Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Scholars And Sense

DePaul Magazine

Four DePaul alumni who were the recipients of McNair scholarships have gone on to careers of servies. Pedro Serrano is a public health researcher who most recently has been working on how COVID-19 is affecting people's emotional, physical and mental health. Pascale Ife Williams, a human ecologist, engages is culture and arts initiatives that lift up communities oppressed by institutional inequity. Peter Dziedzic explores interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism as a PhD candidate at Harvard University. Robert Vargas, a tenured sociology professor at the University of Chicago, is using geographic information system mapping software to help governments anticipate and reduce …

Smart Shrinkage: Better Planning And Decision-Making For Legacy Cities, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Michael P. Johnson

Bicycle Planning Gis Tool, Joseph Broach

TREC Final Reports

Although currently only about one percent of US trips are done by bicycle, there is significant geographic variation. Differences across communities, along with much higher cycling rates observed in other places around the world, indicates large potential bicycling demand for daily travel in the US. In response, many communities are developing and implementing bicycle master plans that include a range of bikeway infrastructure aimed at making riding more appealing, including separated paths, protected (or separated) bike lanes, striped bike lanes, bicycle boulevards, sharrows, route signage, and intersection crossing aids. Given limited resources, planners and engineers need tools to estimate the …

An Evaluation Of The Impact Of Leading Pedestrian Interval Signals In Nyc, Jeremy J. Sze

Theses and Dissertations

I evaluated the impact of the phased introduction of Leading Pedestrian Interval Signals (LPIs) on collision and injury outcomes at 12,987 signalized traffic intersections in New York City over the course of 25 quarters from 2012 to 2018. An intersection is treated when a LPIs is installed to give pedestrians lead time to cross the street before vehicles are allowed to move. Outcomes from NYPD’s Motor Vehicle Collisions data were matched to signalized intersections. I hypothesize that LPIs would reduce collisions and reduce injuries for pedestrians at intersections. A difference in difference fixed effects panel regression was used to identify …

V2x: Bringing Bikes Into The Mix, Stephen Fickas

TREC Final Reports

This project demonstrates how an inexpensive system (hardware and software) can add new functionality to existing signal controllers, giving bicyclists an efficient way to cross a controlled intersection. The system integrates three components: (1) a Bike Connect box that resides near the signal-controller and is connected to it, (2) an application that runs on a Bike Connect device (currently an iPhone) and requests a green light at the correct approach-distance, and (3) a cloud-based publish/subscribe (pub/sub) component that handles cellular-communication between phone app and box. One stumbling block for the project was a means to obtain reliable GPS data to …

Neighborhood Development Foundation: Homebuyer Locations And Purchase Dates In New Orleans (La) And Nearby Metro Parishes, 1986-2017, Michelle M. Thompson Phd, Gisp, Brittney Moore, Jennie Garcia

Planning and Urban Studies Reports and Presentations

The New America Public Interest Technology “Financial Inclusion & Citizen Participation” (FI&CP) project is focused on evaluating the public and private financial policies, tools and practice (FPTP) that impact the ability for people to increase their personal and family wealth. The FI&CP is evaluating the PFTP case study cities of New York (Bronx City), Chicago, IL, New Orleans, LA, and St. Louis, MO using big and small/community data to identify use and access to financial services such as credit cards and mortgages. The New Orleans case study focuses on p3GIS (public and private participation geographic information systems) in a dynamic …

The Flint Food Store Survey: Combining Spatial Analysis With A Modified Nutrition Environment Measures Survey In Stores (Nems-S) To Measure The Community And Consumer Nutrition Environments, Erika R. Shaver, Richard C. Sadler, Alex B. Hill, Kendall Bell, Myah Ray, Jennifer Choy-Shin, Joy Lerner, Teresa Soldner, Andrew D. Jones

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

Objective
The goal of the present study was to use a methodology that accurately and reliably describes the availability, price and quality of healthy foods at both the store and community levels using the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in Stores (NEMS-S), to propose a spatial methodology for integrating these store and community data into measures for defining objective food access.

Setting
Two hundred and sixty-five retail food stores in and within 2 miles (3·2 km) of Flint, Michigan, USA, were mapped using ArcGIS mapping software.

Design
A survey based on the validated NEMS-S was conducted at each retail food store. …

New Probe Data Sources To Measure Cycling Behavior And Safety, Christopher Cherry

PSU Transportation Seminars

Emerging probe data sources from smartphones on on-board devices are able to measure behavior of cyclists with very high resolution. From this, for the first time, we are able to measure relatively precise behavior that allows new insights into exposure, route choice, safety behavior, or technology choice. Probe data, merged with other data sources, can begin to develop a more complete picture of cyclists on-road behavior.

