2006 BangladeshRURBANAGGLOMERATIONS

fatou Kine dieye

MAnAGinG And ModELinG fLuviAL sysTEMs: onGoinG PRojECTs AT ThE uRBAn dEsiGn LAB Richard Plunz + Kubi Ackerman

The Urban Design Lab (UDL) at the Earth In-

stitute at Columbia University offers a unique

approach to helping communities develop

sustainably within the framework of their dis-

tinct needs. This approach is driven by applied

design research—including conceptualizing

and prototyping alternative proposals—that

can act as a catalyst for projects that ad-

vance sustainable development in New York

City and the metropolitan region. While the

core focus of the UDL is the physical design

of cities, i.e., physical structure and physical

change, its approach recognizes that a range

of expertise is needed to make urban design

relevant and sustainable in its unique and

dynamic environment. Urban environments

must be understood within the context of

regional geophysical and infrastructural net-

works, and cities such as New York are in-

timately reliant on their peri-urban and rural

surroundings. In this spirit of interdisciplinarity,

the UDL has embarked on two projects that

have sought to understand and address the

development issues facing the great fluvial

systems critical to the future of the New York

Area: the Hudson and Delaware Rivers.

The separate challenges facing the Hudson

and Delaware watersheds are unique, yet

their positions relative to the most densely

populated regions of the nation allow for

some commonality of approach. Both are

“natural” geographic features that have been

heavily inscribed by human activity and de-

velopment, and both are vital infrastructure,

water supply, and transportation corridors

for the region and its inhabitants. The signifi-

cance of these two rivers to natural and hu-

man systems is continually changing as the

demands and pressures on rivers inexorably

increase. In particular, the saturation of hu-

man population and development is becom-

ing a critical issue for these two very different

areas. In both projects, the UDL attempts

to address the concept of a regional “car-

rying capacity” as part of an understanding

of the limits of natural and constructed en-

vironments to sustained expansion. In order

to address this issue effectively, it is neces-

sary to transcend the physical boundaries of

towns and districts that have hampered inte-

grated planning efforts as well as disciplinary

boundaries between designers, scientists,

policymakers, and the public. Rivers and wa-

tersheds, with geographies of their own, are

the perfect sites to explore and start to break

down the disjunctions between continuous,

ever-changing systems and imposed territo-

rial and political boundaries.

The two projects described below are re-

With a surface area equivalent to the size of Utah and a population equal to nearly half the population of the United States, Bangladesh is seriously threat-ened by the prospect of globalization and rapid urbanization. As the urban populations of Dhaka and Chittagong grow at an alarming rate, so too do the threats and consequences of severe potable-water shortages. The threat to rural populations is just as great. While the Green Revolution has drastically increased the number of hand wells in use in rural areas, the increased num-ber of wells has tainted the groundwa-ter with arsenic. In 2005, nearly half of Bangladesh’s population was threat-ened by this deadly substance.

Ironically, Bangladesh’s water crisis is in part a result of having too much water. As the watershed for an entire aquifer system, the Ganges delta is the confluence of three major rivers that flow through parts of Asia and South-east Asia. With rising temperatures, the threat of severe weather catastrophes continues.

Waterborne diseases are recurrent in water’s history. In the developing world, the threat of contamination poses additional challenges to already scarce water resources. Typically, dis-eases such as cholera and diarrhea are transported through unsanitary water.

work is intended to augment the initiative of

the Upper Delaware Roundtable, which has

recently produced a GIS mapping of large

approved development projects in eight

counties bordering the Upper Delaware.

This study provides a more detailed study of

western Sullivan County, where development

pressure has been particularly intense. This

Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition initia-

tive is a sequel to a similar research seminar

conducted last year that resulted in the publi-

cation A River Endangered: Proposed Power

Transmission and Its Impact on Cultural His-

tory along the Upper Delaware River1.

