Center for Urban and Public Affairs (CUPA)

            Billy Fields, Ph.D., Director, CUPA
            Paulette Simon, Coordinator of Business Affairs at CUPA and SUPRS

OVERVIEW

The Center for Urban and Public Affairs (CUPA) is a multidisciplinary, non-partisan center for urban research and planning at the University of New Orleans that has produced and disseminated rigorous applied and scholarly urban research for over 20 years. The mission of helping to facilitate and understand healthy, sustainable urban communities has been made all the more important as the Gulf Coast region recovers from Hurricane Katrina. CUPA has built tremendous expertise in the challenges and opportunities that lie at the heart of rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast Region. This expertise is being put to use in a wide variety of projects of local and national significance.

Significant Recent Projects Include:

• The Pedestrian/Bicycle Resource Initiative: a three year project to institutionalize walking and bicycling planning in the Metropolitan New Orleans area through geospatial analysis of crash patterns and coordination of projects through a multi-agency Task Force.
• University Lakefront Recovery Planning: production of a targeted Action Plan for residential and commercial recovery for the Robert E. Lee Blvd./Paris Ave. Recovery Node.  
• Analysis of Federal Funding for Nonmotorized Transportation and Public Health: in partnership with Harvard University, CUPA will undertake a comprehensive analysis of federal funding for nonmotorized infrastructure and its impact on public health. This grant is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
• The UNO Green University Initiative, a partnership with the Office of Sponsored Research and CUPA, seeks to encourage the University of New Orleans to work toward the creation of a more sustainable campus.  The initial goal is to foster the use of best practices in sustainability for landscape design and management, education, and transportation planning.  These three areas provide an opportunity to create a significant impact at the outset.  Best practices from around the country are being reviewed and an Action Plan created to identify key initial steps to move the campus towards more sustainable practices.

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