This presentation will offer examples of analyses done to investigate cyclists behavior using app-based and on-board GPS data in the context of individual cyclists behavior (i.e., app users) and behavior of bikeshare users (i.e., …

Decision Modeling For Housing And Community Development: A Methodology For Evidence-Based Urban And Regional Planning, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Michael P. Johnson

Ppol-G 746 Geographic Information Systems For Public Policy, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Michael P. Johnson

Revisiting Critical Gis, Jim Thatcher, Luke Bergmann, Britta Ricker, Reuben Rose-Redwood, Daniel O'Sullivan, Trevor J. Barnes, Luke R. Barnesmoore, Laura Beltz Imaoka, Ryan Burns, Jonathan Cinnamon, Craig M. Dalton, Clinton Davis, Stuart Dunn, Francis Harvey, Jin-Kyu Jung, Elen Kersten, Ladona Knigge, Nick Lally, Wen Lin, Dillon Mahmoudi, Michael Martin, Will Payne, Amir Sheikh, Taylor Shelton, Eric Sheppard, Chris W. Strother, Alexander Tarr, Matthew W. Wilson, Jason C. Young

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article looks into the critical geographic information science (GIS) in approaching questions both emerging and enduring around the intersection of the spatial and the digital. It offers trading zones for discussion of issues, for building alliances and interrogating tensions, and for a constant dialectical process of critique and renewal. One tension running through critical GIS is the contradictory role it has played in addressing questions of social justice.

Data And Analytics For Neighborhood Development: Smart Shrinkage Decision Modeling In Baltimore, Maryland, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Justin Hollander, Eliza D. Whiteman

Michael P. Johnson

Many older cities in the United States confront the problem of long-term decline in population and economic activity resulting in blighted conditions that make conventional revitalization initiatives unlikely to succeed. Smart shrinkage, a planning approach that emphasizes alternative land uses while preserving quality of life, offers a way for cities to remain desirable places to live and work. However, there is little research on empirical methods to support planning decisions consistent with smart shrinkage. We present results from two studies with planners from the City of Baltimore that provide novel insights regarding ways in which planners can perform vacant property …

Public Participation Gis And Neighbourhood Recovery: Using Community Mapping For Economic Development, Michelle M. Thompson Phd, Gisp

Planning and Urban Studies Faculty Publications

In 2005, New Orleans, Louisiana experienced an interruption in its neighborhood life cycle due to Hurricane Katrina. While federal, state and local administrative policies have tried to manage the process of recovery, the non-profit sector has been a key to the recovery. This paper will examine the case study of the Beacon of Hope Resource Centre (BOH) whose ability to collect data, expand citizen engagement and influence policy made a positive impact upon economic development through public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) with the Regional Planning Commission and the Department of Planning and Urban Studies, University of New Orleans. This …

Spatial Thinking In Planning Practice: An Introduction To Gis, Yiping Fang, Vivek Shandas, Eugenio Arriaga Cordero

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

The goals of this textbook are to help students acquire the technical skills of using software and managing a database, and develop research skills of collecting data, analyzing information and presenting results. We emphasize that the need to investigate the potential and practicality of GIS technologies in a typical planning setting and evaluate its possible applications. GIS may not be necessary (or useful) for every planning application, and we anticipate these readings to provide the necessary foundation for discerning its appropriate use. Therefore, this textbook attempts to facilitate spatial thinking focusing more on open-ended planning questions, which require judgment and …

Assessing Transit Fare Equity In Utah Using A Geographic Information System, Steven Farber, Keith Batholomew, Xiao Li, Antonio Paez, Khandker M. Nurul Habib

TREC Final Reports

The goal of this study is to develop and apply a new method for assessing social equity impacts of distance-based public transit fares. Shifting to a distance-based fare structure can disproportionately favor or penalize different subgroups of a population based on variations in settlement patterns, travel needs, and most importantly, transit use. According to federal law, such disparities must be evaluated by the transit agency, but the area-based techniques identified by the Federal Transit Authority for assessing discrimination fail to account for disparities in distances travelled by transit users. This means that transit agencies currently lack guidelines for assessing the …

Gis Tools For Bicycle Network Analysis And Planning, Mike Lowry

PSU Transportation Seminars

This presentation is a showcase of various GIS tools developed for bicycle network analysis and planning. The showcase includes a tool for assessing community-wide bikeability, a tool for forecasting bicycle volumes based on street topology, and a tool for evaluating different bicycle improvement plans in terms of exposure to danger situations for bicyclists. The tools will be demonstrated with case study data. The presentation will include a review of the Highway Capacity Manual Bicycle Level of Service and a discussion about using bicycle and pedestrian data collected through citizen-volunteer count programs.