The Upper Delaware Region represents

many things to many people. Most elemen-

tally, it is a natural watershed basin, and its fu-

ture lies with recognition of this fundamental

geographic condition for both its natural and

social ecologies. Until recently, it has been

a region dominated by agriculture and river-

related transportation and enterprise. Even

as the East Coast metropolises grew larger

and larger, the Upper Delaware maintained

a coherent physical identity and distinct so-

cial character. For much of the 20th century,

as local economic development steadily at-

rophied, the basin became more insular—

often described as “a place that time forgot.”

More recently, it has been the promise of this

potential idyll that is proving to be both the

attraction and the root of the potential de-

mise of the region as it is being rediscovered

and faces the pressures of increasing urban

expansion. Residential development has

grown along with associated environmental

impacts.

The Citizen’s Guide reflects the growing need

within the region for a public understanding

of the complexities of the residential devel-

opment process within the watershed of the

Upper Delaware River basin. The project

presents an overview of issues related to

the effects of residential development on the

natural and social ecologies of the region.

One can also find an explanation of the of-

ficial review processes and public recourse

related to development projects. The docu-

ment includes five detailed case studies to

illustrate these processes and assess the

pros and cons of specific development pro-

posals. These are drawn from western Sulli-

van County, where the recent rate of popula-

tion growth has been highest. In one way or

another, however, the same issues will apply

elsewhere within the Upper Delaware basin.

Before the real estate boom of the last de-

cade, many newcomers noted that the Up-

per Delaware region was the last inexpensive

refuge within a two-hour radius of New York

City. The Chapin Estate subdivision com-

plex in Bethel, for example, advertises itself

as a “sanctuary” only “two hours from Mid-

lated but distinct approaches to addressing

the pressures of development in economi-

cally and ecologically complex regions. The

first project, centered in the Delaware River

watershed, focuses on specific case study

development proposals and creates a new

model for enhancing citizen participation in

regional planning, including analysis and in-

formation about the planning process in an

easily accessible format. The second proj-

ect, encompassing the entire Hudson River

estuary, seeks to develop a data-driven,

multivariate computer model to assess the

impacts of development across the region.

These projects are part of an ongoing effort

to address these disjunctions to create the

progressive urban-planning tools that will be

necessary in an age of increasing economic

and environmental uncertainty.

The Citizen’s Guide to Residential De-velopment: Western Sullivan County and the Upper Delaware River Basin

The Citizen’s Guide to Residential Devel-

opment is a document that assesses the

impacts of new and proposed subdivision

developments in the Upper Delaware River

basin. The document also articulates and

visually diagrams the planning and approval

process to make it more accessible and

transparent to the general public, whose in-

volvement will be critical if planning decisions

are to be responsive to a wider range of pub-

lic concerns.

The Delaware River watershed runs on a

north-south axis that begins in the Adirondack

Mountains in New York State and terminates

in the estuary of the Chesapeake Bay in the

states of Maryland and Virginia. The river itself

divides the states of New York and Pennsyl-

vania. The river naturally flows from north to

south. Four main tributary watersheds feed

the main Upper Delaware basin. The protec-

tion of the Upper Delaware as a Wild and

Scenic River, designated by the federal gov-

ernment in 1978, is in part a recognition of its

crucial position within the whole river basin.

In a region experiencing exponential growth

like western Sullivan County, which lies in

the heart of this watershed, any change or

impact in this upstream area will have a sig-

nificant impact to neighboring communities

downstream. The entire region is also un-

der threat from the effects of rapid climate

change, with projections indicating that tem-

peratures in the Upper Delaware valley will

rise by 3.2° C by 2020, with unprecedented

and unpredictable effects on regional ecol-

ogy and hydrology.

