Urban Studies Commons^™

Travel Behavior, Residential Preference, And Urban Design: A Multi-Disciplinary National Analysis, Jessica Greene, Nico Larco, Yizhao Yang, Marc Schlossberg, Daniel Rodriguez, Noreen Mcdonald, Tabitha Combs

TREC Final Reports

This report summarizes the findings of a national project to examine the travel behavior, social capital, health, and lifestyle preferences of residents of neotraditional developments (NTD) compared to more standard suburban developments. We compare survey results from residents of matched pairs of neighborhoods in seventeen U.S. cities and towns, with each pair comprised of one NTD and one typical suburban neighborhood of similar size, age, and socio-demographic composition. The study addresses salient themes in the transportation, planning and health literatures: a national study, surveying populations of diverse incomes, collecting resident information on preferences for and attitudes towards neighborhood qualities, and …

No More Freeways: Urban Land Use-Transportation Dynamics Without Freeway Capacity Expansion, Lei Zhang, We Xu

TREC Final Reports

Observations of the various limitations of freeway capacity expansion have led to a provocative planning and policy question – What if we completely stop building additional freeway capacity. From a theoretical perspective, as a freeway transportation network matures, there exists a saturation point beyond which any additional freeway capacity would only be counterproductive from a welfare point of view, and worsen the existing urban transportation problems. Traditional benefit/cost analysis of individual freeway capacity expansion projects often ignores long-term induced demand and land use changes and does not represent a systems approach to this important theoretical issue. From a practical perspective, …

Town Center Vision, Caroline Chapman, Jacqueline Gruber, Neil Riordan

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

In December 2010, City Council passed Resolution 2261 which directed the City’s Committee for Citizen Involvement (CCI) to prepare a more formal action plan for smart growth and sustainability. Emerald Solutions, a team of Portland State Master’s students, was tasked with furthering these efforts by completing a Sustainability and Smart Growth Pilot Plan for the Town Center Pilot Area (TCPA). The plan works to develop a complete concept, structure, and community outreach process that will guide the City in the creation of a broader, citywide plan. This project was conducted under the supervision of Sumner Sharpe and Ellen Bassett.

Olde Towne St Helens Historic Design Guidelines, Sadie Carney, Caitlin Francis, Drew Meisel, Victor Sanders

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Throughout the northwest, portside communities are capitalizing on their rich cultural heritage by concentrating investment in their historic districts and waterfronts. From Astoria to Port Townsend, historic communities are benefiting from renewed economic vitality based on heritage tourism and the increased numbers of new businesses drawn to the district. As a former center of industry and manufacturing, Olde Towne St Helens boasts a rich heritage in its collection of buildings along the Strand and First Street. These structures offer a glimpse into the working-class, industrial past of the town and the era of shipbuilding and raw goods manufacturing that shaped …

Reimagining Weston, Nathan Emerson, Zach Gustafson, Holly Howell, Carrie Pipinich, Matthew Rohrbach

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Weston was once a prosperous city, home to pioneers, farmers, and an active downtown. Today however, Weston faces many challenges common to communities throughout rural Oregon. The key question for this small city is: How can Weston capitalize on homegrown and regional assets in order to revitalize downtown and maximize the well-being of the community as a whole? Reimagining Weston provides a blueprint for the community to answer this question. This plan is a proactive effort by Weston residents to shape the livability and prosperity of their community over the next 20 years. Reimagining Weston consists of three primary parts: …

Vision Zero Oregon, Marielle Brown, Nick Falbo, Brandy Steffen, Michelle Van Tijen, Ben Weber

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Vision Zero Oregon (VZO) is a street safety philosophy that aims to create streets where no one will be killed or seriously injured. Vision Zero Oregon prioritizes road safety above all else. Every life is worth more than an increase in speeds or road capacity for vehicles. Achieving Vision Zero Oregon goals will require a shift in the focus of policy, laws and enforcement, and the formation of a new relationship between residents and their streets, and revolution in the way transportation departments operate their streets. This project takes on one part of this complex topic, focusing on community interest, …

David Hill Urban Reserve Concept Plan, Joey Shearer, Misty Schymtzik, Lisa Peffer, Ryan Michie, Lindsey Kuipers, Krissy Hostetler

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

As the City of Forest Grove continues to grow, the David Hill Urban Reserve presents opportunities to accommodate development needs for the next 20 to 50 years. While this type of growth is not expected to occur for many years, a concept plan for the area is required by Metro to guide how the area should develop.The Concept Plan for the DHUR begins to create a framework for accommodating future development in an efficient manner, sensitive to natural features, topography, and views. This plan is not intended to be a complete “concept plan” under Metro’s definition and does not meet …

