Geography and Planning Research
Our faculty researchers engage in a wide range of cutting-edge exploration. Topics include geography, geographic technology, urban planning, sustainability and the global political economy, among others.
Research Areas and Experts
GeoAI: Geospatial Data and Technologies
Through interdisciplinary efforts, research in the Geospatial Technologies group is twofold.
First, this group's research involves conceptual and theoretical research to advance our understanding of spatial information and to inform ergonomic design of geographic information systems in special contexts such as navigation.
Second, this group works empirically to develop GIS products to support regional tourism, address community needs such as vaccination monitoring, and investigate spatial issues related to crimes and public health, especially minority health disparities.
Researchers
Climate Change, Ecology, Global Carbon Cycle
Climate change represents one of the paramount challenges currently confronting the world. At present, climatologists concur on the swiftness of global warming, its human-caused origins, and future trajectories. The warming is intrinsically linked to the disruption of the global carbon cycle by human activities, particularly industrial emissions, and deforestation. Simultaneously, there is ongoing debate regarding the extent of warming's potential impact on global economy, agriculture, human health and mobility, biodiversity, as well as on fate of individual organisms.
Within the Geography and Planning department, we are actively engaged in addressing various issues related to warming such as global carbon cycle, soil depletion, forest fires, biodiversity loss, and organismal responses to a changing environment. Our research leverages cutting-edge technologies such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Geographic Information Systems, satellite and ground-based observations of natural and urban forests, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
Researchers
Urban Revitalization and Resilience
At the turn of the century humanity became an urban civilization: for the first time more humans lived in cities than in rural settings. This was lead by the rapid urbanization of Asian and African nations but even in the United States there is a renewed interest in city life.
Revitalizing America’s century-old cities must be done with care and precision. The planning field has a shameful history of displacing marginalized communities and ripping apart the delicate fabric of urban villages. Today, the goals of urban revitalization are to help communities grow and prosper without displacement and gentrification, though success remains elusive.
Research in this area is both basic and applied: studying the effects of economic development on populations and testing new methods of financing, designing, and implementing urban revitalization. And, against the backdrop of climate change, cities must now become resilient so that their communities can withstand both the natural and social impacts of a warming planet.
Researchers
David A. Banks
Jared R. Enriquez
Catherine T. Lawson
David A. Lewis
Immigration and Migration
International migration is a critical issue in today's world, with over 184 million people living outside their countries of origin in 2023.
With countries such as China and India experiencing rapid urbanization, hundreds of millions of people are leaving villages and moving into cities to search for jobs and opportunities. Others are forced to leave their hometowns due to conflict, climate change or natural disasters. Human geographers study the patterns of such migration, explanations for mobility, and its demographic, socioeconomic, and political implications.
Research in this area focuses on the experiences of migrants and state policies that shape their experiences, from institutional discrimination and housing conditions to deterrence campaigns that aim to dissuade people from migrating. Our research particularly emphasizes the challenges facing migrants, especially forced migrants facing internal displacement or seeking asylum, as well as the issues related to sovereignty, governance, and everyday life that result from their forced mobility.
Areas of focus include Australia, China, Indonesia, Thailand, the UK and the US.
Researchers
Housing: Homeownership, Affordability, Housing Policy, and Housing Inequality
More 1.8 billion people do not have adequate housing, upward of 150 million more are homeless, and about 15 million people are forcibly evicted every year.
Housing is one of the most important issues facing the world today. It plays an unparallelled role in the wellbeing of individuals and families, the community, and society as a whole. Human geographers and urban planners study various aspects of housing, such as homeownership, affordability, housing policy, low-income housing, residential mobility, housing inequality, housing discrimination, and residential segregation.
Our research focuses on the patterns of housing consumption, experiences of renters and homeowners, migrants’ housing conditions and exclusion, institutional and market barriers in the housing system, and their socioeconomic and health implications. Areas of focus include the U.S., U.K., and China, where the market transition has created a unique and dynamic environment in which to study the roles of housing policy and housing market.
Researchers
Health and Wellbeing
Physical and mental health and wellbeing are considered the ultimate indicators for development. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented attention to health and wellbeing, and their astonishing disparities between social groups and regions.
Our research aims to study the patterns of spatial and social disparities in health and wellbeing, and how they are shaped by social, spatial, and institutional factors at different levels, ranging from individual/household, kinship, to community/neighborhood, city, and national and global level.
We are particularly interested in the role of government policies and institutions in shaping health disparities. We have studied neighborhood disparities in COVID-19 pandemic outcomes and how government policies such as the lockdown, working from home, and historic redlining, together with neighborhood profiles and physical infrastructure (e.g. transport, green space), drive health disparities differently in different American cities. We also study subjective well-being in China and how and why it varies significantly across regions and urban-rural areas. Institutions such as the hukou system in China and social and physical infrastructure are found to be important in shaping wellbeing.
Areas of focus include the US and China.
Publications
- The lockdown, mobility, and spatial health disparities in COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of New York City
- COVID-19 pandemic and minority health disparities in New York City: A spatial and temporal perspective
- Historical redlining and park use during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from big mobility data
- Subjective Wellbeing in China's Changing Society
- Subjective wellbeing in 21st century China: A multi-level multi-dimensional perspective on urban-rural disparities
Researchers
Global Political Economy, Globalization
The political and economic impacts of globalization have reshaped the globe, expanding supply chains, changing forms of investment and generating implications for political, economic and cultural life.
Human geographers focus on the spatial implications of globalized economic relations, considering how the increasing interconnection of money, knowledge and culture has reshaped how we live. Research in this area focuses on the broad-scale political and economic relationships created through globalization (such as the implications of China’s Belt and Road Initiative for sovereignty), as well as the scale of the every day, in terms of the political economic relationships constructed through immigration detention and asylum governance.
Our research particularly emphasizes the role of digital governance, debt and destitution, and the relationship between political economic forces and sovereignty.
Areas of focus include China, Australia, Latin America, Thailand and the UK.
Researchers