business, and census data.
• GWU Department of Sociology
  In collaboration with Dr. Pamela Davidson, CUER will develop a series of maps that examines the correlation of abandoned hazardous waste sites and changing neighborhood demographics of several US cities.
• GWU SIGUR Center , PISA
  A proposal entitled “ Proposal for a Leadership Institute on Creative Responses to Global Climate Change ” was submitted to the Ford Foundation. This proposed project is designed to help the country of Vietnam to improve their response to the potential impacts of climate change. This work is in collaboration between the Elliott School's SIGUR Center Program for International Studies in Asia, and the Geography Department.
• GWU Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management
  CUER is initiating a collaborative effort with the Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management to build an emergency management spatial data infrastructure that can be used in the planning and training aspects of emergency management for the university.
• GW Center for the Study of Globalization
  Funds were provided to update and expand the Globalization, Urbanization and Migration Website that provides data and maps for over immigrant flows to 150 major cities around the world.

Globalization, Cities and Immigration (2002 to present)

This broad research topic is an area of interest for several Geography faculty members: Drs. Benton-Short, Chacko, and Price, and several faculty outside of the Geography Department. Drs. Chacko and Price, along with Dr. Audrey Singer of the Brookings Institute, have completed extensive work on immigration to the Washington , D.C. area. As they continue to develop this research project, CUER believes this timely and critical issue would be of interest to regional area schools, housing authorities, real estate developers and social service providers.

In addition, Drs. Benton-Short and Price have begun a long-term research project analyzing globalization and immigration in cities around the world. This area of research is of increasing importance to urban planners, urban policy makers, social service providers, and educators. In 2002 and 2005 they received grants for the GW Center for the Study of Globalization to develop their comparative urban research. They have created a website that contains information on the immigrant populations for 150 large cities in the world. The Globalization, Urbanization and Migration website can be accessed at www.gstudynet.org/gum

In June 2008 the book, Migrants to the Metropolis: the Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities , was published by Syracuse University Press. The book was co-edited by Marie Price and Lisa Benton-Short. Professor Elizabeth Chacko contributed a chapter to the book on Washington DC . Offering penetrating analyses by leading scholars in the field, Migrants to the Metropolis redirects the global narrative surrounding migration away from states and borders and toward cities, where the vast majority of economic migrants settle.

Immigration today touches the lives and economies of more people and places than ever before. Yet the places that are disproportionately affected by immigrant flows are not countries but cities. This remarkable collection examines contemporary global immigration trends and their profound effect on specific host cities. The book focuses not only on cities with long-established diverse populations, such as New York, Toronto, and Sydney, but also on lesser known established gateway cities such as Birmingham (UK) and Amsterdam, and the emerging gateways of Johannesburg, Washington, D.C., Singapore, and Dublin.

The essays gathered here provide a global portrait of accelerating, worldwide immigration driven by income differentials, social networks, and various state policies that recruit skilled and unskilled laborers. Gateway cities vary in form and function, but many are hyperdiverse, globally linked through transnational networks, and often increasingly segregated spaces. Offering penetrating analyses by leading scholars in the field, Migrants to the Metropolis redirects the global narrative surrounding migration away from states and borders and toward cities, where the vast majority of economic migrants settle. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Urban Environmental Change (1999 to present)

This broad research topic links closely to research interests of many faculty members. Dr. Benton-Short's research on the qualitative analysis of the politics and power relationships on issues such as the protection of open space, urban development, and urban revitalization efforts may generate interest among urban planners, park administrators and citizens' groups in the region. Research in this area has led to two book publications. Cities and Nature was published in 2007, (Routledge) and is co-examines contemporary challenges to the National Mall in Washington DC . The book will likely be published in 2009 or early 2010.

David Rain's research on the Urban Environment investigates the intersection of health and place in urban developing-world contexts.  Using geodemographics, field methods and remote sensing, Dr. Rain measures the vulnerability of urban populations to threats such as flooding.  Since 2007 he and Dr. Engstrom have worked on a National Institutes of Health grant in Accra , Ghana , deriving determinants of neighborhood health and environmental quality that will be used to create vulnerability models that can be used in other cities. He has done urban-environmental fieldwork in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Loudoun County Environmental Indicators Projects (LEIP) (1999 to 2004)

LEIP began in 1998 and conducted research on selected environmental indicators for a five-year project. Part of the research was funded by Loudoun County, and part of the research monies were raised through a variety of sources including foundations, private donors and private sources. In addition to providing an annual report, which analyzed changes in the environment, LEIP also produced a newsletter, which circulated to over 500 people and carried articles on faculty research on environmental monitoring efforts in the county. The LEIP project is on hiatus 2003-2004 while the Geography Department conducts a faculty search. The current search is for an urban geographer with excellent GIS skills. Future searches will be for someone with expertise in remote sensing and environmental change. We anticipate that these hires would have the expertise and interest in participating in CUER and LEIP. We are currently conducting research for the Claude Moore Charitable Foundation. Professor Cheung and a graduate student in Geography, are in the process of examining spatial patterns of the groundwater solutes, and comparing these with land cover, bedrock geology, soil type and other relevant parameters. The research and analysis will be completed by the end of academic year 2003-2004.

Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council
(1985 to 2005)

GWU, through CUER, is the official depository of the Transportation Research Board publications for the District of Columbia. Dr. Benton-Short has been nominated to serve as the Transportation Research Board Representative at The George Washington University. The Transportation Research Board (TRB) is a unit of the National Research Council, a private, nonprofit institution that provides expertise in science and technology to the government, public and scientific communities. Each month, CUER receives more than seven different transportation journals, newsletters, and special reports that document the cutting edge of transportation technology and policy. Currently, Dr. Larry Marcus, a part-time faculty member in the Geography Department, uses these resources for teaching undergraduate and graduate Transportation Geography courses. One goal of CUER is to make a stronger connection between this large and impressive resource and faculty research in urban transportation.