The Urban Portal

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African Center for Cities

University of Capetown
The African Centre for Cities (ACC) is an interdisciplinary research and teaching program focused on quality scholarship regarding the dynamics of unsustainable urbanization processes in Africa, with an eye on identifying systemic responses.

Filed under: Organizations

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Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM)

The Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving public policy and management by fostering excellence in research, analysis and education.  With over 1,500 academic, practitioner, organizational and institutional members, APPAM promotes its mission through the annual Fall Research Conference, with the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM), the association's journal, several award programs and various activites including international and national conferences and workshops.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban and Regional Studies

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Created in 1957, the Center for Urban and Regional Studies is one of the oldest university-based research centers of its kind. The Center's mission is to promote and support within UNC-Chapel Hill, high-quality basic and applied research on urban, regional and rural planning and policy issues. The Center seeks to generate new knowledge of urban and regional processes and problems and ultimately to improve living conditions in our communities. This is done by involving the University's faculty and graduate students in large, multidisciplinary research projects and smaller, more narrowly focused projects. The Center's mission also includes promoting the use of the research it facilitates.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban History (Leicester)

University of Leicester
Established in 1985, the Centre for Urban History (CUH) is a specialist research center of international academic excellence which attracts MA and PhD students from around the world. The Centre maintains active links with academics and research institutions across the globe.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban Initiatives and Research

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
The Milwaukee Urban Archive is designed as a catalogue of research studies and reports focused on greater Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin. Each catalogued item provides bibliographic information, content abstract, source and, where possible, an electronic link to the report. The catalogue is organized by topical categories.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban Policy Research

Rutgers University
The Center for Urban Policy Research conducts basic and applied research on a broad spectrum of public policy issues, including affordable housing, land use policy, environmental impact analysis, state planning, public finance, land development practice, historic preservation, infrastructure assessment, development impact analysis, the costs of sprawl, transportation information systems, environmental impacts, and community economic development. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development

DePaul University
The Chaddick Institute, located at DePaul University in Chicago, advances the principles of effective land use, transportation and community planning. Founded in 1993, the institute offers planners, attorneys, developers, and entrepreneurs a forum to share expertise on difficult land-use issues through workshops, conferences and policy studies.

Filed under: Organizations

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Chicago Policy Review

University of Chicago
Since 1996 the Chicago Policy Review (CPR) has published top scholarship in the field of public policy analysis. Initially a forum for renowned scholars and policy experts such as Nobel Laureate James Heckman, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John McCain, the journal has primarily published the work of students and alumni of the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago since 2006.

The Chicago Policy Review (ISSN: 1093-8990) is edited and published annually by the students of the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies. By establishing linkages between theory and practice, the Review aims to promote thought provoking, insightful, and relevant public policy decision-making.

Filed under: Journals

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Cities Environment Reports on the Internet (CEROI) Programme

The CEROI programme was established to increase awareness about the urban environment, to improve environmental policy making by providing better access to information, and ultimately to improve the cities' and the world environment. The concept provides city authorities with an efficient tool to produce and present a report of the cities' environment on Internet. It includes a template with standard indicators and a tailor-made software for easy presentation of graphs, maps, photographs and text. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Citiwire.net

Citiwire.net's mission is to reflect a new narrative for 21st century cities and regions.   Leaving behind the 20th century pattern of cheap energy, endless automobility, burgeoning suburbs, threatened inner cities.  To a challenge-packed 21st century: energy prices headed north, perilous carbon emissions, deepening have-have not divisions, excruciating social problems and deep challenges in education.  But a time of exciting promise, too: for example rejuvenated downtowns, revival of classic walkable neighborhood form, new citistate-wide consciousness, more protected lands, upgrading rather than bulldozing developing world slums.  Citiwire.net’s quest: to chronicle struggles, illuminate pathways to more vibrant, equitable, sustainable choices for grassroots America and urban regions worldwide.

Filed under: Links

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City Mayors

Cities are shaping today's social, cultural, economic and technological agendas. They compete, learn from each other and act together.  The City Mayors Foundation was established in 2003 to promote, encourage, and facilitate good open and strong local government.

