Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Developing High-Resolution Descriptions Of Urban Heat Islands: A Public Health Imperative, Jackson Voelkel, Vivek Shandas, Brendon Haggerty

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Extreme heat events affect the most vulnerable human populations and are a lethal health hazard to urban dwellers globally; in the United States, extreme heat causes more deaths annually than all other weather events and natural hazards combined (1). Previous studies described urban heat islands as isolated, static, monolithic areas of cities. We challenged this contention by hypothesizing that diurnal temperature cycles and diverse landscape features create variation in places that amplify heat (2). A temporal description of urban heat islands would identify populations that are susceptible to heat stress, particularly at night, when most people are asleep and unable …

Clatsop County Latinos: A Demographic And Economic Profile, Marisa Zapata, Amanda Hudson

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Demographic change continues at an unprecedented rate across Oregon. In part driven by Latino population growth, the state’s future will include a population that only recently began to call Oregon home. Clatsop County is one area that is experiencing this population change (See Figure 1). Clatsop County has long remained ethnically homogenous. Yet, the rapid growth of the Latino population coincides at a time where the White population decreases in much of the county. There are few reports, describing the needs of the Latino population in the areas of planning and community. This report details several key demographic and economic …

Integrating High-Resolution Datasets To Target Mitigation Efforts For Improving Air Quality And Public Health In Urban Neighborhoods, Vivek Shandas, Jackson Voelkel, Meenakshi Rao, Linda A. George

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reducing exposure to degraded air quality is essential for building healthy cities. Although air quality and population vary at fine spatial scales, current regulatory and public health frameworks assess human exposures using county- or city-scales. We build on a spatial analysis technique, dasymetric mapping, for allocating urban populations that, together with emerging fine-scale measurements of air pollution, addresses three objectives: (1) evaluate the role of spatial scale in estimating exposure; (2) identify urban communities that are disproportionately burdened by poor air quality; and (3) estimate reduction in mobile sources of pollutants due to local tree-planting efforts using nitrogen dioxide. Our …

Where Is Portland Made? The Complex Relationship Between Social Media And Place In The Artisan Economy Of Portland, Oregon (Usa), Stephen Marotta, Austin Cummings, Charles H. Heying

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland, Oregon (USA) has become known for an artisanal or ‘maker’ economy that relies on a resurgence of place specificity (Heying), primarily expressed and exported to a global audience in the notion of ‘Portland Made’ (Roy). Portland Made reveals a tension immanent in the notion of ‘place’: place is both here and not here, both real and imaginary. What emerges is a complicated picture of how place conceptually captures various intersections of materiality and mythology, aesthetics and economics. On the one hand, Portland Made represents the collective brand-identity used by Portland’s makers to signify a products’ material existence as handcrafted, …

Daytime Variation Of Urban Heat Islands: The Case Study Of Doha, Qatar, Yasuyo Makido, Vivek Shandas, Salim Ferwati, David J. Sailor

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent evidence suggests that urban forms and materials can help to mediate temporal variation of microclimates and that landscape modifications can potentially reduce temperatures and increase accessibility to outdoor environments. To understand the relationship between urban form and temperature moderation, we examined the spatial and temporal variation of air temperature throughout one desert city—Doha, Qatar—by conducting vehicle traverses using highly resolved temperature and GPS data logs to determine spatial differences in summertime air temperatures. To help explain near-surface air temperatures using land cover variables, we employed three statistical approaches: Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Regression Tree Analysis (RTA), and Random Forest …

Revisiting Critical Gis, Jim Thatcher, Luke Bergmann, Britta Ricker, Reuben Rose-Redwood, Daniel O'Sullivan, Trevor J. Barnes, Luke R. Barnesmoore, Laura Beltz Imaoka, Ryan Burns, Jonathan Cinnamon, Craig M. Dalton, Clinton Davis, Stuart Dunn, Francis Harvey, Jin-Kyu Jung, Elen Kersten, Ladona Knigge, Nick Lally, Wen Lin, Dillon Mahmoudi, Michael Martin, Will Payne, Amir Sheikh, Taylor Shelton, Eric Sheppard, Chris W. Strother, Alexander Tarr, Matthew W. Wilson, Jason C. Young

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article looks into the critical geographic information science (GIS) in approaching questions both emerging and enduring around the intersection of the spatial and the digital. It offers trading zones for discussion of issues, for building alliances and interrogating tensions, and for a constant dialectical process of critique and renewal. One tension running through critical GIS is the contradictory role it has played in addressing questions of social justice.

