The Center for Sustainable Cities was established in 1998, by a group of USC faculty from engineering, the natural and social sciences, urban planning, and environmental health sciences. This multidisciplinary group, led by Professor Joseph Devinny of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Professor Jennifer Wolch of Geography, received a grant from the National Science Foundation's Integrated Graduate Research Education and Training (IGERT) Program, to fund USC doctoral students as well as undergraduates from colleges and universities across the country, interested in learning about the challenges of making cities more sustainable. These educational efforts are based on the conviction that resolution of environmental problems demands contributions from professionals trained in a variety of knowledge fields, holding diverse backgrounds, political perspectives, and environmental philosophies, who must be able to work productively with multiple stakeholder groups. Since its inception, the Center has expanded to include international summer programs, lecture and seminar series, an active and multifaceted research agenda, and training and policy outreach activities designed to insure that our work is engaged with the concerns of the world beyond academe.

The geographical focus of our work has been the Los Angeles metropolitan area.The Los Angeles region is an ideal laboratory for research on urban environmental sustainability. The nation's second largest urban area, Los Angeles is growing rapidly, anchored to a complex economy featuring aerospace, high technology, entertainment, services, and craft manufacturing. The region's location on an international border, and at the eastern gateway of the Pacific Rim, make Los Angeles a world city and global entrepot. The population - culturally diverse, internationalized, and economically polarized - is distributed across almost 200 cities and more than 38,000 square miles. The polycentric urban form of the region induces heavy dependence on cars and fossil fuel. Despite improvements in air quality, the region has the worst air quality in the nation. The heavily populated coastal plain is surrounded by some of the steepest mountains in the continental U.S., trapping smog within the basin and flushing polluted runoff into the Pacific Ocean during storms. Rapid habitat loss and fragmentation threaten biodiversity and make Los Angeles region an endangered species hot spot. Lastly, few major cities face as many natural hazards - earthquakes, landslides, flooding, wildfires, sea level rise - as Los Angeles.

Despite these environmental challenges, Los Angelinos enjoy year round sunshine, unparalleled access to mountains, desert, and seashore, and proximity to a wealth of cultural and educational opportunities. Moreover, the region is characterized by innovation. For the environment, this means new environmental technologies, experiments with new environmental policy tools, and dynamic social movements dedicated to addressing the region's environment challenges. The Center is fortunate to be able to work in this compelling context.