Urban Studies Commons^™

Civic Deliberative Dialogue And The Topic Of Race: Exploring The Lived Experience Of Everyday Citizens And Their Encounters With Tension And Conflict, Jacquelyn Yvonne Mccray

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The research explored the interactions and experiences of participants and facilitators in civic deliberative dialogue and how they worked through tension and conflict. The dissertation question asked: What is the lived experience of participants and facilitators of civic deliberative dialogue and how do group members collectively move beyond tensions and disagreements that surface during dialogue processes? The study analyzed the joint influences of tension and disagreement within the context of seven deliberative dialogues convened on the topics of race, race relations and racism. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyze qualitative research data collected from participant volunteers and facilitators. A …

A Comparison Of Emergency Service Provider Costs For Formerly Homeless Persons Living Inpermanent Supportive Housing In Washington County, Oregon, Scott Stewart, Janai Kessi

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Comparison between the emergency service costs that homeless persons incur while homeless with their costs for the same services while residing in permanent, supportive housing.

Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership: An Economic Impact Analysis, Jeff Renfro, Marisol Cáceres, Janai Kessi

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Estimated the economic impact of the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership on manufacturing in Oregon.

Analysis Of Feasibility Of Lincoln's West O Area For Redevelopment, Adam E. Brown

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

This project assessed the feasibility of redevelopment of the area around the West O Street & Sun Valley Boulevard Intersection. The project provides information about the area, including specifics about its location, the zoning currently in use, the population of the area and the surrounding areas, housing characteristics, as well as information about mixed use development pertinent to this project and the study areas relation to the City of Lincoln’s Comprehensive Plan, known as LPlan 2040.

The project’s goal was to research and compile relevant information for review by the Lincoln / Lancaster County Planning Department in regards to the …

Science Fiction Cities, Carl Abbott

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay argues that cities can also be front and center as vividly imagined worlds whose characteristics play active roles that help to structure the arc of the story, forcing and constraining the choices that the characters make.

Cracking Susceptibility Of Concrete Made With Recycled Concrete Aggregate, O. Burkan Isgor, Jason Ideker, Tengfei Fu, Matthew P. Adams

TREC Final Reports

As high-quality, local, natural aggregate resources continue to become less available, and the cost of landfilling waste material rises, the need for alternative aggregates and recycling of waste material will increase. Using RCA in fresh concrete is one way to address both of these issues. However, there has long been a concern that RCA may negatively affect the properties of new concrete in which it is included. The results of the present investigation, however, indicate that the use of RCA in new concrete may not produce higher levels of free drying shrinkage as previously believed. Actually, these results show that …

From Transit Stop To Urbanity Node: Field Audit For Measuring Livability At The Transit Stop, Deni Ruggeri

TREC Final Reports

This research proposal addresses issues of livability at the transit stop. American transit systems have historically been “shoehorned” into existing street networks designed predominantly for cars and trucks. While much research exists on livability and walkability in the context of urban and suburban streets and blocks, bus stops are greatly understudied. This research focused on bus stops and aimed at analyzing their performance in terms of livability, with particular emphasis on perceptions. Our definition of livability was expanded to include considerations of safety and maintenance, cleanliness, imageability and vitality, which have been shown to affect people’s perceptions of livability and …

Social Sensing For Urban Crisis Management: The Case Of Singapore Haze, Philips Kokoh Prasetyo, Ming Gao, Ee Peng Lim, Christie N. Scollon

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Sensing social media for trends and events has become possible as increasing number of users rely on social media to share information. In the event of a major disaster or social event, one can therefore study the event quickly by gathering and analyzing social media data. One can also design appropriate responses such as allocating resources to the affected areas, sharing event related information, and managing public anxiety. Past research on social event studies using social media often focused on one type of data analysis (e.g., hashtag clusters, diffusion of events, influential users, etc.) on a single social media data …

Introduction: Religion And Place: Landscape, Politics, And Piety, Elizabeth Olson, Peter Hopkins, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In 2010, a 14-year-old boy was brutally murdered in a suburb outside of Rio de Janeiro when a group of skinheads observed him at a party and suspected that he might be gay (McLoughlin 2011). This scale of horrific homophobia is not uncommon in Brazil, where rates of violence against gays, lesbians, and transgendered people are reported to be amongst the highest in the world. A study conducted with the support of Grupo Gay da Bahia offers the conservative estimate of 260 gays killed in the country in 2010, indicating that rates doubled in only 5 years. The statistic sits …