Temporal Variations Of Citizens’ Demands On Flood Damage Mitigation, Streamflow Quantity And Quality In The Korean Urban Watershed, Change-Yu Hong, Eun-Sung Chung

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Sustainable watershed management (SWM) can be achieved through recognition and reflection upon the values of citizens. Collaborative governance consisting of citizens is crucial for successful SWM. Collaborative governance definitely requires an active participatory decision-making process that reflects citizens’ preferences. Citizen preference also tends to substantially change with life pattern and life quality. These shifts can be caused by slight variations in both social priorities and personal preferences for SWM. Therefore, collaborative water governance must be frequently renewed in response to citizens’ values through the participatory framework. The An’yang Stream in South Korea is generally regarded as a representative urban stream …

Sustainable Drainage Systems: Helping People Live With Water, Glyn Everett, Jessica Lamond, Anita T. Morzillo, Faith Ka Shun Chan, Annie Marissa Matsler

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Sustainable drainage systems or ‘Suds’ are increasingly accepted as an effective means of ‘making space for water’, adapting to possible climate change and helping communities become more flood and drought resilient. This study explores potential shifts in perception and attitude through Suds installation, development and habituation. Attitudes and awareness in communities in the USA and UK, where Suds have been in place for some time, were compared and contrasted, examining any evolution of beliefs and practices and wider community resilience. The principal finding was that there existed a lack of understanding about the existence and function of Suds. The paper …

Beyond The Fringe, Carl Abbott

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book: Lincoln Bramwell. Wilderburbs: Communities on Nature’s Edge. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014. Andrew Needham. Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2014.

Who Votes For Mayor?, Jason R. Jurjevich, Phil Keisling, Kevin Rancik, Carson Gorecki, Stephanie Hawke

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Voter turnout is shockingly low in elections for mayor and other local officials across the United States. For the most recent round of mayoral elections in America’s 30 largest cities, turnout of eligible citizens in 15 of them was less than 20%.

Creating An Inclusionary Bicycle Justice Movement, Aaron Golub, Melody L. Hoffman, Gerardo Francisco Sandoval, Adonia Lugo

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This is a chapter in: Bicycle Justice and Urban Transformation: Biking for All?

Forging Links Between Food Chain Labor Activists And Academics, Charles Z. Levoke, Nathan Mcclintock, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Amy K. Coplen, Jennifer Gaddis, Joann Lo, Felipe Tendick-Matesanz, Anelyse M. Weiler

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Interest in food movements has been growing dramatically, but until recently there has been limited engagement with the challenges facing workers across the food system. Of the studies that do exist, there is little focus on the processes and relationships that lead to solutions. This article explores ways that community-engaged teaching and research partnerships can help to build meaningful justice with food workers. The text builds on a special roundtable session held at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Chicago in April 2015, which involved a range of academic scholars and community-based activists. We present these …

Getting Outside The Supermarket Box: Alternatives To "Food Deserts", Megan Horst, Subhashni Raj, Catherine Brinkley

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Supermarkets are often proposed as a solution to “food deserts” – places where access to healthy food appears limited. In places as diverse as New York City and Portland, Oregon, planners have incentivized supermarkets to locate in these under-served areas. However, there are some serious problems with both the notion of food deserts and the promotion of supermarkets as the answer. As an alternative, we propose that planners and their colleagues focus on community-based solutions, rather than strategies that mostly benefit corporations.

Socio-Spatial Differentiation In The Sustainable City: A Mixed-Methods Assessment Of Residential Gardens In Metropolitan Portland, Oregon, Usa, Nathan Mcclintock, Dillon Mahmoudi, Michael Simpson, Jacinto Pereira Santos

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

As cities take center stage in developing and brokering strategies for sustainability, examining the uneven distribution of green infrastructure is crucial. Urban agriculture (UA) has gained a prominent role in urban greening and food system diversification strategies alike. Despite that it is the preeminent form of food production in North American cities, residential gardening has received little scholarly attention. Moreover, research on the intra-urban variability of home gardens is sparse. In this paper, we use a mixed-methods approach to assess the scale and scope of residential gardens in Portland, Oregon, a metropolitan region renowned for its innovations in sustainability. Using …

Beyond The Screen: Uneven Geographies, Digital Labour, And The City Of Cognitive-Cultural Capitalism, Dillon Mahmoudi, Anthony M. Levenda

