Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Mobility And Accessibility In Shrinking Cities, Joanna Ganning

TREC Project Briefs

A University of Utah researcher explores the synthesis of mobility- and accessibility-based transportation planning in the context of urban decay.

Negotiating The Neighborhood: The Role Of Neighborhood Associations In Urban Planning Processes, Lane K. Holden

Sociology Honors Projects

To promote collaborative urban planning, the United States Federal Government requires that city and regional governments consult communities affected by planning processes. Neighborhood associations were originally created to engage community members in local social justice issues in order to meet this mandate. Relying on these organizations raises questions about whether they fulfill their potential: what role do community members play in urban planning? Do neighborhood associations feel like they participate effectively in the urban planning process? How do these associations perceive the extent to which the government uses their input? To address these questions, this study examines perceptions of urban …

Lawn Dissidents: Performing Whiteness Through Sustainability In Urban Residential Yards, Amy Lebowitz

Geography Honors Projects

“Lawn dissidents” are people who violate norms of turfgrass yards often found in suburbia. This thesis uses ethnographic methods to examine how these subjects’ sustainability-oriented lawn alternatives create meaning by manifesting values and performing identities. I argue that such lawn alternatives operate as positional goods that inscribe exclusion into landscapes. “Green” yardscapes yield social and environmental benefits to “dissidents” while burying the ways capitalism codes lawn alternatives, enacting a regime of whiteness no better for equity and inclusion than suburban lawns. Nonetheless, I turn hopefully to sharing economies as tools to expand sustainability initiatives beyond elite, eco-conscious whiteness.

Service Learning Presentation, Derreck Blake Deason

Derreck Blake Deason

"The Michael Mizell-Nelson Outstanding Service Learning Scholar Award for exceptional academic community-based research and service to the New Orleans community was awarded to: Derreck Blake Deason and Jeanne Bankston. Deason was a student in urban planning professor Michelle Thompson’s applied GIS Information Technology course and has worked extensively to bridge connections between his academic GIS skills and the needs of the community, particularly through his work with WhoData. The mission of WhoData is to provide training and technology to map, analyze and report neighborhood Quality of Life issues for and with communities. Deason contributed to mapping parcels in the historic …

Using Multimodal Performance Measures To Prioritize Improvements On Us 101 In San Luis Obispo County, Jessica Berry

PSU Transportation Seminars

The US 101 Corridor Mobility Master Plan in San Luis Obispo was a two-year planning effort that evaluated the 70 mile corridor on 12 performance measures. This collaborative effort was led by the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG).

Performance based planning is becoming more important for agencies receiving State and Federal funding. Smaller, rural regional agencies will have to find ways to collect, report, and use performance metrics with limited resources. SLOCOG's first performance-based planning effort was the US 101 Corridor Mobility Master Plan, funded through a State grant.

Funding for this project came from a …

Culture Connects 20/20: A Cultural Plan For The Dayton, Ohio Region, Marc Goldring, Richard Stock, Jane Dockery

Community Development

In March of 2014, Culture Works contracted WolfBrown to provide the services of Marc Goldring, Associate Principal, to oversee aspects of developing a 10-year cultural plan for the Dayton Region. The planning team also included Dr. Richard Stock, Director, Business Research Group of the University of Dayton and Jane Dockery, APRI's Associate Director. This project grew out of earlier regional research, beginning in 2011, funded in part by the Dayton Foundation that included comprehensive market research about cultural attendance and a study of economic activity generated by the nonprofit cultural sector.

Where the practices of creativity help our young people …

2014 Annual Population Report Tables (April 22, 2015), Portland State University. Population Research Center

Oregon Population Estimates and Reports

This item contains Oregon population tables. Prepared by Population Research Center, Portland State University, April, 2015.

Annexations and other revisions can be found in the attached supplemental files.

Tracing A History Of Atlanta’S Public Transit, Joseph Hurley

Selections from the University Library Blog

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Bike Lanes On Congestion And Ridership In Boise, Stephen Gustafon, Brooke Jardine, Keegan Curry, Jacob Morris, Tyler Rahmann

College of Business and Economics Presentations

This research project examines the effect of adding bike lanes in the downtown area of Boise and the impact it has on congestion as well as ridership. Cycling has become increasingly popular in major U.S metropolitan areas as an alternative form of transportation. The addition of bike lanes in downtown areas has been furiously debated in recent years. We will explore how bike lanes have affected congestion and ridership thus far in Boise, and in other regional cities of comparable size, Spokane, WA and Eugene, OR in hopes of determining the impact that the addition of bike lanes causes. Our …

Learning From Cinara: Exploring The Depths Of Participatory Water Engagement In Cali, Colombia, Zachary T. Strickland

Honors College Theses

Located within the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia, CINARA is an academic institution, comprised of both engineers and social scientists, that has almost three decades of experience regarding participatory approaches to water supply and environmental sanitation. In this paper, I argue that CINARA’s work is important due to its emphasis on meaningful community participation that significantly involves communities in decisions on technical matters that are usually allocated exclusively to “experts.” Furthermore, the valuation of social considerations and non-technical knowledge found amongst CINARA’s engineers stands in distinct contrast to traditional development practices and engineering mindsets. This paper will go on …

New Horizons: Libraries, Space, And People — A Ttw Guest Post By Jonathan Pacheco Bell, Jonathan P. Bell

Jonathan P. Bell

Tame the Web, April 20, 2015

Dash: The Portland Region's Next-Generation Activity-Based Model, Richard Walker

PSU Transportation Seminars

DASH is the next generation activity based model being developed by the Metro Research Center. Upon completion, it will be one of the most advanced in the nation. This model will be used extensively in estimating the activity and travel response of individuals to policies and infrastructure investments. Compared to past models, it will include enhanced consideration of the socio-economic roles of individuals, discrete temporal dynamics, and intra-household dependencies.

