Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Rating The Cities: Constructing A City Resilience Index For Assessing The Effect Of State And Local Laws On Long-Term Recovery From Crisis And Disaster, John Travis Marshall

Faculty Publications By Year

Superstorm Sandy, the 2008 Iowa floods, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita all supply recent reminders that U.S. cities can no longer adopt an ad hoc approach to threats presented by climate change and natural hazards. The stories detailing long-term recovery from these disasters underscore that federal, state, and local governments are struggling to appreciate the legal tools and institutions necessary to implement the large-scale infrastructure, housing, and community development programs that climate change and more frequent natural disasters demand. This Article calls for development of a tool allowing succinct evaluation of the range of community capacities that will figure critically …

National Study Of Brt Development Outcomes, Arthur C. Nelson, Joanna Ganning

TREC Final Reports

Bus rapid transit (BRT) is poised to become the “next big thing” in public transit. From virtually no systems a generation ago, there are now 19 lines operating with at least seven under construction and more than 20 in the planning stages. BRT is gaining popularity because of its combination of low capital cost and potential for high levels of benefits. But are BRT systems effective in attracting development?

To answer this and many more trending BRT questions, the Metropolitan Research Center (MRC) reviewed multiple studies using data from the United States Census Bureau, Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics, and CoStar data …

Examining The Right To Bicycle: Synergies And Tensions Between Human Rights, Civil Rights, And Planning For Cycling, Aaron Golub

PSU Transportation Seminars

Securing and expanding the broad right to bicycle, including the right to adequate and safe street space and related infrastructure for cycling along with other policies and protections for cyclists, is the obvious goal of cycling advocacy efforts in their various forms. All rights are situated within frameworks for promulgating and insuring they are honored, and the right to cycling is no different. This project investigates how the right to bicycle falls within various rights frameworks, focusing on broad human rights and civil rights frameworks while reflecting as well on traffic safety codes and transportation planning frameworks. While certain aspects …

Lessons From Cities On The Front Line Of Sea Level Rise, Diane Horn

October 30, 2015: Beyond Toolkits: Adaptation Strategies and Lessons

No abstract provided.

Corps Efforts On Sea Level Rise In Hampton Roads, Greg Steele

October 30, 2015: Beyond Toolkits: Adaptation Strategies and Lessons

No abstract provided.

Panel Presentation: Norfolk: Thriving With Water, Norfolk Working Group

October 30, 2015: Beyond Toolkits: Adaptation Strategies and Lessons

No abstract provided.

Portland Needs A Higher Minimum Wage, City Club Of Portland (Portland, Or.)

City Club of Portland

No abstract provided.

Webinar: Transport Cost Index: A New Comprehensive Performance Measure For Transportation And Land Use, Liming Wang

TREC Webinar Series

Recent federal and state policies are placing increasing emphasis on using comprehensive transportation performance measures to guide transportation decision making processes covering policy areas ranging from mobility, safety, economy and livability, to issues of equity and environment. While it is relatively easy to build consensus on mobility measures that center on the transportation system alone, it is much harder for performance measures to incorporate both transportation and land use, loosely defined as accessibility measures, even with continuous efforts to catalog and design such measures.

Two projects at PSU sponsored by Oregon DOT and National Institute of Transportation Communities (NITC) aim …

The Trade-Offs Between Population Density And Households' Transportation-Housing Costs, Haizhong Wang

PSU Transportation Seminars

As metropolitan area governments and others promote density-promoting “smart growth” policies, finer analysis is needed to quantify the impact of such policies on households' transportation and housing costs. Existing research suggests that households in urban areas trade-off between housing costs and transportation costs, but does not explore how policies to increase urban densities might explicitly impact this balance. Furthermore, the research does not adequately distinguish between the effect of urban area density and the effects of other factors associated with urban area density (e.g metropolitan area size and household incomes) on housing costs. This research uses the 2000 Census Public …

The Backstory: How Livablestreets Advocates Changed Boston, Jeffrey Rosenblum

PSU Transportation Seminars

Local grassroots advocacy organizations play a critical role in shaping the future of cities but receive very little attention in research, especially insofar as understanding the most effective tactics that should be used by these organizations to achieve their objectives. When LivableStreets Alliance was founded in 2005, The City of Boston had 3/8 of one mile of bicycle lanes. Over the past decade, we have seen a sea change. Boston has published a nationally-recognized Complete Streets Guide, MassDOT has incorporated cycle-track designs into several federally-funded projects, and highway overpasses are slated for removal. What is LivableStreets’ role in shifting policy, …

Walking Is A Right (Civil And Human), Robert Bullard

Faculty Scholarship

PowerPoint opening keynote presented at the National Walking Summit in Washington, DC last month. Here is link to the Summit. http://walkingsummit.org/keynote-speakers . Some of themes include - walking as a right, "outdoor apartheid," "walking while black," and connecting nature walks and health (walking is good for the mind, body, spirit and soul) run through the talk.

