For the first time in the history of humankind, the majority of the world's
population soon will live in an urban environment. Already stressed,
metropolitan areas must be able to meet "the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
The Center for Urban and Regional Ecology (CURE) is a multi-university and
multi-disciplinary program dedicated to meeting this urban challenge through a holistic approach.
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CURE's mission is to explore and promote options for sustainable human health
and prosperity while improving air, water, land use, and biodiversity at the scale of regional ecosystems
in which cities are embedded.
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Far from an accumulation of lifeless structures, cities are unique, diverse,
and delicate organisms. Their health and the health and welfare of their
citizens vitally depends on the function and fitness of numerous symbiotic
systems that control the quality and quantity of the stores and flows of energy, material, and human
capital. These systems however, were designed and are managed as
independent components. As a result, conflicts between systems now threaten the
entire urban organism's health. Resolution of these problems will require coordinated
solutions involving many academic disciplines.
Recognizing this, CURE was created in 1998 as a virtual center to facillitate the
formation of integrated teams of natural
scientists, engineers, human health scientists and practitioners, economists,
city planners, and policy and social scientists from the Georgia Institute of
Technology, the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Emory University
and Morehouse College.
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