Filed under: Links

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City-Region Studies Centre

University of Alberta
The City-Region Studies Centre (CRSC) is a University of Alberta research unit that engages with communities to explore the nature of towns, cities, and regions.  CRSC is one of the only centres in North America to focus on regional research. To do this, we undertake both engaged and theoretical activities, work with clients, sponsor events, host visiting experts and public lectures, and maintain a global set of links with planners and academics, and cities and institutes. We are the portal to urban and regional teaching and research at the University of Alberta.

CRSC's goal is to increase understanding of the cultural, political, economic interactions and interdependencies within these social spaces and to inform public policy and improve the well-being of citizens.

Filed under: Organizations

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Clean Cities

U.S. Department of Energy
Clean Cities is the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) flagship alternative-transportation deployment initiative, sponsored by the Vehicle Technologies Program. Clean Cities has saved nearly 3 billion gallons of petroleum since its inception in 1993. More than 8,400 stakeholders contribute to Clean Cities' goals and accomplishments through participation in nearly 100 Clean Cities coalitions across the country. Private companies, fuel suppliers, local governments, vehicle manufacturers, national laboratories, state and federal government agencies, and other organizations join together under Clean Cities to implement alternative-transportation solutions in their communities.

Filed under: Links

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County and City Data Books

University of Virginia
This resource provides access to the 1944 through 2000 County and City Data Books providing users with the opportunity to create custom printouts and/or customized data subsets (subsets only available for 1988-2000). 

Filed under: Data

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Data Driven Detroit

Data Driven Detroit (D3) provides accessible, high-quality information and analysis to drive informed decision-making that strengthens communities in Southeast Michigan.

D3 believes that direct and practical use of data by grassroots leaders and public officials promotes thoughtful community building and effective policymaking. As a “one-stop-shop” for data about the city of Detroit and the metro area, D3 provides unprecedented opportunity for collaboration and capacity building in Southeast Michigan.

Filed under: Data

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Data SF (San Francisco)

City of San Francisco
DataSF is a central clearinghouse for datasets published by the City & County of San Francisco. The site allows you to find datasets in several ways: general search, tags/keywords, categories, and rating. The goal is to improve access to city data through open machine-readable formats. While the number and quality of datasets is increasing, we recognize there is much more that we can do. You can help by rating and commenting on existing datasets or by telling us what datasets we should make available to the public. 

Filed under: Data

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Data.Seattle.Gov

City of Seattle
The purpose of Data.Seattle.Gov is to increase public access to high value, machine-readable datasets generated by various departments of Seattle City Government.

Filed under: Data

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European Healthy Cities Network

World Health Organization
The WHO European Healthy Cities Network consists of cities around the WHO European Region that are committed to health and sustainable development: more than 90 cities and towns from 30 countries. They are also linked through national, regional, metropolitan and thematic Healthy Cities networks. A city joins the WHO European Healthy Cities Network based on criteria that are renewed every five years.

Filed under: Organizations

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European Institute for Comparative Urban Research

The European Institute for Comparative Urban Research (Euricur) aims to gain a deeper understanding of how cities develop and how they are managed. To that end Euricur initiates and carries out studies on strategic urban issues in response to the challenges cities and metropolitan regions face.

Filed under: Organizations

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Geospatial Platform

The Geospatial Platform provides ready access to federally maintained geospatial data, services and applications.  It also provides access to data from our partners across State, Tribal, Regional and local governments as well as non-governmental organizations.

Filed under: Data

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German Environmental Information Portal

Lower Saxony Ministry of Environment and Climate Protection
The German Environmental Information Portal contains official German environmental data, including the latest news and data concerning an environmental event. The Portal also contains information about intended or passed laws concerning renewable energy. Users are able to search multiple sources simultaneously, including websites, documents, metadata and digital maps with focus on environmental information and contains environmental databases from the federation, the German federal states and local authorities. 

Filed under: Data

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Global City Indicators

The Global City Indicators Program provides an established set of city indicators with a globally standardized methodology that allows for global comparability of city performance and knowledge sharing. This website serves all cities that become members to measure and report on a core set of indicators through this web-based relational database.