The Citizen’s Guide was produced as a re-

sponse to the past decade of unprecedented

subdivision planning and construction within

the Upper Delaware River basin. In part, this

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2006 Brisbane

INFLOW/OUTFLUX

odit feinblum

1 Population comparison2 Advertisement from Queensland Gov-ernment3 Identity Shifts: population4 Sequenced housing network

5 Brisbane population statistics6 Breakdown of current water use in SEQ

The correlation of population to local resources is being overlooked by de-veloped nations wishing to maintain their dominance in the global econ-omy. Australia, with about 20 million residents, the size of a hypercity, has net emigration of 50,000 a year, and an-nounced a target of 130,000 to 140,000 immigrants in 2005–06, including 97,500 economic stream immigrants. Less than 10% of total immigration, and only a small proportion of refu-gees, are undocumented boat arrivals.Australia is addressing the global is-sue of migration by specifying the type of migrant the country will accept, and the government held a Skills Expo in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Chen-nai, India, to attract educated immi-grants.

It is the unauthorized arrivals that have generated the greatest contro-versy as Australia pours all its efforts into cultivating a society with a strong knowledge base poised to succeed in the world market. Brisbane, an emer-gent world city, with a population of 1 million, has become a center for new arrivals from abroad and from within Australia. The city is absorbing 100 newcomers a day and has launched a campaign to encourage rapid growth as the city vies for a strong economic position globally and within Australia.

The acceptance and encouragement of large populations in Brisbane is dually problematic. The city is in a constant state of flux in regards to water, and Brisbane’s hydrologic patterns are er-ratic, with drought cycles occurring in uncertain periods. Moreover, many of the visas granted in Australia are tem-porary, bringing up the universal issue for any migrant, skilled or unskilled, that of uncertain legal status.

The challenge to provide a limited en-vironmental resource as well as a po-litical rubric and paradigm for incom-ing masses can define a new type of infrastructure. This infrastructure will be embedded with policy and connect people rather than pipes to a resource reevaluating the notions of perma-nence in the shifting urban landscape.

MEDIUM DENSITy

SEQUENCED HoUSINg NETWoRK

DENSE AREAS

ExISTINg CATCHMENT

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town Manhattan…unmatched anywhere on

the East Coast.” The recent development

boom has demonstrated the viability of this

approach and validated the strategic impor-

tance of the region as a new primary focus of

suburban residential growth. It also demon-

strates that “growth” takes many forms—not

just houses and subdivisions. Urbanization

is also about infrastructure—about energy

and water—and these two essential lifelines

of New York City have had increasingly dra-

matic impacts on the Upper Delaware.

The western Sullivan County subdivision

case studies considered in the Citizen’s

Guide—Lake Diana Properties, New Turn-

pike Homes, Eagle’s Nest Estates, Delaware

Ridge Estates, and the Chapin Estates—are

illustrative of the nature of the public review

and approval process2. They are diverse,

representing five different town governments,

and they range in scale from 8 to 177 lots.

They reveal the value of an accurate and

comprehensive approval process for the

proper evaluation of environmental impacts

and public participation. All demonstrate the

importance of general public knowledge of

development proposals, especially at a proj-

ect’s inception, since there are difficulties

and disadvantages of incorporating public

input late in the approval process. The case

studies also demonstrate some of the weak-

nesses in local town law in terms of providing

sufficient criteria for informed decisions on

the merits of any given project proposal and

show the importance of considering projects

in their cumulative context rather than as

isolated parcels distinct from their surround-

ings.

Additionally, the case studies show that the

negative long-term local economic impacts

of residential subdivision can be substantial.

On average, in the five towns where the sub-

divisions are located, residential development

costs each town $1.26 for every dollar in tax

revenue collected. By contrast, commercial,

agricultural, and open spaces produce a tax

gain of $.50 for each dollar in tax revenue

collected2. After reading the case studies,

readers may be encouraged to learn more

about their local regulations and zoning re-

strictions and to become advocates for their

communities, their families, and their own

personal and environmental health.

