Collaboration. Collaborate. Overused words rapidly moving from buzzwords to jargon.

But wait. Sometimes a project comes along to remind you that collaborate really is an action verb. A good example is the Urban Growth Model, a project that was recently expanded from the Charlotte region to western North Carolina. That expansion happened because of (you guessed it) collaboration. And because researchers collaborated, more North Carolinians will benefit from a tool with practical uses for urban planners, developers, open space advocates, economic development groups and governments.

Understanding growth: the Urban Growth Model is expanding to Western NC.

To learn the details about the Urban Growth Model and its expansion, check out the story and video on the RENCI website. Here’s the synopsis: RENCI, an institute created to give researchers at Triangle area universities a mechanism for easily sharing ideas and working together (collaborating) expanded its reach beyond the Triangle by opening regional engagement centers in 2006 and 2007.

One of those centers –RENCI at UNC Charlotte—combines the talents of three UNC Charlotte entities: the Urban Institute, the Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) and the Charlotte Visualization Center (VisCenter).

RENCI at UNC Charlotte explores complex issues related to growth and urbanization. The center’s Urban Growth Model combines the geospatial data of CAGIS, the visual analytics capabilities of the VisCenter, and the policy analysis expertise of the Urban Institute to create a tool that puts population and historical data, sensor and satellite imagery, into a visual framework that shows population density changes over time in a manner that makes it easy to see the effects of unmanaged urban sprawl.

The Urban Growth Model is a decision support tool that can help communities plan their futures so that growth and prosperity doesn’t have to mean traffic gridlock and a lack of urban green spaces. Collaboration, brought about by RENCI, helped make the model a successful example of university know-how tackling a community problem.

Now, the Urban Growth Model has expanded beyond the Charlotte region to four counties in western North Carolina. Why? Because RENCI also has an engagement center at UNC Asheville and collaboration between the two centers was natural. Like the Charlotte region, Asheville and nearby communities are grappling with problems related to growth. The terrain in western NC makes it critical to understand growths’ effects; houses can slide down mountainsides and valleys flood more quickly with more impervious surfaces.

Future growth in western NC will have significant impacts on fragile natural environments—environments that provide everything from drinking water to beautiful vistas that make the Carolina mountains a vacation destination. The U.S. Forest Service, the Z. Reynolds Foundation and the city of Asheville funded the western expansion of the model in part because it gives people in the region the chance to look at future trends and not simply accept a future of unbridled growth. Instead, they can look at the trends and collaborate (there’s that word again) on a creating a future that stresses sustainability and a balance between growth and environmental quality.

RENCI at UNC Charlotte plans to expand the Urban Growth Model across the entire state, probably through additional collaborations (RENCI has locations at East Carolina University and at the Coastal Studies Institute in Manteo).

Would UNC Asheville and UNC Charlotte have worked together without RENCI? Would the three Charlotte centers have combined their talents if they had not come together to form RENCI at UNC Charlotte? It’s possible, but it certainly would’ve been more difficult.

Making collaboration easier makes “collaborate” more than a buzzword.

Share