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, we demonstrate that an examination of the socio-environmental impacts of digital ICTs remains a fruitless enterprise without “materializing” digital labour. We suggest one approach to materializing digital labour: this first includes connecting political economic analyses of digital ICTs to the co-evolution and geography of planetary urbanization and technological change, and second, examining the relationships between immaterial, digital, labour with the material industrial production system. In the context of broad changes in technology, social life, and urbanization, many scholars have theorized a shift towards a third phase of capitalism, beyond mercantilism and industrialism, based in immaterial, digital, and …

Is The Right To Bicycle A Civil Right? Synergies And Tensions Between The Transportation Justice Movement And Planning For Bicycling, Aaron Golub

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter was inspired by a long-standing debate among transportation justice and equity advocates about the importance of investments in bicycle transportation as a goal of the transportation justice movement. Bicycle investments are notably absent in transportation equity analyses for regional plans (e.g. Metropolitan Transportation Commission, 2013), and from broader transportation justice discussions (for instance the word “bicycle” does not appear in the index of the overview of transportation justice practice published by the American Planning Association (Sanchez and Brenman, 2007). The transportation justice movement, with its lineage in the civil rights and environmental justice movements, focuses on improving the …

Transportation Cost Index As A Performance Measure For Transportation And Land Use Systems: New Approaches And Applications, Liming Wang, Huajie Yang, Jenny H. Liu

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research aims to fill gaps in existing multi-modal performance measures for transportation and land use systems:

1. As a supplement/replacement of traffic-centric measures such as LOS, travel delay;
2. Recent federal and state legislations put more emphases on using of performance measures in transportation planning & operation: MAP-21, Oregon Job and Transportation Act (OJTA);
3. Existing performance measures for transportation and land use systems, although now numerous, have their own limitation (Table 1), and leave important aspects and policy areas uncovered, for example, the balance of transportation investment between different modes and across geographical areas as mandated by OJTA

Data Colonialism Through Accumulation By Dispossession: New Metaphors For Daily Data, Jim Thatcher, David O'Sullivan, Dillon Mahmoudi

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, much has been written on ‘big data’ in both the popular and academic press. After the hubristic declaration of the “end of theory” more nuanced arguments have emerged, suggesting that increasingly pervasive data collection and quantification may have significant implications for the social sciences, even if the social, scientific, political and economic agendas behind big data are less new than they are often portrayed. Compared to the boosterish tone of much of its press, academic critiques of big data have been relatively muted, often focusing on the continued importance of more traditional forms of domain knowledge and …

Delivering Green Streets: An Exploration Of Changing Perceptions And Behaviours Over Time Around Bioswales In Portland, Oregon, Glyn Everett, Jessica Lamond, Anita T. Morzillo, Annie Marissa Matsler, Faith Ka Shun Chan

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Green Infrastructure (GI) is an increasingly popular means of dealing with flooding and water quality issues worldwide. This study examines public perceptions of, and behaviour around, bioswales, which are a popular GI facility in the United States. Bioswales are highly visible interventions requiring support from residents and policy-makers to be implemented and maintained appropriately. To understand how the residents’ perceptions and attitudes might develop over time, we interviewed residents of Portland, Oregon, living near bioswales installed 1–2, 4–5 and 8–9 years ago, to determine awareness, understanding, and opinions about the devices. We found no consistent patterns across time periods, but …

Stressors And Strategies For Managing Urban Water Scarcity: Perspectives From The Field, Vivek Shandas, Rosa Lehman, Kelli L. Larson, Jeremy Bunn, Heejun Chang

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Largely because water resource planning in the U.S. has been separated from land-use planning, opportunities for explicitly linking planning policies to water availability remain unexamined. The pressing need for better coordination between land-use planning and water management is amplified by changes in the global climate, which will place even greater importance on managing water supplies and demands than in the past. By surveying land and water managers in two urbanizing regions of the western United States—Portland, Oregon and Phoenix Arizona—we assessed the extent to which their perspectives regarding municipal water resource management align or differ. We specifically focus on characterizing …

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 …

A Critical Physical Geography Of Urban Soil Contamination, Nathan Mcclintock

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Anthropogenic lead (Pb) is widespread in urban soils given its widespread deposition over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries via a range of point- and non-point sources, including industrial waste and pollution, leaded paint, and automobile exhaust. While soil scientists and urban ecologists have documented soil Pb contamination in cities around the world, such analyses rarely move beyond proximal mechanisms to focus on more distal factors, notably the social processes mediating Pb accumulation in particular places. In this paper, I articulate a critical physical geography of urban soil Pb contamination that considers the dialectical coproduction of soil and …

Community By Design: The Olmsted Firm And The Development Of Brookline, Massachusetts By Keith N. Morgan, Elizabeth Hope Cushing, And Roger G. Reed (Book Review), Carl Abbott

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Carl Abbott, professor emeritus at Portland State University, reviews the book Community by Design: The Olmsted Firm and the Development of Brookline, Massachusetts.