The Development Of An Electronic Data Collection Tool And Comparison Of The Electronic And Manual Methods Of Land Use Inventory, Wesley M. Catanzaro

Master's Theses

An important component of Planning Information Systems for municipal planning agencies is a comprehensive land use inventory that provides information on the location, distribution, and intensity of land uses throughout a community. This data is a necessary prerequisite for the informed creation of planning documents such as General Plans, Specific Plans, Housing Inventories, and Climate Action Plans. Beyond location, distribution and intensity of land uses, planners may also wish to incorporate additional information at the parcel level, such as the number of housing or commercial units, building condition, and/or access and connectivity to adjacent streets. Because some of this information …

Whodata.Org 2012 Newsletter, Michelle M. Thompson, Darin Acosta, Alena A. Anderson, Brittany N. Arceneaux, Josh Baer, Brian J. Baldwin, Carl Seifert, Chandra Teddleton

Dr. Michelle M. Thompson, GISP, FRGS

WhoData.org, a community-focused public participation geographic information project, aims to share data that academic, public, private and non-profit organizations can use to assess, monitor and manage quality of life issues. WhoData empowers resident-led, non-profit or communityfocused groups, primarily in New Orleans, with training and resources to map and analyze data they collect on neighborhood conditions and trends. The community data information system, www.whodata.org, houses the results of property condition surveys. Residents are able to highlight priority properties that reflect indicators of blight, create customized maps and export property lists to share with the public and municipal leaders. Neighborhood profile reports, …

Development Of Mobile Mapping Technology To Facilitate Dialogue Between Transportation Agencies And The Public, Ken Kato, Marc Schlossberg, James Meacham

TREC Final Reports

The goal of this grant was to take the technological innovations for deploying survey instruments to mobile phones, developed under a previous OTREC grant, and publish them as globally accessible mobile applications (apps) for use in a variety of transportation planning settings. Under this grant, three applications have been developed for three distinctly different user groups. The first, JLA Involve, was developed and deployed for JLA, a Portland, OR.-based public involvement firm, to support their work with the City of Tualatin, OR., in updating their Transportation System Plan (TSP). The second was developed and deployed for the City of Eugene, …

Hoffman Triangle 2012: Neighborhood Profile Report, Michelle M. Thompson, Josh Baer, Rachael Bauer, Frank Carter, Patrick Coyle, Alex Depriest, Malissa Dietsch, Lawrence Guimont, Kevin Harrison, Nelson Hollings, Annabeth Mccall, Tara Mckeefry, Valerie Mcmillan, Brooke Perry, Adarian Pike, Kevin Potter

Dr. Michelle M. Thompson, GISP, FRGS

Hoffman Triangle is located in the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans. It is bounded by South Claiborne Avenue to the South, Toledo Street and Washington Avenue to the West and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the East. It is a neighborhood that continues to evolve and significantly grow after the Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In order to support the work that the Neighborhood Development Foundation, Associated Neighborhood Development and the Hoffman Triangle Neighborhood Association are doing to improve the quality of life of all existing and future residents, WhoData.org and the University of New Orleans – Department of …

Transferring Community-Based, Active Transportation Gis Assessment Tools Nationwide, Marc Schlossberg, Nico Larco

TREC Final Reports

“Livability” has recently been declared one of four top priorities by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), and the USDOT, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have entered into an historic partnership to address the issue. Ultimately, this term refers to the quality of life within one’s community and the ease, comfort, and joy with which one can access places he or she want to go. For most Americans, their neighborhoods have been designed to predominantly accommodate the automobile, and more active forms of transportation such as walking and …

Active Transportation, Neighborhood Planning And Participatory Gis (Geographic Information System), Marc Schlossberg, Nico Larco

TREC Final Reports

Research on walking, the built environment, and healthy communities is a fairly recent area of inquiry, accelerated over the last ten years by an increased interest in the relationship between urban form and public health. A series of macro-oriented logic models and micro-focused data collection tools have been developed over this time in order to understand this healthy communities issue, as well as operationalize the hypotheses around the connection between the built environment and physical activity. None of these efforts, however, attempt to connect their assessment frameworks and tools with a public involvement process. The last ten years has also …

