SRS-RN: The Continuum of Urbanity as an Organizing Concept to Promote Sustainability in the Mid-Hudson Region

Learning how people can sustainably live in a world where urban areas are increasing is critical to support happy and healthy communities. However, it is poorly understood how connections between urban and rural areas, past human actions, new pressures like COVID-19, and climate change will affect the sustainability of these regions. The Hudson Valley presents a unique opportunity to understand how to improve sustainability. The valley is close to a large urban center where people are moving to rural areas from urban centers. Many of the valley's rural and wild ecosystems are still intact, making it possible to understand how the migration of people from the urban centers will affect these systems. The project will bring together diverse stakeholders to plan a large-scale research, education, and community engagement program on the sustainability of the Hudson Valley, with results that could also help improve sustainability in other regions of the nation.

This project is guided by an overarching question: "How do changes in connectivity interact with past human actions to create barriers and opportunities for sustainable development, adaptation, and transformation across a continuum of urbanity?" Continuum theory suggests that measurable conditions of livelihood, lifestyle, and regional landscape structure and function interact with the drivers of changing connectivity. The Hudson Valley Region (HVR) includes urban and rural areas from north of New York City to Albany, NY. The HVR is an ideal test case because it is geographically and historically understandable as a system with a long history of urban-rural interactions and increasing connectivity. A future research and stakeholder engagement program that answers the overarching question while helping guide the HVR towards a more sustainable future, will meet four goals: 1) Work outward from the core research team to build an inclusive network of social and economic scientists, ecologists, land change researchers, humanists, and stakeholders representing community groups, environmental and planning non-profits, urban design firms, and government agencies; 2) Collect and analyze existing regional and local sustainability plans to understand current goals at multiple scales across HVR; 3) Facilitate stakeholder interaction and inform joint work with these stakeholders; and 4) Identify the scope of research with stakeholders. The scope of research will be based on (a) co-produced research questions of mutual interest to practitioners, policy makers, communities, and academics; (b) identified focal ecosystems or social-ecological places; (c) appropriately set spatial and temporal scales for each focus; (d) key measurements of regional change and connectivity; and (e) strategies to promote equitable and just engagement with communities.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.