In addition to residential development pres-

sures, the Upper Delaware River itself has

been increasingly affected by the demands

of the New York City water supply in recent

years. Mismanagement of water resources,

including excessive drawdown and storage,

has created ecological damage in lakes and

reservoirs. There have been one 500-year

and two 100-year flood events between

2004 and 2006, due in part to ill-timed water

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2006 BrisbaneCYCLE RECYCLE INFRASTRUCTURE

Marlin nowbakht

1 Free Body Diagram2 Components3 View4 Site plan5 Aerial View of high-rise structures6 View7 Urban turbulence8 View

At times, Brisbane’s water reservoir drops below 30% capacity. While these conditions resemble the typical pattern of growing cities, the city faces a paradox: Rainfall does not reach remotely located water-catchment areas, rather it falls within the city.

Adequate drought-mitigation strate- gies can reduce the city’s reliance on water through 1) water catchment outreach 2) water transportation 3) and climatic change. The proposal is to decrease the city’s dependence on water by introducing a series of water recycling infrastructures that provide new urban water-catchment areas and opportunities for waste water and grey water recycling.

Goals:1. Low density // High intensityMinimizing infrastructure length = minimization of wasted water through pipe leakage + minimization of cost of water transportation from remote water plants2. Rain catching mechanism // counter flow resistance Vertical infrastructure = local water treatment plants for instant purification of grey water + modular rain catching entities + public access for educational water awareness programs.3. Self-sufficiency // towards anautonomous water cycle

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releases from New York City reservoirs, and

likely connected to regional climate-change

factors. For regional energy infrastructure,

there have been similar problems. Beginning

in 2003, there have been several highly de-

structive power-line proposals within the river

basin, intended to feed the increasing energy

needs of the New York metropolitan region.

If implemented, they would have dire conse-

quences for the river ecosystem and its tour-

ism industry. A recent project proposed a

pipeline that would follow the Millennium Gas

Pipeline corridor. This time, it was reinforced

by the 2005 Energy Act, which diminished

local oversight of new power delivery corri-

dors. The power-line project is still under re-

view, with the Millennium Gas Pipeline said

to be the preferred route. But the Millennium

Gas Pipeline is already the site of negative

environmental impacts because of a sepa-

rate enlargement project tripling its size that

will soon be completed.

By far, the most worrisome impact of the

2005 Energy Act is the proliferation of gas-

drilling leases within the region. Western Sul-

livan County, like much of the Upper Dela-

ware Basin, is home to the Marcellus Shale

geologic layer, which contains natural-gas

reserves. A combination of new extraction

technology and the relaxing of government

oversight by the Energy Act has led to hun-

dreds of drilling contracts with local property

owners.

To date, in Delaware County alone, more than

375 leases have been signed. The upgraded

Millennium Pipeline will facilitate gas trans-

port. The extraction process is highly water

consumptive, and there are no guarantees

about protection of water usage and quality,

let alone destruction of local road infrastruc-

ture and general quality of life. In the rush for

new energy sources and delivery, the Upper

Delaware is particularly vulnerable, given its

strategic position relative to the New York

metropolitan area. This vulnerability originates

in shortsighted resource extraction, not only

through suburban sprawl but also through

delivery infrastructure. There is little discus-

sion of resource conservation, whether in the

city or countryside, and too much reliance on

short-term solutions to long-term problems.

All of these are issues that are being decided

with little input from many of the affected

parties and inadequate consideration of

the long-term economic and environmental

costs. The Citizen’s Guide to Residential De-

velopment is an attempt to increase aware-

ness of the critical challenges facing the

Delaware River region, the greater New York

City area, and the interplay between metro-

politan areas and the rivers they depend on

throughout the world.

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2006 BrisbaneWATER SCARCITY + FOOD MARKETS

john sunwoo

Nearly 70% of the world’s fresh water is used for agriculture. While water shortages are regional in character, their collective impact on food prices are global. A drought in one part of the world reduces worldwide stockpiles of certain crops, in turn leading to increases in the price of those goods. In impoverished regions of the world, households often spend up to 80% of their budgets on food. Because of the globalization of food markets, destabilization and starvation can result from water shortages anywhere in the world.

