Urban sprawl, smart growth top GIS conference agenda

Sprawl and smart growth will be the focus of guest speaker Todd Fabozzi when he delivers the keynote address at the Skidmore Regional GIS Conference of College Educators on Friday, Jan. 11.

Sponsored by the College?s Interdisciplinary GIS Center, the event is scheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Dana Science Center Atrium. Colleges from around the region planning to send delegates include Union, Siena, St. Lawrence University, Bard, Wheaton, Vassar, and Williams. Major topics will center upon urban planning, GPS, temporal data, data visualization tools, and discussion of community building.

Fabozzi will give his talk, titled ?The Challenges of Sprawl and Smart Growth in the Capital Region,? at 10 a.m. Noting the recent concern expressed about the social, fiscal and environmental consequences of suburban sprawl, he points out that in virtually all the fast-growing metropolitan regions of the U.S., citizens are experiencing first-hand the diminished quality of life that results from rampant growth. These include longer, slower commutes, decreased quality of water and air, and disappearing natural landscapes. In some areas, housing costs soar. In other areas, housing is abandoned and left to crumble.

According to Fabozzi, new suburban development requires many formerly rural towns to provide such services such as roads, sewer and water systems, schools, libraries, street lights, parks, police and fire protection. At the same time, many older cities struggle to maintain their deteriorating infrastructure, manage crime, improve poorly performing schools, and root out concentrated poverty as jobs, shopping opportunities, and better-off citizens abandon the city for its outskirts.

He will discuss how these regional growth dynamics have played out in the Capital District region. Using maps and extensive photographs, he will show the location and type of new growth in the region. He will discuss the general characteristics and trends of this growth; the historical, economic, political and social context; the issues and challenges facing the Capital District and other New York regions; and alternative place-making techniques to ameliorate the negative aspects of suburban sprawl.

Fabozzi, who holds a master?s degree in urban and regional planning from the University at Albany, has spent the last 13 years as a professional urbanist, first with the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development and Planning, and currently with the Capital District Regional Planning Commission.

His focus at the commission has been regional growth analysis, smart growth, water quality planning, and the development of the commission?s regional Geographic Information System. He has utilized GIS for a wide variety of applications, including water quality planning, land use planning, regional growth analysis, economic development, environmental preservation, demographic analysis, cartography, aviation planning, and transit planning.

Currently a member of the Geography and Planning Department faculty at UAlbany, Fabozzi teaches a course in Geographic Information Systems. His forthcoming book, The Gates of Paradise Lost, a novel about planning, American society, and the future, will be published later this year.

Other presenters at the conference are Robert Jones, associate professor and chair of Skidmore?s Economics Department, on ?GIS and the Time Dimension?; Jonathan Cobb, on ?GPS in the 21st Century - An Overview of Current GPS Capabilities, Modernization Efforts, and Complementary Networks?; Sharron Macklin and Jenni Lund, on ?ArcGIS and Google Earth: Rules of Engagement.?

For more information on the conference, please call Alex Chaucer at ext. 5918.