Center for the Analysis and Research of Spatial Information (CARSI Lab), Hunter College

Professors Sean C. Ahearn, Director
Professor Jeffrey P. Osleeb, Associate Director

The Center for the Analysis and Research of Spatial Information (CARSI) at Hunter College was established to help promote an atmosphere that fosters interdisciplinary research and teaching in geographical information science with a focus on the Urban Environment of New York City and surrounding municipalities. CARSI was established to act as a focal point for the collection, archival and analysis of geographic information relevant to the City of New York. State and US scale information is maintained to facilitate comparative analysis. The information and systems developed by CARSI are to be shared by the Hunter College community, New York City Agencies and other relevant groups.

Background
New York City, from both a research and educational perspective, is the largest and most diverse urban laboratory in the US if not the world. The City offers an unlimited opportunity to analyze and understand the dynamics of the urban system. Hunter College plays a very important role in the City as an institution whose faculty, staff and students are engaged in numerous urban research and educational projects. Most of these projects utilize spatial information, information that is identified by a location whether it be an address, an x,y coordinate, a Zip Code or some other way of referencing the data to a map. Information for these projects can vary from large data sets such as the Census of Population to small data sets that are collected by individual researchers. Unfortunately, to date, there has been very little coordination of the information concerning the City of New York, and typically the information is not shared. The result has been the relative isolation of activities and there is often duplication of effort regarding the acquisition of information about the City, State and US which often produces less than an optimal product.

While the research and teaching projects tend to be very diverse, there are certain fundamental geographic data sets that are or could easily be shared by these efforts. Whether tracking historical migration patterns, analyzing voting patterns, monitoring the spread of an epidemic, conducting transportation and other infrastructure studies, describing a neighborhood, or analyzing the plume of toxins from a smokestack and determining the population most impacted, geography and the mapping of information is the common denominator for all of these analyses. There are also interrelationships between geographic data that are often overlooked when these data are not integrated into a common system. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, which will be at the heart of the proposed center, have been proven to be an extremely powerful tool for the integration and analysis of such information. The establishment of geographic information systems in institutions has lead to greater cooperation and sharing among disciplines and agencies that had not previously worked together.

Missions
The missions of CARSI include:

1. Collection and archival of all pertinent information regarding the City of New York, the State of New York and the US in digital form that includes but is not limited to:

• Current and Historical Census Information
• Economic Data
• Voting Information
• Crime Statistics
• Housing Information
• Transportation Information
• Health Statistics
• Information about City owned facilities such as schools, hospitals, etc.
• Environmental Information

2. Development of a Geographic Information System, the New York Data Analysis System (NYDAS) that would permit educators, researchers and members of City Agencies to easily display, query and analyze geographic information concerning New York City and its environs. The Internet and CD Rom technologies are extensively employed for both acquiring and disseminating this information.

3. Acquiring the necessary base maps for the display of information including the following maps:

• Parcel
• Census Block
• Census Block Group
• Census Tract
• County
• Political Districts
• Community Boards
• Transportation
• Health Districts

4. Provide an outreach function whereby users would be trained to access the information stored and to employ the GIS technology supported by CARSI.

5. Ensure the inoperability of the system so that all of the data sets can be used with each of the leading GIS software.

6. Conduct research in the use of GIS to analyze urban systems with emphasis on state-of-the-art GIS technologies.

7. As classrooms at Hunter are wired for the Internet, the information maintained by CARSI would be accessible for real time classroom use. Maps showing health data, voting patterns, demographics, environmental data, transportation, etc. are available for the entire City and possibly for the region soon. It is expected that advanced classes will use the information to undertake urban modeling.

Resources
CARSI currently occupies approximately 1500 square feet in the Hunter College School of Social Work at E 79th Street, New York, New York 10021. The staff includes the director, associate director, research associate and several graduate student assistants. The equipment includes a network of Digital Alpha machines, Pentium machines, peripheral devises and a server with massive storage running under Microsoft NT. The software employed includes Small World, ESRI products and Caliper products.

CARSI is a multi-disciplinary center at Hunter College that is shared by faculty, staff and students in such diverse entities as the libraries, centers, departments, centers and divisions as:

• Anthropology
• Economics
• Division of Education
• Energy and Environmental Policy Studies
• Geography
• Division of Health Sciences
• History
• Political Science
• Social Science Computer Laboratory
• School of Social Work
• Sociology
• Urban Affairs and Planning

Contact Information
Sean C. Ahearn, Director
Department of Geography
Hunter College, City University of New York
695 Park Avenue, Rm 1045 Hunter North
New York, NY 10021
(212)772-5327
email