Urban Studies Commons^™

Cycling Into The Future: Implementation Of Enhanced Bikeways Along San Fernando Street In Downtown San Jose, Patrick Rubens

Master's Projects

In 2012, the City of San Jose acquired funding from the Transportation for Livable Communities Grant Program and began installing “green striped” enhanced bicycle lanes on a 1.5 mile stretch San Fernando Street between Diridon Station and 10th Street connecting San Jose’s Downtown Train Station to San Jose State University. According to city documents, these enhanced bikeways are intended to “enhance the visibility and safety of this route as a primary bikeway.” An important element of the project was the installation of LED streetlights to improve nighttime visibility. This specific project undertaken by the city falls under the umbrella of …

Pedestrian Safety On San Jose Roads: The Impact Of Traffic Safety Infrastructure, David Lisenbee

Master's Projects

How successful have the City of San Jose’s traffic safety improvement programs been in reducing pedestrian injuries/fatalities on city streets? This research question focuses on the impact of the City of San Jose’s traffic safety programs on pedestrian safety between 2010 and 2014. The research aims to determine the extent to which traffic safety programs and infrastructure reduce rates of pedestrian injuries/fatalities and the severity of pedestrian injuries when incidents occur.

A Survey Of Viva Callesj Participants: San Jose, California, 2017, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Hilary Nixon, Cameron Simons

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report presents the findings from a self-complete paper survey of participants at the Viva CalleSJ open streets event held on Sunday, September 17, 2017. The survey was designed to provide information that would help the City of San José assess the success of the event, guide planning for future Viva CalleSJ events, and inform potential funders and community partners about the benefits of Viva CalleSJ. A total of 860 adults at the event completed the one-page paper survey. Survey findings provide detail about how people traveled to the event, their reasons for attending, what they did at the event, …

Improving Livability Using Green And Active Modes: A Traffic Stress Level Analysis Of Transit, Bicycle, And Pedestrian Access And Mobility, Maaza C. Mekuria, Bruce Appleyard, Hilary Nixon

Mineta Transportation Institute

Understanding the relative attractiveness of alternatives to driving is vitally important toward lowering driving rates and, by extension, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), traffic congestion, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, etc. The relative effectiveness of automobile alternatives (i.e., buses, bicycling, and walking) depends on how well streets are designed to work for these respective modes in terms of safety, comfort and cost, which can sometimes pit their relative effectiveness against each other. In this report, the level of traffic stress (LTS) criteria previously developed by two of the authors was used to determine how the streets functioned for these auto alternative modes. …

Graffiti Abatement Program In The City Of East Palo Alto, Oscar Ortiz

Master's Projects

This research project will be of interest for community residents, local government, and non-profit organizations in the City of East Palo Alto. The three main objectives for this project are:

1. Strengthen or establish a relationship between community residents and officials in the City of East Palo Alto.
2. Provide data for local government officials that will help abate graffiti throughout the city.
3. Offer recommendations to improve neighborhood safety, sense of security, and appearance in East Palo Alto

The research question for this report is: How can community participation help abate graffiti in the City of East Palo Alto?

A Survey Of Viva Callesj Participants: San Jose, California 2016, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Hilary Nixon

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report presents the findings from a self-complete paper survey of participants at the Viva CalleSJ open streets event held on September 18, 2016. The survey was designed to provide information that would help the City of San Jose assess the success of the event, guide the planning for future Viva CalleSJ events, and inform potential funders and community partners about the benefits of Viva CalleSJ. A total of 318 people completed the one-page paper survey while at the event. Survey findings provide detail about how people learned about the event, how they traveled to the event, what they did …

The Impact Of Transit-Oriented Development On Social Capital, Robert B. Noland, Orin T. Puniello, Stephanie Dipetrillo

Mineta Transportation Institute

This paper focuses on the ability of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) to improve social capital and interactions within a community. The expectation is that TOD has a positive impact on the lifestyle and activities of individuals who reside, work, and frequent these locations, and that this can include increases in social capital. Using data from a survey of transit station locations in New Jersey, the authors examine how proximity to the station and various built environment variables are associated with different measures of social capital, derived from responses to survey questions. These questions inquire about respondents’ perceptions of their neighborhood …