Affordable Housing As A Prerequisite For A Safe, Healthy, Equitable Transportation System: Evidence From A Nationwide Evaluation Of Location Efficiency Within The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (Lihtc) Program, Arlie Steven Adkins

PSU Transportation Seminars

Mountains of research over the last several decades show that how we get around and how much physical activity we get are closely linked with the built environment of the neighborhoods where we live. This means that the health, economic, and environmental benefits associated with active travel and transit are place-based and that affordable housing in walkable, location efficient places needs to be thought of as a critical component of planners’ efforts to provide safe, healthy, and equitable transportation systems. This talk will provide an overview of the links between affordable housing and transportation planning and present research findings from …

Evaluation Of A Shared Space Alternative In Morgantown, Wv, Avinash Unnikrishnan

PSU Transportation Seminars

Pedestrian and vehicle movement conflicts and the associated safety and efficiency issues have always been addressed in traffic engineering based on the principle of separation through bridges, tunnels, or signals. Pioneered by Hans Monderman, shared space is a new approach in transportation design which inverts this paradigm of separation and designs streets with no demarcations or access restrictions. Shared space has been implemented in a number of cases in Europe with improved efficiency and safety. This research focuses on a specific case study for analyzing the possible implementation of shared space in the United States on the West Virginia University …

Sustaining Development In Brazil’S Informal Settlements: Linking Policy, Theory, And Action A Case Study Of Vila Velha, Jessica Depies

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

his paper examines the relationships between informal settlements, the natural environment, and state policy through a study of Vila Velha, a neighborhood located on the periphery of the northeastern metropolis of Fortaleza, Brazil. Vila Velha poses a unique challenge in local governmental efforts to implement sustainable urban policies: its expansion into the margins of the local Ceará River, where human settlements are illegal, prevents the community from receiving government services such as potable water or waste management. While the local government has created plans to remove these inhabitants from the area, no tangible action has been taken in the approximately …

Transportation Leadership Education: Portland Traffic And Transportation Course A Case Study And Curriculum, Nathan Mcneil

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Portland Traffic and Transportation course serves a number of different purposes. On one hand, it is designed to develop citizens who are informed about the transportation system, including how it got where it is today, what agencies and actors play a role in its operation and development, and how they, as citizens, play a role in its future. In this sense, there is a goal of broadening and deepening the existing knowledge about the system among the general population. On the other hand, there is an implicit goal of encouraging participation in the system with the understanding that doing …

Plugging The Gaps: The North Sea Flood Of 1953 And The Creation Of A National Coastal Warning System, Alexander Hall

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

The North Sea flood of 1953 was the most catastrophic severe weather event to hit the region in the twentieth century, causing widespread fatalities and devastation across north-west Europe. In the UK, the catastrophe highlighted deficiencies in coastal defenses, warning systems, and government disaster management. These shortcomings, combined with the large scale of the floods and the high death toll led to a government inquiry into the floods. The recommendations of this inquiry formed the basis of modern UK flood management and disaster policy. This paper examines the investigation into the North Sea flood of 1953 and highlights an early …

The Politics Of Denying Aid: An Analysis Of Disaster Declaration Turndowns, John T. Gasper

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Federal disaster aid provides resources to affected victims and potential votes for both governors and presidents, but the denial of aid can especially painful for all parties involved. This paper examines whether political factors contribute to which areas are denied federal disaster aid. Analyzing county-level data from 1992 through 2005, I find that political factors do shade a president’s decision to deny aid, but that some of these factors are only present during presidential elections years.

Missed Opportunities: Public Health Disaster Management In Canada, Lisa Gorman, Christopher Stoney

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Three recent Canadian public health crises present an illustration of both the opportunities for reform and the challenges that may impede progress and public health renewal in federalist nations. While the three crises examined exposed serious flaws in emergency preparedness and fuelled demands for vital public health reform, evidence indicates that fundamental challenges have not been addressed and may have even heightened over the last decade given a move to “open federalism” and the significant fiscal impacts of ongoing austerity measures. With future pandemics inevitable, we identify the missed opportunities to optimize Canada’s emergency response capacity and procedures and examine …

Leveraging Disaster: Promoting Social Justice And Holistic Recovery Through Policy Advocacy After Hurricane Katrina, Tanya B. Corbin

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

After disasters, the recovery process is uneven, and often, the social vulnerability of populations before a disaster translates into a lack of access to political power after the event. This study proposes that a large-scale event presents an opportunity to overcome these challenges and improve social, economic, political, and environmental conditions for affected communities during the recovery process by involving advocates for traditionally marginalized community members in the recovery. Using textual analysis to code the testimony of 240 witnesses who testified in 41 congressional hearings held after Hurricane Katrina, witnesses who advocated for policies that addressed social inequities are identified …

Polling In Impossible Conditions: Pre-Election Polling In New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina, Brian J. Brox, J Celeste Lay

