Bob and Mary Reusche Chair in Geographic Information Science, Professor of Geography and Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis
Harvey J. Miller is the Bob and Mary Reusche Chair in Geographic Information Science, Professor of Geography and Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis at The Ohio State University. He is also a Courtesy Professor of City and Regional Planning, an affiliate of the Translational Data Analytics Institute and a member of the advisory board of the Sustainability
Institute at Ohio State University, and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He has a PhD in Geography from
The Ohio State University.
Prof. Miller’s research interests include geospatial data analytics, transportation science and urban science, in particular, sustainable mobility, resilient communities, and the relationships between human mobility, environmental justice and wellness. He is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific publications.
Prof. Miller co-chairs the Geographical and Geospatial Sciences Committee of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine where he is also a member of the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. Prof. Miller also serves on the Regional Data Advisory Committee of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission in Columbus, Ohio. In 2022, he was elected President of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science.
Prof. Miller’s awards include the Edward L. Ullman Award from the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the Research Award from the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, and the Community Engaged Scholar Award from The Ohio State University. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Association of Geographers.
The Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA) at The Ohio State University has launched the Ghost Neighborhoods of Columbus project to help people understand what was destroyed by urban highway construction and urban renewal in the 20th century. The Ghost Neighborhoods project will highlight these lost and damaged neighborhoods by using machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques to extract data from the historical Sanborn maps to create populate a GIS database, and creating realistic 3D visualizations of the lost buildings and built environments. At present, the project is focusing on the Hanford Village/Driving Park neighborhoods that were bisected by I-70 in the late 1960s. Researchers are also digitally reconstructing Poindexter Village, one of the first public housing projects in the US, and Mt. Vernon Ave, the “Black downtown” of Columbus before I-71 cut it off from the center city. This session will describe the motivations and techniques behind the Ghost Neighborhoods projects. These technique can be applied to any city with Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps; these exist for over 10,000 cities and towns in the US dating back to the late 19th century.