Community Networking Project | FED/NU Economics Mentoring Project | Urban Sprawl Report Card | Three Cities Project | Greater Boston Info Central | NU-Ascend

Community Networking Project

This project is aimed at providing technical assistance to local community organizations to help them improve their operational efficiency and effectiveness and to help them form collaborative relationships in offering community services. The partners on this project are the African American Federation and Kimeta Systems.

FED/NU Economics Mentoring Project

CURP and the Boston Federal Reserve Bank have teamed up to develop a set of seminars and projects to engage inner city high school students in learning about the national economy and the world of finance. CURP will help develop curriculum materials for this project.

Urban Sprawl Report Card

This proposed project will be aimed at developing a set of annual or biennial indicators for tracking "urban sprawl" in the Greater Boston region. Using statistical analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the project will parallel CURP's annual Greater Boston Housing Report Card series.

Three Cities Project

This proposed project will trace the widely varying economic trajectories of Boston, Hartford, and Providence -- the three key cities in southern New England -- in order to understand how demography, industrial restructuring, and spatial reordering affect the economic and social well-being of the metropolitan residents in these three cities.

The project will also seek to understand to what extent either explicit or implicit economic development strategies have affected the divergent trajectories of these three cities.

Partners on this project include the University of Rhode Island, Providence and Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.

Greater Boston Info Central

This new website, which is currently under development, will be a "mega-site" connecting citizens to the Boston Renaissance Resource Kit, Heart of the City website, MassAgenda.com, and the Boston Indicators website developed by The Boston Foundation.

Funding now being sought for the project will provide for a massive dissemenation effort in local schools, community organizations, town and city government agencies, and with the mass media. The Greater Boston Central site will provide a "one stop" destination for anyone who needs statistical data about the city and region, detailed historical information about the Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan neighborhoods, and up-to-date news on public policy issues affecting the region.

Partners on the project include The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Boston Indicators Project, The Boston Foundation; and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

NU-Ascend

CURP will be participating in NU-Ascend, a program led by the Northeastern School of Education. NU-Ascend is an after-school, Saturday, and vacation program that encourages middle and high school students to take an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The program will operate through drop-in centers on the Northeastern campus and throughout the city. Saturday and vacation programs will offer curriculum that complements classroom instruction. Students will meet people working in STEM professions and engage in hands-on projects to gain understanding of their importance in real-world settings. CURP's role is to develop and implement a mentoring and career exploration program, Taking Control of Your Employment Future, based on the premise that students are more eager and active learners when they understand the connection between material presented and their day-to-day lives.