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Just months after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, New Orleans held a mayoral election. With so many displaced residents, it was difficult to gauge attitudes, but there are perhaps few more important situations in which the public’s attitudes need to be examined. This paper examines the methodological challenges with survey research in the aftermath of a natural disaster. We conducted a traditional survey just days before the election and attempted to correct for our inability to reach particular segments of the population through post-stratification weights. The results of our poll were relatively accurate for all of the candidates but one – …

Employment Change Among Hurricane Katrina Evacuees: Impacts Of Race And Place, Sara Chaganti, Jasmine Waddell

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

After disaster-related displacement, finding new employment is critical to displaced individuals’ ability to regain stability for themselves and their families. This paper considers displaced Katrina survivors’ ability to maintain or improve pre-Katrina employment status (full-time vs. part-time vs. unemployed) post-Katrina. Using data from the Displaced New Orleans Residents Pilot Study, we construct a scale of employment change which offers a nuanced look at employment change. We focus specifically on the impact of long-term displacement and race on changes in survivors’ employment status. We find across our analyses that displacement has a negative effect on employment status. And we find that …

Post-Katrina Suppression Of Black Working-Class Political Expression, Taunya L. Banks

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

New Orleans politicians, with the aid of the federal government, used the destruction and displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to implement policies that discouraged low-income and working class black residents from returning to New Orleans. Impacted communities felt the need to revitalize street parades (second-line parades), a traditional communal neighborhood activity, as an instrument of political protest. In response the City used minor municipal ordinances to more vigorously regulate these parades, doubling the fees imposed for street parades and effectively shutting them down. The City’s response raised important constitutional questions about government suppression of speech and freedom of …

Guest Editora' Introduction - The Opportunities And Challenges Of Disaster Recovery, Randolph Burnside, Laura Hatcher

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Crowdsourcing Global Wastewater Data, Don Mosteller, Sam Cohen, Cory Nestor, Angel Hsu, Omar Malik

Yale Day of Data

No time to waste: Crowdsourcing global wastewater treatment data

Worldwide, over 80 percent of wastewater is discharged into water bodies without undergoing treatment, severely impairing human well-being and ecosystem vitality along the way. National performance on wastewater treatment is difficult to quantify and is poorly understood due to a lack of common definitions, poor data collection standards, and limited historical data. To address this, the Yale Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a research group that produces a biennial ranking of country-level environmental performance, developed a first-of-its kind national wastewater treatment indicator.[1]

The indicator assesses wastewater treatment performance for 183 countries, …

Portland’S Streets: End The Funding Gridlock, City Club Of Portland (Portland, Or.)

City Club of Portland

No abstract provided.

Neighborhood Change And The Role Of Environmental Stewardship: A Case Study Of Green Infrastructure For Stormwater In The City Of Portland, Oregon, Usa, Vivek Shandas

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Throughout the history of cities, the ecological landscape has often been buried, removed, or taken for granted. A recent recognition that humans are part of the global ecosystem, and that human actions both cause and are affected by ecological change, brings with it an awareness of the value of nature in cities and of natural systems on which cities depend. The feedbacks between humans and their environment within an urban context can have profound implications for the growth of and change in cities, yet there is a limited understanding of the interactions between biophysical changes in cities and the implications …

Crowdsourcing The Collection Of Transportation Behavior Data, Christopher Bone, Seth Kenbeek, Ken Kato, Jacob Bartruff

TREC Final Reports

Understanding the travel behaviors of individuals who use public transit is essential for enhancing the performance, sustainability and efficiency of public transportation. Contemporary methods for collecting data on transportation behavior are focused on manual or automated procedures for counting the number of individual passengers entering or exiting transit vehicles. While such methods provide useful data for understanding transit demand throughout a network, they ignore the important details of how passengers travel to and within a network as well as their personal experiences during their commute, all of which can enrich the ability of transit agencies to provide sustainable transportation. To …

Creswell Policing Project Final Report, Portland State University. Hatfield School Of Government. Center For Public Service, Kent Robinson, Robert Winthrop, Rachel Sykes, Rebecca Craven

Center for Public Service Publications and Reports

The Center for Public Service worked with the City of Creswell, Oregon to assess their current policing arrangements and service demand, and to develop a series of options for police services. Creswell is a small city of about 5,000 just south of Eugene, Oregon. Creswell currently purchases its police services from the Lane County Sheriff under an annual intergovernmental agreement (IGA). Citizens in the community have challenged this model and proposed the establishment of a city police department. This study developed scenarios and cost analysis for several options including a city police department, an independent public safety special district, and …

Webinar, Part I: Americans' Views Of Transportation And Livable Communities, Jennifer Dill, Hugh Morris

TREC Webinar Series

The National Association of Realtors® and Portland State University conducted a nationwide survey in the 50 largest metropolitan areas, asking Americans about where they live, where they want to live, and their travel habits.

This webinar will present the key findings from that survey, including people’s preferences to live in mixed-use, walkable communities and what may help them walk, bicycle, and take transit more. The large sample (3,000) allows us to look at demographic differences, including between the generations (Millennials, Baby Boomers, etc.).

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 …