Improving Pathways To Transit For Persons With Disabilities, Stephanie Dipetrillo, Andrea Lubin, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Carla Salehian, Stephen Gibson, Kristen William, Theodore Trent Green

Mineta Transportation Institute

Persons with disabilities can achieve a greater degree of freedom when they have full access to a variety of transit modes, but this can only be achieved when the pathways to transit – the infrastructure and conditions in the built environment – allow full access to transit stops, stations, and vehicles. Since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, many transit agencies and governmental jurisdictions have made significant progress in this area. Policy initiatives, incremental enhancements, modifications, and other measures undertaken by transit agencies and their partners have significantly improved access to transit for persons with disabilities, …

How Code Enforcement Mitigates Hoarding In The Community, Jason Gibilisco

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

Healthy Fails To Wealthy Trails: Revitalization Opportunities For Underused Spaces Alongside Residential Areas In Arleta, California, Jorge Martinez

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Study Of Urban Forest Management Programs For Three Major Cities In Santa Clara County: A Benchmarking Study, Suzanne Remien

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Viva Callesj Participants: San Jose, California 2015, Asha W. Agrawal, Hilary Nixon

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report presents the findings from a survey of participants at the Viva CalleSJ open streets event held on October 11, 2015. The survey was designed to provide information that would help the City of San Jose assess the success of the event, guide the planning for future Viva CalleSJ events, and inform potential funders and community partners about the benefits of Viva CalleSJ. A total of 618 people completed the one-page paper survey while at the event. Survey findings provide detail on how people learned about the event, how they traveled to the event, what they did at the …

Are Bay Area Cities Inclusive? Evaluating How San Francisco Bay Area Cities Can Address Environmental Justice Challenges By Strengthening Their Engagement Practices With Low-Income And Minority Communities Through The California Environmental Quality Act Process, Kenneth Antonio Rosales

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

Strong Neighborhoods Initiative (Sni), Oscar Inzunza

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

A Primer On Grant Writing For Foundation Support For First-Time Grant Writers In Academic Libraries: Challenges And Opportunities, Peter L. Kraus

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

In a majority of academic disciplines, grant writing is a skill that is often self-taught or acquired informally by trial and error. Few academic disciplines have grant writing as standard part of their curriculum at the graduate level. In the past, grant writing has received little or no emphasis in traditional library education since library science faculty themselves have a poor record of pursuing external funding. Yet, grant writing is a critical skill for new and experienced librarians. For many librarians, the prospect and challenge of writing a grant can seem daunting; however, with institutional support and the support of …

Conveniently Located Disaster: Socio‐Spatial Inequality In Hurricane Sandy And Its Implications For The Urban Sociology Of Climate Change, Gordon Douglas, Liz Koslov, Eric Klinenberg

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Hurricane Sandy was a major event with major implications for how sociologists think about the relationship between climate change and crisis in urban areas. The storm’s impact on New York provides a valuable case for considering how to study the impacts of climate change on large, densely settled cities with vulnerable hard infrastructure and highly complex social conditions that produce differentiated experiences across many different communities. This working paper considers data at several levels of analysis with the aim of assessing neighborhood inequalities in the impacts of such extreme weather. Drawn from the authors’ ongoing research project on unequal vulnerability …

Walking And Cycling In San Francisco: Identifying Underserved Locations That Are Particularly Receptive To Non-Motorized Transport Via The Pedestrian And Bicycling Survey, Rebecca Walters

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

Help-Yourself City: Market-Driven Planning And D.I.Y. Responses In Making The “Neoliberal” Streetscape, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Since the 1970s, the consequences of global economic restructuring and the rise of free-market “neoliberal” ideologies in governance have been visible in most every arena of social life, but are perhaps nowhere more visible than in urban space. The humble bus stop, a basic element of local transit service, is today often turned over in large part to private advertising interests and in the process has become both an indicator of neglect and a symbol of the commodification of public space. This paper examines such physical manifestations of neoliberal planning policy in the urban streetscape – spatial neglect and inequality …