Compounding these concerns is the nearly ubiquitous use of nonrenewable sources of potable water by large-scale farms. Around the middle of the 20th century, a combination of market forces and fears of food shortages led to the general adoption of new practices collectively termed the Green Revolution. Among other changes, farmers began to rely heavily on irrigation to increase the productivity of their land, effectively shifting their water supply from rainfall to underground aquifers. As a result of this shift, food items have themselves become large consumers of nonrenewable water resources in a given locality.

By understanding this link between the food produced in a region and its water resources, one can trace the role that trade plays in the redistribution of water resources. Studies conducted by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations show how commerce in agriculture can be understood as a network of water trading. Seen in this way, water scarcity is less a result of geography than an economic condition.If the effect of water shortages on food prices is global, the effect of the global trade in food is very much local. The trade of food exaggerates the continual impoverishment of certain populations, especially those in developing countries with agriculturally based economies. Nations that have difficulty providing clean water for municipal needs like drinking and sanitation consistently trade water to other regions in the form of agricultural exports. The expansion of farmland leads to the devastation of regional ecologies, and irrigation drains existing freshwater resources faster than they can replenish themselves. As water becomes a scarce commodity, these problems will only intensify. To address these issues, a strategy must take into consideration the role of water resources in global food markets.

The Hudson Regional Modeling Initiative

While the Citizen’s Guide project is a critical

tool for understanding development pres-

sures in a specific region, the UDL recog-

nizes the need for more comprehensive and

adaptive assessment tools for fluvial areas

facing intense development, density, and re-

source constraints. While conditions in every

region are unique, the necessity of engag-

ing a wide and complex range of variables

in evaluating future development scenarios

must be recognized by all planners and poli-

cymakers. Given the increasing volatility of

climatic, economic, and demographic condi-

tions in the 21st century, it will be necessary

to develop evaluative tools and methods that

are comprehensive, heavily data-driven, flex-

ible, and responsive to real-time conditions.

It is with this goal that the UDL has embarked

on the Hudson Regional Modeling Initiative

(HRMI).

The HRMI is an ongoing project that is intend-

ed as a test bed for integrating urban plan-

ning and policy with design, technology, and

sustainable development. HRMI is a potential

decision-support model for the long-term

future design and planning of the Hudson

Valley region, as well as an urban-knowledge

platform to evaluate the challenges of climate

change, population growth, and environmen-

tal health facing the wider New York City area

and global cities around the world.

The “Hudson region” is a loose designation

defined by geographic, hydrographic, and

urban conditions. Centered around the Low-

er Hudson River, a 150-mile-long tidal estu-

ary, the region maintains distinct geographi-

cal characteristics while simultaneously being

inextricably linked with the megalopolis of the

New York City metropolitan area, which lies

at the mouth of the river. The Hudson region

has played a critical role in the development

of New York City as a result of the construc-

tion of the Erie Canal, and it has continued

to influence the city as transportation modes

and the trajectories of global commerce have

changed. As the region has experienced

rampant development over the past several

decades due to its role as a critical transpor-

tation corridor and its proximity to New York

City, increasing infrastructural pressures have

exposed the need for more comprehensive

planning tools to ensure the continued vi-

ability of the region both economically and

environmentally. Additionally, the Lower Hud-

son itself, long neglected as a repository of

various industrial byproducts, has seen con-

certed efforts at rehabilitation over the past

decade. Nevertheless, severe water-quality

and use issues persist, including combined

sewage overflow discharge and the massive

water volume needed to cool the Indian Point

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2006 BrisbaneHYBRID INFRASTRUCTURES

john sunwoo

Sometimes a small change is more appropriate than a complete reinvention. If the global trade of water resources in the form of agriculture is too entrenched to alter (or even address) with a single building, the posing of this problem as such can inform a series of interventions. These interventions can take advantage of unique contours in localized conditions. None seek to solve these problems wholesale but instead put the related forces in play towards a particular end.