Building Bridges Between Community Based Organizations And Technology: Exploring Tools For Community Participation And Economic Development For The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Michelle M. Thompson Phd, Gisp, Leila Aman, E.J. Neafsey, Anna Karwowska, Kyu-Sang (Josh) Lee, Jason Luger, Julienne Chen

Planning and Urban Studies Reports and Presentations

Technology plays a vital role in public and private businesses, governments, and organizations, and can be especially useful to organizations that may know the least about it. Unfortunately, many Community Based Organizations (CBOs) have traditionally been unable to embrace contemporary tools due to lack of capacity, time or money. This paper begins to identify issues related to the technology gap faced by CBOs in a case study that examines community economic empowerment for the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative® (DSNI). The problem was approached through a community-university partnership between the Cornell University CRP 607 GIS Workshop Class (Sibley Consulting) and DSNI. …

Reflections On Ppgis: A View From The Trenches, Meg Merrick

Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Publications

The Community Geography Project is a Ford Foundation-funded program that provides training in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and asset mapping methods to community-based nonprofit organizations in partnership with K-12 schools. The primary goal of the Project is to empower citizens, and it is hoped that the partnership between community- based groups and schools will be able to sustain technical and analytical expertise at the grassroots level. Although an overview of the lessons we have learned regarding access to hardware, software, and data are provided, this article focuses on questions regarding GIS training as related to citizen empowerment and provides …

Building And Maintaining A Statewide Transportation Framework, Kenneth Dueker, Paul Bender

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Creating and maintaining up-to-date sharable Geographic Information SystemsTransportation (GIS-T) data is challenging. Many states are working on Transportation Framework efforts to build a complete, consistent, and current transportation data layer in conjunction with the NSDI and Geospatial One-Stop efforts. This paper summarizes an effort that systematically re-examined transportation data sharing issues as part of the development of a Transportation Framework for the State of Washington. Business needs were assessed in terms of spatial and temporal accuracy needs of stakeholders and users of a state-wide Transportation Framework. A conceptual model was developed for a Transportation Framework with emphasis on data flows …

White Paper On Issues And Strategies For Building A State Transportation Framework, Kenneth Dueker, Paul Bender

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The purpose of this white paper is to systematically re-examine transportation data sharing issues that have been discussed at length, but in a manner to foster final decisions and closure. In some cases, choices among alternatives may require more detailed analysis or pilot studies. The development of this document has benefited from discussion at the Interorganizational Resource Information Coordinating Council (IRICC) Roads Committee, which has led to this consensus document. This sixth and final version serves to draw the process to a close and recommends a twofold approach to the development of a Transportation Framework. It also recommends six pilot …

A Clearinghouse Approach To Sharing Transportation Gis Data, Kenneth Dueker, J. Allison Butler, Paul Bender, Jihong Zhang

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Updating and maintaining Geographic Information Systems-Transportation data (GIS-T data) is proving difficult. Different database formats needed to support diverse applications leads to inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and duplication in updating. A clearinghouse approach is recommended for the collection and dissemination of new transportation features that can be segmented in different ways to meet the needs of various applications and inserted to update existing GIS-T databases. The clearinghouse approach is advantageous in that it is based on collecting data about new or changed transportation features once and uses the data many times to update existing databases.

A Framework For Gis-T Data Sharing, Kenneth Dueker, J. Allison Butler

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This paper develops a framework and principles for sharing of transportation data. The framework is intended to clarify roles among participants, data producers, data integrators, and data users. The principles are intended to provide guidance for the participants. Both the framework and the principles are based on an enterprise GIS-T data model that defines relations among transportation data elements. The data model guards against ambiguities and provides a basis for the development of the framework and principles for sharing of transportation data. There are two central principles. First is the uncoupling of graphics, topology, position, and characteristics. Second is the …

Sharing Transportation Gis Data, Kenneth Dueker, Paul Bender, Jihong Zhang

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Updating and maintaining Geographic Information Systems-Transportation data (GIS-T data) is proving difficult. Different database formats needed to support diverse applications leads to inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and duplication in updating. Dueker and Butler (1998) have proposed an Enterprise GIS-T data model that unbundles the various components of transportation data (network links, cartography, and attributes) to facilitate generating application-specific networks, and which eases updating and maintenance. However, developers of existing application-specific databases that employ integrated data models that bundle the network link with cartography and attributes are reluctant to step back to an intermediate form for managing their data. Consequently, attention is …

A Primer On Gis-T Databases, J. Allison Butler, Kenneth Dueker

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This paper describes the primary database design approaches that have been and are being used in geographic information system applications for transportation (GIS-T). While not intending to be exhaustive, the paper covers the primary approaches used in federal, state, and local transportation agencies.