Filed under: Links

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Honolulu Land Information System

City of Honolulu
The City and County of Honolulu has developed one of the most comprehensive GIS data base for any municipality of its size. The Honolulu Land Information System (HoLIS) is an enterprise-wide system serving over 15 City Departments with land use, permit, tax, infrastructure, and environmental data. Geographically referenced information links existing City records to precise locations on the island of Oahu for spatial query and analysis.

Filed under: Data

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How should we design urban parks?

Most major cities have one or more large parks. As geographer Terence Young has explained, parks proliferated across modern cities to help stem the departure of middle-class and affluent residents in the wake of industrialization at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Parks were considered a panacea for social ills as varied as crime, illness, and poor mental health. In recent years, scientists have taken a fresh look at parks and their role in the quality of urban life.

February 01, 2012

Filed under: Issues

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Institute for Transportation and Development Policy

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy works with cities worldwide to bring about transport solutions that cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce poverty, and improve the quality of urban life.

Cities throughout the world, primarily in developing countries, engage ITDP to provide technical advice on improving their transport systems. ITDP uses its know-how to influence policy and raise awareness globally of the role sustainable transport plays in tackling green house gas emissions, poverty and social inequality. This combination of pragmatic delivery with influencing policy and public attitudes defines our approach. Most recently, ITDP has been instrumental in designing and building the best bus rapid transit systems in the world.

Filed under: Organizations

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Institute of Urban Studies

The University of Winnipeg
The Institute of Urban Studies is an independent research arm of the University of Winnipeg. Since 1969 IUS has been both an academic and an applied research center, committed to examining urban development issues in a broad, non-partisan manner. The Institute examines inner city, environmental, Aboriginal and community development issues. In addition to its ongoing involvement in research, IUS brings in visiting scholars, hosts workshops, seminars and conferences, and acts in partnership with other organizations in the community to effect positive change.

Filed under: Organizations

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International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is a Canadian-based, public policy research institute that has a long history of conducting cutting-edge research into sustainable development. The Institute is a non-partisan, charitable organization specializing in policy research, analysis and information exchange. Through its head office in Winnipeg, Manitoba and its branches in Ottawa, Ontario; New York, NY; and Geneva, Switzerland IISD applies human ingenuity to help improve the well being of the world's environment, economy and society.

Filed under: Organizations

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Journal of Policy Analysis & Management (JPAM)

Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM)
APPAM founded the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM) in 1981 through the merger of two other journals – Policy Analysis and Public Policy. Wiley-Blackwell (formerly John Wiley & Sons) has published JPAM since 1981. The current contract for publishing JPAM runs until the end of 2016. JPAM is published quarterly and is a peer-reviewed research journal. The creation of JPAM fulfilled one of the primary reasons for APPAM's existence: the dissemination of the highest quality, multidisciplinary research in public policy and management. As the Association's journal of record, JPAM's ultimate purpose is building a professional community of scholars and practitioners devoted to more effective policy analysis and public management.

Filed under: Journals

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Journal of the American Planning Association

American Planning Association
Since 1935, the quarterly Journal of the American Planning Association has published research, commentaries, and book reviews useful to practicing planners, policy makers, scholars, students, and citizens of urban, suburban, and rural areas. JAPA publishes only peer-reviewed, original research and analysis. It aspires to bring insight to planning the future, to air a variety of perspectives, to publish the highest quality work, and to engage readers.

Filed under: Journals

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Medcities

MEDCITIES is a network of Mediterranean coastal cities whose objective is environmental improvement in the Mediterranean region.  The Medcities website attempts to set up an advanced messaging system, to serve as interactive exchange vehicle, as place of common interest, as diffusion, dissemination and discussion site for a collective interest spread over cities of the Mediterranean basin. It is our hope that such a web site will also allow for an improvement of the working procedures and of the relationships within the institutional framework.

