Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

From Progressive Planning To Progressive Urbanism: Planning's Progressive Future And The Legacies Of Fragmentation, Stephen Atkinson, Joshua Jorgensen

Conflux

Since the 1980’s numerous urban scholars have taken to proclaiming one city or another as being ‘progressive.’ Planning websites like American Planning Association, Planetizen or Progressive Planning Magazine are inundated with examples of progressive planning in action. The examples of touted progressive cities are many: Burlington, Berkeley, Cleveland, Boston, L.A., Chicago, Cincinnati, Portland, Minneapolis, Austin, Denver, and Seattle have all been championed as progressive cities. Most of them come with brackets: Boston was progressive [under Mayor Flynn]; Chicago was progressive [under Mayor Washington]; Burlington was progressive [under Mayor Sanders]. There is also no shortage of descriptors about what makes a …

Cuyahoga County’S Tax-Base Challenge: Renewing And Redeveloping Core Communities, Thomas Bier, Charlie Post

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Two major factors threaten the well-being of Cuyahoga County: the approaching build-out of its outer suburbs, which will severely limit tax-base growth through new construction, and the aged condition of inner suburbs, which jeopardizes property values. The situation calls for unprecedented cooperative action among elected officials to secure the county’s future.

Recent changes in the value of real estate in Cuyahoga County compared with adjacent counties shows the seriousness of the situation and the criticality of the primary course of action: redevelopment and renewal in Cleveland and inner suburbs.

A Newer Geography Of Jobs: Where Workers With Advanced Degrees Are Concentrating The Fastest, Richey Piiparinen, Jim Russell, Charles Post

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

From 2005 to 2013, the Cleveland metro ranked 5th in the nation in the growth of percentage of workers with an advanced degree. Greater Cleveland ranks 10th in the nation with 17% of its labor force with a graduate or professional degree, moving up from 22nd place in 2005. Cleveland’s 12-point rank change was third largest, behind Indianapolis and Providence. The brief suggest Greater Cleveland is part of a next generation of second-tier metros entering into the upper echelon of the knowledge economy.

How The City Grows: Urban Growth And Challenges To Sustainable Development In Doha, Qatar, Andrew M. Gardner

All Faculty Scholarship

This book chapter considers how sustainable development fits in the social, political, and cultural context of contemporary Doha, Qatar. After a review of sustainable development and urban development in Qatar, this chapter makes several contentions. First, it contends that sustainable development poses a challenge to the political stability of a society that distributes state-controlled wealth to its citizenry through urban development. Second, it points to the fact that Qatar's tribal/authoritarian political regime is antithetical to some of the bottom-up democratic principles thought to underpin sustainable development. Finally, it suggest that the consignment of sustainable development efforts to the spatial discourse …

Green Infrastructure And The Sustainability Concept: A Case Study Of The Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, Jessica Fisch

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability has been touted as an ideal in city and environmental planning in recent decades, evolving to include environmental, economic, and equity-focused goals. While much has been written about these ideals, it remains unclear how their inherent tensions and challenges affect planning practice. This thesis analyzes these goals as they are perceived and prioritized in The Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, a regional water management plan released by Waggonner and Ball Architects in September 2013, utilizing interviews with architects involved in the plan’s development, staff at agencies involved in green infrastructure implementation, and advocacy groups involved in and affected …

Impacts Of Climate Change On The Evolution Of The Electrical Grid, Melissa Ree Allen

Doctoral Dissertations

Maintaining interdependent infrastructures exposed to a changing climate requires understanding 1) the local impact on power assets; 2) how the infrastructure will evolve as the demand for infrastructure changes location and volume and; 3) what vulnerabilities are introduced by these changing infrastructure topologies. This dissertation attempts to develop a methodology that will a) downscale the climate direct effect on the infrastructure; b) allow population to redistribute in response to increasing extreme events that will increase under climate impacts; and c) project new distributions of electricity demand in the mid-21^st century.

The research was structured in three parts. The first …

Converting Garages Into A Dissertation: A Conversation With Jacob Wegmann, Jonathan P. Bell

Jonathan P. Bell

UrbDeZine, June 17, 2014. In part 1 of the article, I highlight that burgeoning scholarship on "informality" in the U.S. housing market fails to address the implementation side of planning: the regulation and enforcement of unpermitted dwelling units. Part 2 includes a Q&A with PhD candidate Jacob Wegmann on his groundbreaking dissertation examining the impacts of extralegal dwelling units on the political economy and housing market in Southeast Los Angeles County. The enforcement perspective is core to Wegmann's study. URL: http://losangeles.urbdezine.com/2014/06/17/converting-garages-into-a-dissertation-a-conversation-with-jacob-wegmann/

Interpreting The Roman Squatting Tradition, Shaun J. Mcgann

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis addresses the rich tradition of urban occupations, also known as "squatting", in Rome, Italy. I argue that Roman squatting had its origins mainly in the Social Center Movement of the late 1970s and a preceding wave of occupations aimed at garnering affordable housing. In order to provide a context for these social movements, I first briefly describe the urban development history of the city since the late 1800s. The Roman pattern of urban development favored private interests and land speculation in a manner that resulted in overconsumption and the marginalization of a large sect of the population. In …

Distributional Consequences Of Public Policies: An Example From The Management Of Urban Vehicular Travel, Winston Harrington, Elena Safirova, Conrad Coleman, Sébastien Houde, Adam M. Finkel

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper uses a spatially disaggregated computable general equilibrium model of a large US metropolitan area to compare two kinds of policies, “Live Near Your Work” and taxation of vehicular travel, that have been proposed to help further the aims of “smart growth.” Ordinarily, policy comparisons of this sort focus on the net benefits of the two policies; that is, the total monetized net welfare gains or losses to all citizens. While the aggregate net benefits are certainly important, in this analysis we also disaggregate these benefits along two important dimensions: income and location within the metropolitan area. The resulting …

Cities, Disaster Risk And Adaptation, Christine Wamsler

Christine Wamsler

Worldwide, disasters and climate change pose a serious risk to sustainable urban development, resulting in escalating human and economic costs. Consequently, city authorities and other urban actors face the challenge of integrating risk reduction and adaptation strategies into their work, although related knowledge and expertise are still scarce.

Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation explores ways in which resilient cities can be ‘built’ and sustainable urban transformations achieved. The book provides a comprehensive understanding of urban risk reduction and adaptation planning, exploring key theoretical concepts and analyzing the complex interrelation between cities, disasters and climate change. It further provides an overview …