Labs Contributing to the Study of Regional Science at Illinois

Expert Planning Information Systems Laboratory

Department of Urban and Regional Planning

The mission of Expert Planning Information systems Laboratory (EPIL) is to develop IT tools and apply them in transportation planning, management, research, and teaching. EPIL supports open access to digital information on transportation, environment and land use. EPIL is located in Temple Hoyne Buell Hall at the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign. GIS work started here, with support for the Urbana-Champaign Mass Transit District Transportation Network Analysis.

Land Use Evolution and Impact Assessment Model

Departments of Urban and Regional Planning and Geography

The mission of the LEAM group is to help others understand the relationships between human economic/cultural activities and biophysical cycles from a changing land use perspective. All of us must realize that these interacting systems behave in very complex and dynamic ways. Understanding the extent of how one system affects another will allow us to make better land use management decisions in the future.

The Regional Economics Applications Laboratory

Department of Geography

REAL's mission is to provide timely, high quality analytical economic information for a variety of uses such as public policy decision making by public sector agencies and for strategic marketing in the private sector. REAL's capabilities revolve around comprehensive state and metropolitan models that integrate econometric and input-output analysis to provide for both impact and forecasting analyses. While REAL's primary focus has been on the economies of the Midwest, REAL has collaborated in the development of models for several regions on the east coast; in addition, two models have been constructed for states in Brazil and a third is under construction. A model for the Jakarta Metropolitan region is also under construction. REAL draws its staff from both cooperating institutions; in addition, advanced graduate students in the fields of economics, geography, urban and regional planning, computer science and mathematics are employed on projects; many of which become the basis for theses and dissertations.

Spatial Analysis Laboratory

Department of Geography

The Spatial Analysis Laboratory (SAL) in the Department of Geography at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is a research unit devoted to the development, implementation and application of state-of-the-art methods of spatial analysis to policy issues in the social and environmental sciences. Activities span the range from the creation of new methods for exploratory data analysis and spatial econometrics to the implementation of these techniques in the form of software tools and instructional materials to the facilitation of a larger spatial analysis user community. Applications deal with research questions in a range of fields, including regional science, economic geography, environmental economics, criminology, public health, and other social and natural sciences.