Exploring the Urban Community: A GIS Approach (Pearson Prentice Hall Series in Geographic Information Science (Hardcover))

Authored by accomplished urban geographers and GIS experts, Exploring the Urban Community: A GIS Approach leverages the modern geographer’s toolset, employing the latest GIS methodology to the study of urban geography. The Second Edition expands upon this timely, applied approach by incorporating new “internet GIS” Google Earth™ activities, which do not require students to own expensive software or travel to a school lab. New exercises are also provided for ArcGIS 9.3 and 10, the latest version of the industry-dominant software. Coupled with current examples and applications from around the world, including a greater focus on India and China, Exploring the Urban Community presents an engaging and uniquely hands-on applied approach to the study of urban geography.

Richard P. Greene holds a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Northern Illinois University. Greene has published in a variety of journals including Landscape and Urban Planning, The Social Science Journal, the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Urban Geography, and Economic Geography. 

Greene’s emphasis is on urban regeneration, edge cities, and land conversion processes on the urban-rural fringe, with expertise on Chicago, Los Angeles, and China’s urban system.  He conducts applied GIS research with regional and local governments in the Chicago metropolitan area, and he developed a GIS system for evaluating the loss of prime farmland to urbanization for the American Farmland Trust.

Greene is co-editor of Chicago’s Geographies: Metropolis for the 21st Century, and is currently serving as the Book Review Editor for The Social Science Journal, and is on the editorial board of the Urban Geography Journal. He is a member of the Association of American Geographers, Arid Lands Studies Association, and the Western Social Science Association (WSSA).

James B. Pick holds a B.A. from Northwestern University, an M.S.Ed. from Northern Illinois University, and  a Ph.D. from the University of California Irvine. Pick is professor in the School of Business at University of Redlands. He is the author of 120 journal articles, book chapters, and refereed proceedings in the research areas of urban studies, population, renewable energy, management information systems, and geographic information systems. He is author or co-author of eleven books.

His awards include three Outstanding Faculty Research Awards from University of Redlands, Outstanding Alumni Award of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Northern Illinois University, and Fulbright Senior Lecturer/Research Award in Mexico. He has been funded by the Ford Foundation, U.S. Small Business Administration, and other agencies, and serves on five journal editorial boards.