Using Indicators Projects As Prompts For Exploring Equity: A Case Study Of Greater Portland Pulse, Meg Merrick, Diane Besser, Shelia A. Martin

Institute of Metropolitan Studies Publications

This paper describes the process that the Greater Portland Pulse (GPP) initiated to incorporate the measurement of progress toward social equity into the project. While equity may appear to be a widely accepted priority for communities, the GPP process created a dialogue that was sometimes contentious but also profoundly educational for the participants revealing some of the complexities, not only of the issue of equity, but the challenges (particularly the inadequacy of available data) and trade-offs that are inescapable when using conventional data sets.

Additionally, this paper discusses some of the consequences of a process that, while incorporating equity values …

Practicum 2012 - 2013: Lift Boston Client Well Being Study, Lisa Kalimon, Buki Usidame, Ryan Kling, Ryan Mclane, Ryan Whalen, Ana M. Sanchez, Tanya Stepasiuk, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy Practicum Projects

A Boston based non-profit and a team of public policy PhD students engaged in several months of collaborative problem identification and goal setting focused on the effectiveness of the organization’s unique service delivery model. The nonprofit uses volunteer advocates and a goal-oriented process with no eligibility criteria to assist clients in distress. We collected administrative data, administered a survey, and conducted interviews to explore client well-being.

Action Plan For An Age-Friendly Portland, The Age-Friendly Portland Advisory Council

Institute on Aging Publications

The goal of this Action Plan is to enhance Portland, Oregon’s age friendliness. As defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), an "age friendly" city:

• has structures and services that are accessible and inclusive of older people with varying needs and capacities
• emphasizes enablement rather than disablement, and
• is friendly for people of all ages and abilities

The action steps that comprise this plan are intended to move Portland toward future development and activities that foster not only physical environments but also social and service environments that meet these criteria, making Portland a community for all ages.

Funding U.S. Historically Black Colleges And Universities: A Policy Recommendation, Donald Mitchell Jr., Ph.D.

Executives, Administrators, & Staff Publications

Public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) continue to receive inequitable funding at state-levels (Gasman, 2010; Minor, 2008). The Higher Education Act of 1965 designates an HBCU as an “institution whose principal mission was and is the education of black Americans, was accredited and was established before 1964” (UNCF, 2013, para. 1). The current funding situation is problematic because HBCUs have successfully educated African Americans, low-income, and underprepared students (Gasman, 2010). Perhaps with equitable state support, the educational gains of HBCUs may improve. The purpose of this article is to analyze three policy alternatives that would improve resources at HBCUs. …

2012 Portland Metropolitan Region Transportation System Performance Report, Robert L. Bertini, Dean George, Matthew Downey

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Our transportation system is a key ingredient in the economy, quality of life and urban fabric of the Portland metropolitan area. It has been stated in the past that it is not possible to manage our transportation system tomorrow unless we understand how it is performing today. In this spirit, Portland State University has been working with regional and statewide partners to develop new capabilities to measure, monitor and track the performance of the transportation system in real time and using archived data sources. We believe that it is possible to leverage these disparate data sources toward providing better transportation …

Durability Assessment Of Recycled Concrete Aggregates For Use In New Concrete: Phase I - Revised, Jason H. Ideker, Matthew P. Adams, Jennifer Tanner, Angela Jones

TREC Final Reports

The primary goal of this research project was to investigate the long-term durability of concrete incorporating recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) through accelerated laboratory testing. Overall it was found that modifications to standard aggregate testing and characterization standards were necessary for testing RCA. This included modifications to standard tests including ASTM C 128, C 305 and C 1260. It was found that the potential for alkalisilica reactivity did exist for new concrete containing RCA. The characteristics of the RCA also had a profound effect on ASR related expansion. RCA with a higher content of reactive coarse or fine aggregate (compared to …

An Anthropology Of Urbanism: How People Make Places (And What Designers And Planners Might Learn From It), Brooke D. Wortham-Galvin

