Prospective merchants in impoverished L.A. neighborhoods will soon have at their
fingertips information that could help them start up new businesses and make
decisions to boost urban development, thanks to an innovative information system
designed by the School of Urban and Regional Planning for Rebuild Los Angeles.

Working with RLA's Urban Development Task Force, faculty and graduate students in
the school devised an information system that is being billed as the first of its
kind to centralize community economic development data from sources throughout
Los Angeles County.

The Urban Development Information System uses geographically based social and
economic information that can be retrieved through a desktop personal computer to
provide the average person with business-related demographics, both current and
projected.

The system can also provide information about political boundaries for city
council districts as well as the locations of industry, financial institutions
and community infrastructure in South-Central Los Angeles. Ultimately, it will
encompass information on political boundaries for all levels of government,
zoning, social services and health services in so-called "neglected," low-income
areas. And the system can be easily expanded to further the revitalization of Los
Angeles.

President Steven B. Sample, a co-chair of the Urban Development Task Force and
member of the RLA board of directors, said the project demonstrates how the
university and the city of Los Angeles can help each other flourish. "There's a
real mutuality of interests between USC and RLA," he said, noting how the
university is the largest private employer and the largest private export
industry in Los Angeles.

"This project exemplifies and strengthens the shared goals of these two
organizations," Sample said.

A prototype for the system -- which combines a map of South Central with
demographic and economic information for the area -- was unveiled at a recent
presentation at USC for representatives of RLA and other community agencies. The
prototype was completed over the summer by graduate students in the School of
Urban and Regional Planning working under associate professor Erik Heikkila, who
supervises the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Workshop within the school.
Graduate students Hyeon Park, Jeng-Ying Shieh, Woosuk Zhee, Stefanus Hadi, Alvin
Mares and Jeong Ho Moon built the prototype between June and August to meet RLA's
deadline.

Unlike the sophisticated "information superhighways" at the forefront of new
technology, this system is an "information footpath," according to Tridib
Banerjee, professor of urban and regional planning, who serves as Sample's
representative at many of the RLA task-force meetings. "This system is designed
at the ground level to make it accessible to small businessmen, entrepreneurs,
community groups and nonprofit agencies who are seeking demographic
characteristics, political contacts and business data."

The value of such a centralized information system, Banerjee said, is clear.
"Making information available to everybody is probably the most effective way of
empowering people," he said.

The prototype now focuses only on South Central, but RLA planners say they hope
to expand the system to encompass all areas in which 20 percent or more of
residents live at poverty level -- areas that were hardest hit by the riots.

The prototype includes demographic and economic information from the last census
and other data files from RLA. Before presenting the system to the general
public, RLA officials want to incorporate information on housing, health and
human services and community development. Once that data has been added -- in
about three months -- the system will be available to the community on personal
computers donated by IBM Corp. The computers will be set up in two public
facilities that have yet to be chosen.

"Today, we are unveiling not only what is on the system, but your vision of what
the system can be," said Jackie Dupont-Walker, senior project manager of the task
force, during the presentation to representatives of such groups as the Southern
California Association of Governments and the Community Redevelopment Agency. RLA
will work with these groups to obtain more data for the system.

In describing the prototype, Heikkila said the graduate students worked day and
night to develop a system designed for users who may have no prior experience
with computers. The system uses Visual Basic for Windows as the interface layer,
creating a self-guided tour that lets users simply click on boxes to access the
information they desire.

Heikkila demonstrated how a prospective businessperson could use the program to
find if there were competing businesses in a certain area and search for
demographic information about that area's population -- income levels,
ethnicities, age groups, types of households and other characteristics -- to see
if the community would be likely to support the proposed business. The system
also lets users see which city council district covers a particular area, a
feature that would help them in contacting the right city officials.

The prototype was built with a $10,000 grant from RLA, which supported the
graduate students, and in-kind donations of faculty members' time, hardware and
support space from the School of Urban and Regional Planning.

"The research is an example of how some very modern technological developments
can bring information to the level of start-up businesses," said Peter Gordon,
dean of the school. "It also illustrates the kinds of things a university can
contribute to an effort like RLA. We can provide some technical expertise they
couldn't get any other place."

While attending the Urban Development Task Force meetings, Banerjee said, he was
approached by Dupont-Walker about the possibility of creating a central
information file or system that would assist low-income neighborhoods that had
been ravaged during last year's riots.

"Our idea was to set up a very user-friendly system, which could operate out of a
stand-alone, desktop computer with any compatible printer," Banerjee said.
"Everything we did was based on commercial software and can be used by anybody
from a grandmother in her 70s to her 10-year-old grandchild."

The system benefits USC as well as the community, he said, because it can be
incorporated as a learning tool in undergraduate classes.

"This is an enormously rich pedagogical device, not only to teach skills such as
creating maps based on statistics, but also to expose students to the
socio-economic and cultural diversity of the city in a visual and interesting
way," Banerjee said.


[Photo:] Professor of urban and regional planning Tridib Banerjee, with,
fromleft, graduate students Stefanus Hadi, Alvin Mares, Hyeon Park, Jeong Ho Moon
and Woosuk Zhee.