Transit And Economic Resilience, Arthur C. Nelson, Matt Miller, Joanna P. Ganning, Philip Stoker, Jenny H. Liu, Reid Ewing

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Do fixed-guideway transit systems facilitate resilience with metropolitan areas? There is little literature making this connection theoretically and none testing it empirically. This paper helps close this gap in both respects. In evaluating metropolitan areas with light rail transit systems the authors find evidence that transit corridors on the whole performed better than control corridors during the recovery period of two recessions: that of the early 2000s and the so-called Great Recession. In particular, during the Great Recession transit corridors outperformed control corridors among many economic sectors. Outcomes were more impressive during recoveries from both the recession of the early …

Office Rent Premiums With Respect To Distance From Light Rail Transit Stations In Dallas And Denver, Arthur C. Nelson, Dejan Eskic, Joanna P. Ganning, Shima Hamidi, Susan J. Petheram, Jenny H. Liu, Reid Ewing

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

It seems an article-of-faith that real estate markets respond more favorably to location within one-half mile of transit stations. Planning and public decision-makers have thus drawn half-mile (or smaller) circles around rail transit stations assuming larger planning areas would not be supported by the evidence. Recent research, however, has shown market-responsiveness well beyond one-half mile. We contribute to this literature by evaluating the distance-decay function of office rents in metropolitan Dallas and Denver with respect to light rail transit (LRT) station distance. Using a quadratic transformation of distance we find office rent premiums extending in the range of two miles …

Commuter Rail Transit And Economic Development, Arthur C. Nelson, Matt Miller, Keuntae Kim, Joanna P. Ganning, Jenny H. Liu, Reid Ewing

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Commuter rail transit (CRT) is a form of rail passenger service connecting downtowns and other major activity centers with suburban commuter towns and beyond. Between 1834 and 1973, only three public CRT systems were built in the U.S. serving New York, Chicago and then Boston. There are now 25 such systems. Modern CRT systems aim to expand economic development in metropolitan areas. But do they? This paper evaluates the economic development performance of five modern CRT systems. The authors find that several economic sectors perform well within 0.50 miles of CRT stations. The authors offer planning and policy implications.

Radical Uncertainty: Scenario Planning For Futures, Marisa A. Zapata, Nikhil Kaza

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The use of scenario planning in urban and regional planning practice has grown in the last decade as one way to face uncertainty. However, in adapting scenario planning from its origins in the business sector, planners have eliminated two key components: (1) the use of multiple scenarios, and (2) the inclusion of diverse organizations, people, and interests through deep deliberations. We argue that this shift limits the ability of planners to plan for multiple plausible futures that are shaped by an increasing number of diverse actors. In this paper, we use case-study research to examine how uncertainty was considered in …

Comparing Two Common Approaches To Public Transit Service Equity Evaluation, Alex Karner, Aaron Golub

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Understanding the equity effects of transit service changes requires good information about the demographics of transit ridership. Both on-board survey data and census data can be used to estimate equity effects, though there is no clear reason these two sources will result in the same finding of impact. Guidance from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) recommends using either of these data sources to estimate equity impacts. This article makes a direct comparison of the two methods for the public transit system in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. The results indicate that, although both sources are acceptable for FTA compliance, the …

But Do Lower-Wage Jobs Follow? Comparing Wage-Based Outcomes Of Light Rail Transit To Control Corridors, Arthur C. Nelson, Matt Miller, Dejan Eskic, Joanna P. Ganning, Jenny H. Liu, Reid Ewing

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Literature suggests that rail transit improvements should be associated with more jobs and perhaps increasing share of jobs in a metropolitan area. Literature and some research also suggest that such improvements should increase the number of lower-wage jobs accessible to transit. In this paper, we assess both in the context of all 11 light rail transit systems built in metropolitan areas of fewer than eight million residents in the nation since 1981. Using census block-level job data over the period 2002 to 2011, we evaluate change in jobs and change in metropolitan area job share for all jobs, and lower- …