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

In their word play on what design praxis might succeed the New Urbanism movement in the United States, the July 2013 article “Newest Urbanism” in the Architect introduced to the uninitiated the concept of tactical urbanism. Defining tactical urbanism as "temporary, cheap, and usually grassroots interventions—including so-called guerrilla gardens, pop-up parks, food carts, and 'open streets' projects—that are designed to improve city life on a block-by-block, street-by-street basis," the article claims that it took this approach to shaping the city less than a decade to mainstream into the practices of US cities and firms alike. While Architect used the term …

Issue Brief: Auditing Your Town's Development Code For Barriers To Sustainable Water Management, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

This issue brief is intended for town officials who want to understand how development regulations in their community affect local water resources. Municipal development codes – the set of regulations that control the built environment – can have a great influence on the availability of clean and healthy water for drinking, recreation, and commercial uses. This in turn affects the community’s social, environmental, and economic vitality.

Comprehensive plans, zoning codes, and building standards are just a few examples of regulations that intentionally or unintentionally regulate the way water is transported, collected and absorbed. Regulations that produce dispersed development or large …

Issue Brief: Saving By Mitigating, University Of Louisville, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

Natural disasters can cause loss of life, inflict damage to buildings and infrastructure, and have devastating consequences for a community’s economic, social, and environmental well-being. Hazard mitigation means reducing damages from disasters.

Local governments have the responsibility to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens. Proactive mitigation policies and actions help reduce risk and create safer, more disaster-resilient communities. Mitigation is an investment in your community’s future safety, equity, and sustainability.

Modeling Of Dc Link Capacitor Current Ripple For Electric Vehicle Traction Converter, Lei Jin, Julia Zhang

TREC Final Reports

Contemporary Full Hybrid Electric Vehicle/Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle/Battery Electric Vehicle (FHEV/PHEV/BEV) products use one or more DC/AC power converters, also known as traction inverters, to convert the DC voltage/current provided by the traction battery to the AC voltage/current to drive the traction motor(s). Large and bulky DC link capacitors are used at the input of the traction inverter to provide a smooth DC input voltage. Those DC link capacitors, occupying almost 50% of the space in the whole package, can contribute to more than 20% of the total cost of the traction inverter. They are generally over designed to assure …

Latinos In New York City: K-12 Public Schools, 1990-2009, Haiwen Chu

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors of racial/ethnic groups in New York City between 1990 and 2009 – particularly Latino educational attainment in public school.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Several trends emerge about the school-aged population overall in terms of absolute numbers and relative proportions. The school-aged Latino and non-Hispanic Black populations increased greatly between 1990 and 2000, …

Housing Assistance And Disconnection From Welfare And Work: Assessing The Impacts Of Public Housing And Tenant-Based Rental Subsidies, Andrea Hetling, Hilary Botein

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The well-being of families disconnected from welfare and work are of growing concern to policymakers. This article examines the relationship between economic disconnection and housing assistance, a critical source of support that subsidizes what is the largest fixed expense for most households. Results from multilevel logistic models show that the odds ofbeing disconnected are higher for public housing residents and lower for single mothers receiving tenantbased rental assistance in comparison to those in private housing. Findings indicate that housing policies should be considered alongside welfare policy changes aimed at economically disconnected families, and that public housing is a critical site …

Women's Work Attitudes, Aspirations, And Workforce Participation Before And After Relocation From Public Housing, Edith J. Barrett

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

For the past decade or so, public housing policies have focused on moving residents from concentrated housing developments into newly designed mixed-income developments or, through housing choice vouchers, into neighborhoods with lower concentrations of poor. These newer programs are driven by research that suggests public housing residents will have greater opportunity for financial self-sufficiency and, although not openly discussed, will better appreciate the importance of work when they live among higher income working residents. Using panel data collected from public housing residents relocated following the closure of a public housing development, this study explores the relationship between individual characteristics, neighborhood …

Improving The Representation Of The Pedestrian Environment In Travel Demand Models, Phase I, Kelly J. Clifton, Patrick Allen Singleton, Christopher Devlin Muhs, Robert J. Schneider, Peter Lagerwey

