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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Promising Practices For Long-Term Community Engagement, Meg Merrick, Andrée Tremoulet, Tina Dippert

Institute of Metropolitan Studies Publications

Washington County has initiated a planning process to rethink the structure and support system for its ongoing, long-term community participation program. The impetus for this planning process began with a fall 2014 announcement by the service provider that had supported the county’s Citizen Participation Organizations (CPOs) and the Committee for Citizen Involvement (CCI) for several decades, Oregon State University Extension, that it would no longer continue this role effective fall 2015. The planning process has since evolved into an opportunity to take a thorough look at the program and plan a system of engagement for the 21st century.

Washington County …

Portland’S Food Economy: Trends And Contributions, Jamaal Green, Greg Schrock, Jenny H. Liu

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

The primary goal of this report is to document the scope, growth, and contribution of the food economy to the city of Portland and the region. Specifically, this report addresses the following research questions:

• What is the "food economy," and how is it defined?
• What is the size of Portland’s food economy, and how has it changed in recent years?
• How is the food economy distributed spatially within the city and the region? How is this changing?
• What kind of employment opportunities does Portland’s food economy offer? How do they compare to the broader economy?
• Who works in Portland’s food …

Columbia Corridor Drainage Districts Governance Study, Thomas Potiowsky, Jenny Liu, Mike Paruszkiewicz, Jeff Renfro, Marisol Cáceres, Peter Hulseman

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

This study focused on major questions related to drainage district consolidation in the Columbia Corridor, arising from the geographic and economic diversity that characterizes the four entities. The magnitude and type of economic activity within the districts varies considerably, and results in a broad range of operational resources and levee system requirements.

Energy For Development: The Concept, Holmes J., Terry Van Gevelt

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Worldwide, 1.3 billion people remain without access to electricity and 2.7 billion are still cooking on harmful and inefficient stoves1 . Many live in remote rural village communities, and until they have access to energy services, little progress can be made to develop and improve their lives2 . As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stated, “energy is the golden thread that connects economic growth, increased social equity, and an environment that allows the planet to thrive”3 . Improving the lives of rural communities by developing smart villages is a concept analogous to the more familiar smart cities. The vision …

Making South Downtown Portland, Artur Queiroz, Beth Gilden, Flávia Martins, Hannah Six, John Todoroff, Linn Davis, Maria Schafaschek, Nely Silveira, Sayonara Batista, Taissa Sanccao

Urban Design Workshop

Principals that guided the project:

(1) Create connection between existing activity centers.

• Education: Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and Portland State University
• Parks: Halpern Sequence, Park Blocks, and Waterfront
• Transit centers: Orange Line, Yellow Line, Streetcar and Bus Connection

(2) Add to multi-use nature of area to provide a 24 hr neighborhood environment. Additional residential Development - catering to late night and residence not just office crowd.

(3) Improve pedestrian experience: Increase safety by making traffic changes, add wayfinding and dampen freeway noise.

(4) Design for a diversity of ages

(5) Activate existing/underutilized "dead" …

Renting Trouble: Current Government Policy Of Relying On The Private Rented Sector To Deliver Social Housing Is Unlikely To Succeed, Tom Dunne

Reports

A review of the history of housing in Ireland shows that owner occupancy and social housing were policy choices by successive governments. Owner occupancy was heavily supported through a system of grants and tax breaks and social housing was directly provided through local authorities at subsidised rents. In recent years policy has changed and tenure neutrality is now guiding the government’s attitude to housing. This is a significant change which has not been sufficiently discussed and has consequences which are not appreciated. Relying on the market to provide rental housing for people on low incomes and who may be in …

Getting Green To Work In The Northwest Industrial District, Stefan Heisler, Sara Ivey, Alexis Kelso, Ryu Sakuma, John Dornoff, Dianne Yee

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Forest Park and its surrounding watershed experience measurable environmental problems such as urban heat island impacts, increased storm water runoff containing pollutants, fragmentations of habitat connectivity due to their proximities to high-impact land uses, poor air quality, absence of public space, and lack of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. Getting Green to Work in the Northwest Industrial District identifies strategies to address environmental issues that affect local human and environmental health in the Northwest Indusrial District, Forest Park and the Willamette River, while benefiting local businesses workers and firms. Getting Green to Work explores voluntary approaches to address local environmental problems …

North Portland Greenway Trail Strategic Plan, Lewis Kelley, James Dubois, Savannah Erzen, Gena Gastaldi, Lisa Harrison, Nick Stoll

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Grow Willamette Greenway was initiated through a partnership between npGreenway and Willamette Planning Studio, a group of six Portland State University graduate students in the Masters of Urban and Regional Planning program. Through a four month collaborative process of community engagement and analysis, including health impacts, economic development, and traffic demand modeling, a series of findings and recommendations were developed. The process built upon previous work undertaken by npGreenway, Metro, Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), Portland Parks and Recreation (PP&R), and other government agencies and community organizations to present a strategic action plan for npGreenway to pursue what moves the …

Fourth Plain Forward: Action Plan For Vancouver's Multicultural Business District, Mandia Gonzales, Jamin Kimmell, Eddie Montejo, Lauren Patton, Kate Rogers, Anthony Thompson

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Fourth Plain Forward is an action plan for Fourth Plain's multicultural business district, created in collaboration with the City of Vancouver, Washington. Fourth Plain's business district reflects the rich diversity of its surrounding communities, but the area faces significant economic challenges. To address these issues, the action plan builds on the economic development goals outlined in the 2007 Fourth Plain Corridor Subarea Plan, and aims to improve conditions along the corridor for both businesses and residents. Broadly, Fourth Plain Forward outlines strategies and actions to grow economic security and opportunity, and maintain the area's diversity.