Filed under: Links

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National Opinion Research Center

University of Chicago
Understanding our society – and taking action on the issues that confront it – requires insight gained through objective, high-quality social science research. That’s why decision makers and policy leaders turn to NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent research organization known for excellence, innovation, and effective collaboration.  Working with NORC experts, clients obtain the data and analysis needed to drive evidence-based decisions and improve public policy in fields such as health, education, economics, crime, justice, energy, security, and the environment. Dedicated to the public interest for 70 years, NORC has helped a wide range of clients identify and address society’s most urgent challenges

Filed under: Organizations

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Neptis Foundation

The focus of Neptis’s work is the understanding of urban regions– their pasts, present conditions, and futures, in local and global contexts. In particular, Neptis’s interest is the design of urban regions: that is, their use of land, their built environments, and their modes of transportation.

The role of Neptis is to carry out nonpartisan research, data collection, mapping, and publication related to the architecture of urban regions, to improve the quality of debate and decisions. The foundation’s mode of operation is to initiate, support, and publish research by leading academics and other experts on aspects of regional urbanism. Neptis does not represent any special interest group.

Neptis’s program of research has produced over 30 published studies, all of which are available to all interested members of the public in various forms – reports, CDs, downloads, maps, and summaries.

Filed under: Organizations

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Next City

University of Washington
As a public research institution located in the heart of a globally connected metropolitan area, with deep faculty expertise in urban fields, the University of Washington is helping to find informed solutions to the challenges and opportunities presented by the new urban age.   Faculty research is helping urban leaders and citizens across the globe make their cities healthier, safer, and greener.  Partnerships with professionals and community members are making this region a recognized leader in innovative urban design, planning, and governance. Students are learning about cities in the classroom, conducting urban research, and contributing to community well-being through urban service – here in Seattle as well as in other nations and continents.  Events across the university bring leading urban thinkers to campus and engage the wider community in conversations about cities past, present, and future.

Under the leadership of Provost Phyllis Wise, NEXT CITY: Sustainable Urbanization is serving as a university-wide theme between 2009 and 2011 to focus attention on the University of Washington’s urban teaching, research, and outreach activities.  Cities and their people are the emphasis of major university lecture series, seminars, cultural and education events, and public roundtables on the challenges and opportunities of urbanization.   New research initiatives, courses, and partnerships with the community are bringing together Washingtonians and others in discovering more about the twenty-first century’s urban age.  Explore this website, and join the conversation.

Filed under: Organizations

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Policy Studies Journal

American Political Science Association; Policy Studies Organization
As the principal outlet for the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association and for the Policy Studies Organization (PSO), the Policy Studies Journal (PSJ) is the premier channel for the publication of public policy research. PSJ is best characterized as an outlet for theoretically and empirically grounded research on policy process and policy analysis. More specifically, we aim to publish articles that advance public policy theory, explicitly articulate its methods of data collection and analysis, and provide clear descriptions of how their work advances the literature.

Filed under: Journals

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Practicing Planner

American Planning Association; American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP)
The American Institute of Certified Planners'  online quarterly provides a forum to analyze, critique, and review issues that affect professional planning practice.

Filed under: Journals

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Project for Public Spaces

Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is a nonprofit planning, design, and educational organization dedicated to helping people create and sustain public spaces that build stronger communities. Our pioneering Placemaking approach helps citizens transform their public spaces into vital places that highlight local assets, spur rejuvenation, and serve common needs.

Filed under: Organizations

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San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association

Throughout history, civic involvement has been the foundation of a thriving, vibrant city. SPUR's expanded work in the Urban Center will focus on educational programs in good government, public policy, urban planning and design with the ultimate goal of engaging citizens in SPUR's work and in the issues that affect the entire region.

SPUR's activities, include:

• research and advocacy by policy directors
• frequent policy committee and task force meetings
• meetings with civic leaders and allied organizations
• lunchtime and evening forums and panel discussions
• an urban affairs library and resource center
• permanent and rotating exhibitions

Filed under: Organizations

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Social Explorer

Social Explorer contains over 18,000 maps, hundreds of profile reports, 40 billion data elements, 335,000 variables and 220 years of data. Interactive mapping and reporting tools let you explore a vast array of demographic data quickly and easily. Available Maps and Reports Include: Census data from 1790 to 2010, American Community Survey (all), Religion data from InfoGroup 2009, Religion data from RCMS 1980 to 2000, Carbon emissions from the Vulcan Project/

Filed under: Data

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Sustainable Cities International

Sustainable Cities International is a registered not-for-profit organization based in Vancouver, Canada. Operating since 1993, the mission of Sustainable Cities is to catalyze action on urban sustainability with cities around the world. We work by connecting and mobilizing people through the process of co-creating.