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

There is growing support for improvements to the quality of the walking environment, including more investments to promote pedestrian travel. Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are improving regional travel demand forecasting models to better represent walking and bicycling and to expand the evaluative capacity of models to address policy-relevant issues like air quality, public health, and the smart allocation of infrastructure and other resources. This report describes an innovative, spatially disaggregate method to integrate walking activity into trip-based travel models. Using data for the Portland, OR, metropolitan area, the method applies trip generation at a new micro-scale spatial unit: a 264-foot-by-264-foot …

Neighborhood Commercial Corridor Change: Portland, Oregon 1990-2010, Kelly Ann Howsley-Glover

Dissertations and Theses

Commercial corridors in neighborhoods experiencing change have been relegated to a footnote in research on residential phenomena. It is taken for granted that the process of change experience by businesses within these neighborhoods mirrors that of the residential change. This assumption is often predicated on the underlying model of invasion succession, suggesting that inmovers displace native populations, whether they are residents or businesses. Analyzing time series data on neighborhood commercial corridor change, research attempted to first test data against the invasion succession model to see if it is an effective framework for analysis. Second, through comparison of case study areas …

Investigating The Housing Market For Student Tenants Surrounding An Urban University, Olivia M. Dobbs Ms.

Honors College Theses

The private housing market for students around Wayne State University, an urban campus in Detroit, Michigan, stands in a fast-changing period. The area has grown economically from institutional and medical center investment in the past few years, causing occupancy and rents to rise. This follows years of disinvestment that allowed rent rates to fall to comfortable rates for students. The University has published its interest in developing the “campus life” including more off-campus private market housing for students, while developers see potential for even higher rents for young professionals. This study assesses the current perceptions of a sample of rental …

Contesting Sustainability: Bikes, Race, And Politics In Portlandia, Amy Lubitow, Thaddeus R. Miller

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite decade old calls for a "just sustainability," urban sustainability policy and practice remains oriented toward environmental outcomes and eco-lifestyle projects. Notions of equity, justice, and inclusion continue to be marginalized in favor of technological solutions, such as green buildings, that are visible, easy to implement, and help to promote economic development. By examining a controversy over a bikeway development project in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Portland, Oregon, this article explores how despite apolitical appeals to broadly shared values or visions of what a sustainable city ought to look like, sustainability projects can be—and perhaps should be—hotly contested. …

Overlooked Destinations: Suburban Nodes, Centers, And Trips To Strips, Nico Larco, Robert Parker

TREC Final Reports

This study looks at travel to typical suburban commercial strips by residents living within one-third of a mile of the strip by focusing on six sites – four in the Portland, OR., metro area and two in the Atlanta, GA., metro area. The study mapped pedsheds around the commercial strips in these sites and found significant increases in network extents when formal and informal pedestrian paths were added to street centerline data. Informal networks such as goat paths through vacant land and cuts in fences were widespread and suggest a pent-up demand for route directness. Travel surveys of residents found …

Automation Of Common Building Energy Simulation Workflows Using Python, Clayton Miller, Christian Hersberger, Marcus Jones

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

A valuable skillset for building industry professionals is proficiency in high-level, scripting languages that can automate and perform many common repetitive or technically intensive tasks. This application-focused paper emphasizes the use of the Python programming language in various workflows common to the building performance modeling and simulation process. Python is an open, powerful, and easy-to-learn scripting language with an emphasis on programmer productivity. While the highlighted applications themselves are notably ordinary amongst building simulation practitioners, the novelty of this discussion is in the speed and usefulness of new Python libraries and data analysis techniques. Four short examples are illustrated: simulation …

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 …

Relocation Of Homeless People From Odot Rights-Of-Way, Ellen M. Bassett, Andrée Tremoulet, Allison Moe

TREC Final Reports

This research project consists of an investigation of responses to homeless encampments on rights-of-way owned by Departments of Transportation (DOTs). While DOTs are not housing or social service agencies, their role as major public landowners involves them in dealing with the consequences of homelessness. The research goals included analyzing the prevalence of the problem, documenting how DOTs are responding, and culling from this data information that could be used as a basis for creating a best practices guide. The research included a single mixed-methods, in-depth case study, electronic surveys of practitioners and follow-up interviews. Products consist of two reports (included …