This project was conducted under …

Urban Inspiration Can Come From Unlikely Sources: What Boston Can Learn From Cities In Transition Around The World, Andrew Tarsy

New England Journal of Public Policy

Boston is a city in transition, with power passing to a new mayor for the first time in a generation. The capital of New England should consider the examples of cities around the world in defining its next agenda. The urban centers that make up the Forum for Cities in Transition have all endured years of conflict and yet each continues to plan for a better future. Belfast, Nicosia, and Kaduna might not be role models for Boston; but three consensus points came out of the group’s recent summit: (1) it is hard to move forward without confronting the past; …

Tachomea: Infill Tools For A Happy City, Anaïs Mathez, Michael Cynkar, Hannah Silver, Nicholas Kobel

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The City of Tacoma has policies that both encourage the densification of neighborhoods through a broadened range of residential infill options and also protect the character of single-family housing patterns. However, recent residential development has illustrated the difficulty of achieving goals of compatibility and density simultaneously. How can development incorporate better design standards and placemaking practices that respond to a neighborhood’s unique character, while diversifying the housing stock to provide a greater variety of housing options?

Relating to the city’s anticipated population growth, as well as regional environmental and economic pressures, this report frames the discussion, analysis and recommendations around …

Green Loop Swpdx Concept Plan: Alignment And Design Treatment Recommendations For The Southwest Green Loop, Ashley Eaton, Brian Gunn, Jake Adams, Kate Washington, Mohd Meidiansyah

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Green Loop SWPDX project was conducted by five students in partnership with the Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability Urban Design Studio and Portland State University's Campus Planning Office. It explores potential alignments and design treatments for Portland's Green Loop, specifically with the southwest downtown quardrant of the Central City. The southwest quadrant of the Green Loop links the South Park Blocks to the non-automobile Tilikum Crossing bridge. The Green Loop SWPDX project explores both large and small-scale possibilities for creating a sense of safety and a place for cyclists and pedestrians in the Central City. This document reports …

Paalf People's Plan: East Portland Pilot, Todd Borkowitz, Lorrie Chang, Christine Corrales, Leslee Humphrey, D. H. Strongheart, Timothy Wood

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Recognizing the traumatic experience of being forced to move and losing community, this plan reflects the hopes of community members who seek to rebuild their lives in a new place. The East Portland Pilot Plan applies the urban planning practice of placemaking as a transformative intervention for addressing challenges and stabilizing the Black community in East Portland. This plan also emerges at a critical time, as existing city plans for East Portland indicate significant future public investment and development.

This plan has been written with a wide audience in mind. The material is relevant to homeowners, community activists, urban planners, …

Cathedral Waterfront Plan, Mathangi Murthy, Tabitha Boschetti, Michelle Anderson, Saumya Kini, Rosa Lehman, Violet Brown

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Cathedral Park Neighborhood Association anticipated the imminent development of 15-acres of waterfront property (the Steel Hammer Site) in the heart of their community and worked with the PSU MURP team to bolster the voice of the community through public engagement and thoughtful urban planning. The student team reached out to the neighbors, talked with shareholders, conducted site analysis, and developed a shared community vision for the Steel Hammer Site, which resulted the Cathedral Waterfront Plan that includes:

• Twelve community goals for future development
• Three scenarios demonstrating how development on the Steel Hammer Site could contribute to community priorities without …

Fishing For A Sustainable Future: Aquaponics As A Method Of Food Production, Richard Ramsundar

Student Theses 2015-Present

This thesis compares and explains the advantages aquaponics farming has over modern industrial intensive farming. Through a comparison natural capital usage, conservation, recycling and cost, the thesis advocates for the expansion of aquaponics usage in urban settings. The thesis also explains the history of intensive farming and aquaponics in America, the science of how aquaponics operates, the economic and environmental costs of modern intensive farming versus aquaponics farming, and the social implications of aquaponics. Lastly, I propose a policy that reallocates farm subsidies by modifying the Farm Bill. Then I propose policies that support creating a new standard of farm …

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.

Community Characteristics Associated With Local Intergovernmental Cooperation., Sarin Adhikari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metropolitan fragmentation is considered the root cause of inequality among local governments. Self-governing localities have the power to exercise zoning and land-use laws to lock up their resources, which gives them a competitive edge against their neighbors. Localities are unique in terms of their economic capacity, fiscal strength, geographic location, racial makeup of their residents and their income status. Such differences reflect into variation in preference for urban infrastructure and the capacity of local governments to provide preferred services at the lowest possible taxes and fees. Some scholars have suggested consolidating localities into large regional governments to overcome such inequalities. …

2014 Transit Oriented Developments Survey, Jennifer Dill, Nathan Mcneil

TREC Final Reports

This report presents results from surveys of residents at several transit-oriented developments (TODs) in Portland, Hillsboro, Tigard, and unincorporated Clackamas County. The research complements our previous survey work for Metro done at eight TODs in 2010 and 11 TODs in 2007.

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 …

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.