The Underwater Hotel uses adventure tourism to address some of the problems of water scarcity. The market for adventure tourism encourages audacity and extravagance. Following this vein, the hotel is a series of pods attached to the structure of an abandoned oil platform. Solar panels and wind turbines power both the hotel and a small desalinization plant to provide water for guests. This water then gets reused to grow specialized crops with high water content (e.g., cocoa and coffee). By growing these crops with “free” water, this hotel acts to alleviate water scarcity in other parts of the world.

The Rural Trading Post provides infrastructure to farms in the Amazon rainforest. Because of a lack of roads and general infrastructure, farms in these regions produce low yields. Water-storage tanks and related facilities are built to support an eco-hotel. This infrastructure is designed to capture rainfall for use by the hotel’s occupants, a system made necessary by the remote location of the hotel. During dry periods, this system is shared by farmers to ensure high-yield harvests. By collecting shared interests, a strong incentive is formed to care for the land and use it efficiently.

The Farm Tower is a hotel, park, and farm located in a city. Residents of the city can rent space for personal gardening. Hotel rooms look onto flower gardens that are publicly accessible. Because it can tie directly into the municipal lines, it eliminates the difficulties of storage and transportation typically associated with gray water reuse. The farm tower reuses water. It produces water-free agricultural products and reduces the load on local water supplies.These three interventions are only related in their attempt to follow up on the analysis of agriculture and water scarcity. Taken together, they do not seek to solve these problems. Rather, they use this analysis to propose unique hybrids that somehow address the issues presented.

Nuclear Power Plant. Regional open space

and smart-planning advocates have been

active for some time and have achieved no-

table successes, yet they still lack the ability

to assess the impact of specific development

or infrastructure proposals on a regional level.

The Hudson Regional Modeling Initiative aims

to fill this gap.

Critical to the success of the HRMI is the on-

going development of a digital urban model

to enable city planners, policy makers, de-

signers, and other stakeholders to make bet-

ter use of scientific knowledge. The model is

a multiscaled GIS database interlaced with

real-time data about the region’s ecosystem

that would provide accurate scientific data to

support long-term decisions. This cross-cut-

ting predictive tool represents a new genera-

tion of urban modeling and data gathering.

The model involves analyses of how continu-

ing development will affect regional energy

use and distribution, incorporating carbon-

footprint analyses into the model and evalu-

ating carbon management policy scenarios.

In this sense the project offers an opportu-

nity to build on and expand existing tools to

significantly enhance their capabilities, lead-

ing to their potential application for a wide

range of problems and geographic regions.

The UDL has researched and experimented

with a number of existing development fore-

casting and impact-modeling software ap-

plications. The model will necessitate forging

relationships between members of the sci-

entific community who have access to the

hard data required to make accurate projec-

tions and the municipalities and community

groups that are engaged in difficult decisions

involving sustainability, economic develop-

ment, and quality of life issues. The synergy

of this state-of-the-art technology and the

detailed data-gathering and analysis capac-

ity contributed by our partners could result in

a rigorous and authoritative tool for determin-

ing the impacts of various regional-develop-

ment scenarios. The Hudson River Estuary

model will be able to assess the comparative

impacts and benefits of several alternative

development or policy scenarios in order to

contribute to truly informed decision-making.

The model provides a unique opportunity to

bridge the information gaps between scien-

tists, community groups, and policy-makers.

There already exists a wealth of data on land-

use patterns and existing ecological condi-

tions in the region that has been compiled

by researchers. These data, however, are

fragmented and can be difficult to interpret

for nonscientists seeking to understand the

actual implications of the documented pat-

terns on proposed projects or policies.

