UCI’s Metropolitan Futures Initiative provides data and insights to promote more livable and equitable cities
The Metropolitan Futures Initiative was featured in a recent UCI News article, “Community ‘factivists’: Researchers with UCI’s Metropolitan Futures Initiative use big data to reveal SoCal socioeconomic, crime trends.” Excerpted text:
How easily can you get from your house to a restaurant or park? In what neighborhoods is crime concentrated? From what cities are businesses fleeing? Where are communities mixed, with people of diverse incomes, races and ages, and with different types of housing and land use?
When properly analyzed, big data can cut through false assumptions and answer such questions with a level of specificity not possible otherwise.
Researchers with the Metropolitan Futures Initiative at UCI’s School of Social Ecology do exactly that, processing huge amounts of data related to crime, demographic and socioeconomic trends in Southern California. Established in 2011, MFI produces quarterly reports and hosts symposiums, forums and webinars on its findings.
"These insights are valuable for urban planners and others seeking to make cities more livable and equitable," says MFI director John Hipp, professor of criminology, law and society, urban planning and public policy, and sociology.
Read the full article: UCI News, August 28, 2018