Ecolopolis 5.0: High Speed Rail In Cascadia, Portland State University

Regional Planning and Metropolitan Growth Management Research Projects

This is a working document and is the fifth report in this series. This report is the product of term-long projects conducted by graduate students from the two universities, and taught by Professor Daniel Carlson and Professor Ethan Seltzer. The courses engaged the questions of identifying the impacts, maximizing the benefits, and exploring implementation options for high speed rail development in the Cascadia corridor. Though passenger rail has long been a shared interest in the corridor, the recent U.S. initiative proposed by the Obama administration have accelerated high speed rail activity and discussions in Cascadia. The seven papers developed by …

Clinton Street Max Urban Vision, Darryl Abe, Allison Duncan, Sheri Fisher, Jay Higgins, Shawn Petch, Susan Rosenthal, Joel Stein, Huifu Xu

Urban Design Workshop

This document is the product of the 2011 Urban Design Workshop at Portland State University which worked to develop an urban design vision for the future Clinton Street MAX Station, part of the Portland- Milwaukie Light Rail line. This project follows two previous years of PSU workshops that investigated the urban design potential of Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail stations within the Hosford-Abernethy and Brooklyn neighborhoods in southeast Portland.

While previous efforts were broad in scope, our project specifically addresses two oversized blocks immediately adjacent to the Clinton Street Station, refered to as the Powell Triangle. The blocks are bordered by 12th …

Portland State University's Second (R)Evolution: Partnering To Anchor The Institution In Sustainable Communities, Wim Wiewel, Kevin Kecskes, Shelia A. Martin

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University has become internationally known for its whole-university approach to community-university engagement. Many academic leaders from around the world are now drawing on models for engagement that originated at Portland State. As the university takes stock of its successes, of changing economic conditions, and of the increasingly urgent need to focus on sustainability, the campus with its new leadership has begun to look closely at how to expand and refine the models. This paper on Portland State's Second (R)evolution provides models and ideas that show great promise of reinvigorating community-university partnerships nationally and internationally.

Reinventing The Wheel, Amy Hesse, April Cutter, Spencer Williams, Reza Farhoodi

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Reinventing the Wheel project is the process of developing a Bicycle Refinement Plan for the City of Redmond. A group of volunteer urban & regional planning graduate students from Portland State University, known as b:spoke Planning & Design, has been charged with developing strategies to increase bicycle ridership and remove barriers to transit options in Redmond. The project is a "refinement plan", as it involves the refinement of and building upon existing City plans such as the Transportation Systems Plan (TSP), Bicycle Master Plan, and Parks & Recreation Trails Master Plan. This project was conducted under the supervision of …

Amplify Pdx, Becky Bodonyi, Julia Crain, Rowan Steele, David West

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

A two-pronged process, AmplifyPDX required managing two parallel and concurrent but mutually informative processes: creation of the Community Assessment Workbook as well as implementation of the Workbook in a particular community. To develop the Workbook, Mosaic Planning Group conducted a literature review, assembled an Advisory Committee and interviewed key informants with expertise on neighborhood planning, community organizing, and the Portland metropolitan region. Finally, in order to develop a user-friendly and effective community assessment workbook, Mosaic Planning Group tested certain elements of the Workbook in the Southeast Portland neighborhoods of Brentwood-Darlington and Woodstock. This project was conducted under the supervision of …

Portland Mercado: Community Economic Development To Revitalize, Uplift, And Empower, Abigail Cermak, David Ruelas, Bridger Wineman, Ellen Wyoming

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Realizing public goals of an inclusive and vibrant society requires an advocacy approach to urban planning and economic development. Adelante Planning outlines strategies based on research and case studies to successfully implement a Mercado as an economic development and business incubation strategy for Portland’s Latino community. A Mercado is a strategic planning approach targeted toward Latino populations and other minorities, particularly in gentrifying locations of the Portland Metro region.

This project was conducted under the supervision of Ellen Bassett, Lisa Bates, Karen Gibson, Ken Pirie, and Sumner Sharpe.

Grocery Shopping: How Individuals And Built Environments Influence Choice Of Travel Mode, Junfeng Jiao, Anne Vernez Moudon, Adam Drewnowski

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This research investigated the influences of socioeconomic characteristics of individual travelers and of the environments where the travelers live and shop on choice of travel mode for grocery shopping. The data on travel for grocery shopping came from 2,001 respondents to the 2009 Seattle Obesity Study survey in King County, Washington. Eighty-eight percent of the respondents drove to their grocery stores, whereas 12% used transit or taxis, walked, biked, or carpooled. The addresses of 1,994 homes and 1,901 primary grocery stores used by respondents were geographically coded. The characteristics of built environments in the neighborhoods around homes and grocery stores …

The Relationship Of Race And Social Integration On The Health Status Of Older Adults In An Urban City, Thomas T. Jordan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Durkheim argues that an individual is more vulnerable to self-destruction the more s/he is detached from the collective. This dissertation will explore the relative impact of social integration on older adults who have transitioned into their new roles in the social structure in relationship to their physical (obesity) and psychological (stress) health status. Additionally, the dissertation examines how social integration varies in its impact from one racial group to another, and how such variations influence the health status of the older adults who are members of these groups.

This dissertation employs data from the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging and …