Partnerships within the various stakeholder

communities will allow local groups and gov-

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2004 BrisbaneMOBILE WATER AGENTS

Jodi Ostrzega

1 Mobile Water Agents2 Mobile water agents location changes throughout the day 3 Filter details4 Water Storage Belly5 Sections6 Mobile Water Agents configuration

The reservoir for rain catchment in Brisbane is not located in the region of the highest rainfall. As a result, a substantial quantity of rainwater is lost in the city each year.

The challenge then becomes to determine a way to capture this lost water so that it can be used for drinking as a more sustainable alternative to bottled water.

For example, the Stenocara Beetle traps water on the unique surface of its back. Once the water liquefies, it trickles down into the beetle’s mouth. Fog catchers can be found in Peru, where these fabric membranes capture moisture from the air and channel it into pipes for distribution into the city. Rain chains are devices that act like pipes to channel water vertically from one point to another.

The mobile water agent travels through the city like a robot. It is programmed to follow rain and moisture and to deliver it to points in the city where drinking water is in demand. It can be found at different locations in the city at changing times throughout the day.

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2004 BrisbaneMOBILE WATER AGENTS

Jodi Ostrzega

1 Mobile Water Agents2 Mobile water agents location changes throughout the day 3 Filter details4 Water Storage Belly5 Sections6 Mobile Water Agents configuration

The reservoir for rain catchment in Brisbane is not located in the region of the highest rainfall. As a result, a substantial quantity of rainwater is lost in the city each year.

The challenge then becomes to determine a way to capture this lost water so that it can be used for drinking as a more sustainable alternative to bottled water.

For example, the Stenocara Beetle traps water on the unique surface of its back. Once the water liquefies, it trickles down into the beetle’s mouth. Fog catchers can be found in Peru, where these fabric membranes capture moisture from the air and channel it into pipes for distribution into the city. Rain chains are devices that act like pipes to channel water vertically from one point to another.

The mobile water agent travels through the city like a robot. It is programmed to follow rain and moisture and to deliver it to points in the city where drinking water is in demand. It can be found at different locations in the city at changing times throughout the day.

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erning bodies access to the vital hard data

necessary for informed decision-making,

while concurrently creating a broader plat-

form for ecologists, biologists, economists,

planners, and other relevant professionals to

disseminate and apply their findings.

The HRMI recognizes the need to address

the issues of urbanization and development

within a regional context. The Hudson River

Estuary is a critical environmental indicator

for the wider metropolitan area. Its diverse

land-use and ecosystem distribution and the

rapidly changing nature of its urban character

and demography position it at the forefront

of the struggle to define sustainable devel-

opment and land-use policies in rapidly ur-

banizing areas. The area has the potential for

establishing a paradigm for how socioeco-

nomic and environmental pressures can be

addressed through comprehensive regional-

planning initiatives.

The scope of the project has also expanded

beyond the goal of developing a merely pro-

jective modeling tool. While the projection of

future development scenarios is critical in any

modeling platform, the intent is to be able to

make detailed qualitative assessments of the

economic and environmental impacts of de-

velopment and policy projections. This will

take place through application of in-depth

regional geographic data, which we are

gathering in collaboration with our partners,

to cutting-edge modeling and impact-as-

sessment software. Through this process we

hope to evaluate the region’s overall “carry-

ing capacity” with respect to anthropogenic

development. This evaluation will allow us to

make specific, informed policy recommen-

dations. Additionally, the UDL is collaborating

with nonprofit organizations and community

partners to identify specific areas, sites, and

projects within the Hudson River Estuary that

will be critical in shaping the overall trajectory

of the region with regard to development and

conservation.

Once operational, we foresee enormous

potential to replicate both of these models

nationally and internationally. With the rapid

pace of global urbanization and development

that we have experienced over the past de-

cade continuing unabated, the capacity to

make informed, strategic decisions about

where to concentrate and limit human im-

pacts on our environment will be more critical

than ever. Tools such as the Citizen’s Guide

to Residential Development and the Hudson

Regional Modeling Initiative will play a crucial

role in managing the increasingly complex

interplay between anthropogenic and natural

systems.

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