April 2015 - Urban Sprawl In Kane, Kendall, Will And Mchenry Counties, Illinois, 1987 And 2007, Elisa Addlesperger

Elisa E. Addlesperger

Elisa Addlesperger’s map, created as part of a final project for GEO 243 Remote Sensing, shows the impact of development on availability of farmland in four collar counties in northeastern Illinois: Kane, Kendall, Will and McHenry. Landsat 5 multi-band spectral images from 1987 and 2007 were processed to create classes showing development density in each respective year. Open or agricultural land is indicated with a bright green. Based on this visual analysis, substantial amounts of arable land have been lost to development in Chicago’s collar counties. According to the state Department of Agriculture, Illinois has lost over 3.6 million acres …

The General Public’S Weather Information-Seeking And Decision-Making Behavior During Tornado Outbreaks In The Oklahoma City Metroplex In May 2013, Chen Ling, Michelle Madison, Jessica Adams, Kevin Warren, Michael Mudd, Kim Graves Wolfinbarger, Lans Rothfusz

Dr. Chen Ling

Severe weather impacts the lives of many people. Today's technology allows weather information to be distributed to the general public in many ways. However, it is not clear how people obtain information regarding severe weather, and how they make decisions based on the information. This study surveyed people in the Oklahoma City metroplex about their weather information–seeking and decision-making behaviors during the May 2013 tornado outbreaks. The preliminary results based on 124 survey responses show that people used and trusted television news most to obtain the severe weather information, followed by siren, weather radio, radio, looking at the sky, and …

Consolidation Of The Lake County Fire & Ems Departments Feasibility Study, Bernard Becker Iii

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This is the report of the Consolidation of the Lake County Fire Departments Feasibility Study grant project, which was funded by the State of Ohio Local Government Innovations Fund (LGIF) Program. The project tests the feasibility of consolidation of the fourteen (14) municipal Fire Departments and the two (2) Fire Districts into a single (or up to three (3)) consolidated Fire Districts to improve service at a reduced cost.

Public Participation In Planning In Nsw: Resilient Evolution Or Relapse?, Lynne Armitage, John Sheehan

Lynne Armitage

The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Land and Environment Court Act 1979, comprise a legislative duo providing statutory control over the use of public and private property in the most populous state of Australia, New South Wales (NSW). Statutory planning in NSW arguably commenced in 1951 with the Cumberland Planning Scheme Ordinance which was in turn based upon pre-war English town and country planning, and is generally regarded as the foundation for much Australian planning. Since 1979 the NSW planning regime has matured into a complex exclusory zoning system, which has been further developed through case law …

Nacogdoches Livability Project: Image Of University Mall, Vanessa Arasin, Quinton Nunn, Cody Ressler

Undergraduate Research Conference

Introduction Our Client, Dr. Forbes, is doing a project to assess livability in Nacogdoches based on three mutually reinforcing areas: economics, environment, and society. He also wanted to know the types of businesses that would make students spend money at the University Mall. Our assignment from our professor was to find out Stephen F. Austin State University students’ image of the University Mall, so the research team decided to try to accomplish both objectives.

Objective The objective of the project was to gain a better understanding of the environment, economics, and Stephen F. Austin State University students’ image of University …

Global Trade Impacts: Addressing The Health, Social And Environmental Consequences Of Moving International Freight Through Our Communities, Martha Matsuoka, Andrea Hricko, Robert Gottlieb, Juan Delara

Martha Matsuoka

As ports and goods movement activity expands throughout the United States, a major challenge is how to make the adverse impacts of freight transportation a more central part of economic development, policy and planning discussions and transportation decision making. In 2009, faculty and staff from the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute of Occidental College and from the environmental health sciences and regional equity programs of the University of Southern California (USC) began a study of this evolving global trade and freight transportation system, focusing on areas in the United States where the system is expanding and where community, labor and …

Water-Smart Growth: Integrating Water Management And Land Use Planning, Enjie Li

Enjie Li

Water and urban growth are inextricably interconnected, particularly in arid regions. Urban growth and water management have generated multi-dimensional conflicts. Growing cities that seek to quench their continuously increasing thirst with limited available water resources often have adverse impacts on the environment or region from which the water is drawn. Given that land use planning is an effective tool to control and manage urban growth and it has direct influence on urban water management, a holistic land-water planning approach is needed to cope with rapid growth and water scarcity in the arid western United States. However, this land-water planning approach …

Geometric Design, Speed, And Safety, Richard J. Porter

PSU Transportation Seminars

In this seminar, Dr. Porter will explore the interactions of geometric design decisions, speed, and safety. A performance-based approach to this topic will be considered given the availability of several key documents, including the Highway Safety Manual and TRB's Modeling Operating Speed: Synthesis Report as well as a significant body of published research. A historical look at the design speed concept will show that while the design speed definition has changed on more than one occasion, the same basic but flawed philosophy that relates design speed to a “safe speed” is still reflected in supplemental guidance related to design speed …