The Formalities Of Informal Urbanism: Technical And Scholarly Knowledge At Work In Do-It‐Yourself Urban Design, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Among the numerous ways people make illegal or unauthorized alterations to urban space, of particular interest in recent years have been the creative, local, and often anonymous efforts at informal but functional “improvement” to the built environment where the state or property owners have failed to act – practices I call “do-it-yourself urban design.” Authorities, planners, and community members alike rightfully wonder about the meanings of these actions, and the questions they raise about rights, responsibilities, benefits, and consequences. Building from alarger qualitative study on DIY urban design across eleven cities, this paper focuses on the motivations, methods, and self-perceptions …

The Self-Conscious Gentrifier: The Paradox Of Authenticity And Impact Among "First-Wave Neo-Bohemians" In 2 Changing Neighborhoods, Naomi Bartz, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Gentrification has been a major factor reshaping North American cities for at least four decades, as well as a vital concern of sociological research. In recent years, there appears to be an increasing awareness of the process among contemporary gentrifiers themselves. This self-conscoiusness is significant on two levels: (1) it is unanticipated by or at least unaccounted for in much of the canonical literature on gentrification, having only recently gained acknowledgement (most notably work by Brown-Saracino that explores aspects of a particular type of self-aware gentrifiier); (2) it is complicating the way many gentrifiers or would-be gentrifiers frame and actively …

A Decision-Support Framework For Using Value Capture To Fund Public Transit: Lessons From Project-Specific Analyses, Shishir Mathur, Adam Smith

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Neighborhood Crime And Travel Behavior: An Investigation Of The Influence Of Neighborhood Crime Rates On Mode Choice – Phase Ii, Christopher Ferrell, Shishir Mathur

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Do-It‐Yourself Urban Design: Making Local Improvements Through Unauthorized Alterations Of Urban Space, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

This study examines “spatial interventions”: street art, guerrilla gardening, public space invasions, and other unauthorized practices of place-based, site-specific art or activism that challenge the normative uses or meanings of particular urban spaces. In recent years, a growing number of individuals have taken up these forms of site-specific direct action. Some argue that they represent new strategies of political expression, even “resistance”; others, that it is little more than vandalism or pointless juvenile acting out. Yet my research suggests that many of these actions are rather connected by something more subtle, a simple willingness to reimagine the built environment on …

'The Edge Of The Island': Neighborhood Identity And Evolving Community In 'Liminal Places', Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

This paper examines the contemporary processes at work in urban areas without clear spatial identities that are simultaneously facing the challenges of cultural change and gentrification. I do so through the close analysis of one such ‘liminal place’ on Chicago’s West Side. I use the phrase ‘a community on the edge of the island’ to describe the area, inspired by an interview subject who referred to the tenuous search for a sort of ideal bohemian hipness as the need to stay as “close to the edge of the island” as possible without actually leaving it. Making use of ethnographic and …

Roads: Leading Indicators Show Ramp-Up In Activity, Shishir Mathur, Kunal Katara

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Spanning Policy Silos In Urban Development And Environmental Management: When Global Cities Are Coastal Cities Too, Herman L. Boschken

Faculty Publications, School of Management

No abstract provided.

Cultural Sincerity In Urban Development, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

This paper examines the role of culture in the urban development process. An abridged selection from an ongoing study of developers, activists and the politics of growth in Davis, California, it presents the case of the Target Corporation's campaign to build the first "big box" retail store in that city. I argue that Target's ability to win over the strongly slow-growth and anti-corporate community in a public referendum -- following apparently successful attempts to meet popular expectations of environmental leadership and the preservation of unique local character -- provides a clear example of how what I call cultural sincerity can …

What Is Glamour? The Production & Consumption Of A Working Aesthetic, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

I examine here how glamour is manifested in different places and among different peoples across Los Angeles, each with different histories, cultures and aesthetics. After initially defining the concept with reference to traditional understandings using the social and spatial history of Hollywood, I develop three ideal-typical categories of glamour (glitz as glamour, status as glamour, and grit as glamour) as heuristics for looking at the many diverse ‘glamours’ to be found in Los Angeles today: from the film industry to finance, the allure of haute cuisine to the chrome of Latino car culture, the manufactured spectacle of absurdist architecture to …

Effect Of Suburban Transit Oriented Developments On Residential Property Values, Shishir Mathur, Christopher Ferrell

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Neighborhood Crime And Non-Auto Mode Choice, Shishir Mathur, Christopher Ferrell, Emy Mendoza

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.