We facilitate a thriving, international network of cities that act as urban laboratories: adopting, testing and improving on innovations. Ideas are accelerated through sharing of experience and cities are making transformational change a reality.

Filed under: Organizations

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The 7th World Congress of Environmental Education: The Rural-Urban Relationship

June 9–June 14, 2013
World Congress of Environmental Education
Marrakech, Morocco

Filed under: Events

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Urban Age

The Urban Age Programme, jointly organised with Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society, is an international investigation of the spatial and social dynamics of cities centred on an annual conference, research initiative and publication. Since 2005, over ten conferences have been held in rapidly urbanising regions in Africa and Asia, as well as in mature urban regions in the Americas and Europe. As an event, the Urban Age catalyses the exchange of information, experiences and data across a global network of cities. The conferences operate as mobile laboratories, testing and sampling the social and physical characteristics of global cities through expert presentations and testimonials, research, site visits, mapping and informal information exchange.

Filed under: Organizations

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Urban Audit

The Urban Audit provides European urban statistics for 258 cities across 27 European countries.  It contains almost 300 statistical indicators presenting information on matters such as demography, society, the economy, the environment, transport, the information society and leisure.

Filed under: Links

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Urban Food Policy

A blog about policies, plans, and programs for sustainable urban food systems.

Filed under: Links

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Urban Gateway

URBAN GATEWAY is an online community to help cities and urban practitioners across the world unite to share knowledge and take action.

The Urban Gateway is the first web platform of its kind to leverage the energy and resources of the global urban development community.  It will allow UN-HABITAT and its external partners to network, exchange knowledge, discuss issues and share opportunities related to sustainable urbanization worldwide.

Filed under: Links

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Urban Geography Commission

University of Lausanne
This commission is designed to encourage geographical research on urban systems and on new urban problems, and to further the exchange of findings among urban geographers from many countries.  Since cities, with their distinctive processes and problems, are major features of the modern world, it is vital to have a commission that focuses on their characteristics, problems and solutions in a comparative global context.  A key aspect of the new commission will be the encouragement of younger scholars to participate in our meetings.

Filed under: Organizations

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Urban Transportation Center

University of Illinois at Chicago
The Urban Transportation Center at UIC is dedicated to conducting research and education and providing technical assistance on urban transportation planning, policy, operations and management. The Center specializes in these core clusters of transportation research: disadvantaged populations and human sustainability, Intelligent Transportation Systems and public transportation, highways and freight planning, operations and management.

Filed under: Organizations

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Urbanization and Global Change Group

Yale University
Urbanization. Global Change. Sustainability.
These words denote paramount human and environmental concerns for the 21st Century.  The Urbanization and Global Change Group at Yale University works at the intersection of these three concepts.   Examining rapidly urbanizing regions around the world, with a focus on China and India, the Group's research aims to uncover the drivers behind urbanization, the role of globalization in the urban process and the environmental impacts of urban land expansion.   The Group is interested both in understanding fundamental processes to advance academic knowledge and in crafting rules-of-thumb for policy application.

The four fundamental questions are: How urban areas have grown in the past?  What drives urban land expansion?  How and where will urban areas likely expand in the future?  What are the environmental impacts of urban land expansion?  Methodologically, the group employs remote sensing analysis, geographic information science, statistics, systems modeling, stakeholder interviews, fieldwork and historical assessments.

Filed under: Organizations

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Urbanization Knowledge Partnership

Organization with the goal of facilitating access to knowledge and data for policymakers and practitioners with the aim of harnessing urban growth for better development outcomes. The organization intends to create an open-source knowledge exchange -- a global nexus of urban stakeholders, that evolves over time. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Urbanorth

University of Toronto, City University of New York, State University of Morelos
URBANORTH is a multinational, non-profit network of leading urban research teams working to solve issues of sustainable urban regeneration.  The network informs public policies in the urban realm, and was established as a longer term crossroad of urban researchers from Mexico, Canada and the United States.

Filed under: Organizations

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