Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

The Media Industry In Oregon: Incentive And Impact Analysis, Mike Paruszkiewicz, Emma Willingham, Peter Hulseman

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Oregon’s media industries have become increasingly well-known over the last several years, thanks in large part to successful feature length films and television series produced in the state. It is widely known that such productions offer visibility, tourism interest, and a boost to local merchants during their visits. More economically important, but less immediately obvious, are the impacts of a home grown industry of professionals and businesses that thrive in regions able to maintain a reliable stream of production activity. Numerous states now offer incentives to visiting media productions, some focused on big-ticket features and visiting series. In Oregon, the …

Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership: Economic Impact Analysis December 2016 Update, Hieu Nguyen, Emma Willingham, Peter Hulseman

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

The Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), founded in 1988, is a network of non-profit agencies staffed by industry professionals and consultants. Historically, MEP has sought to increase the competitiveness of small to mid-size enterprises (which as a group comprise 99% of all U.S. manufacturing firms) by providing expert guidance and access to resources. In recent years, the severe economic recession sparked increased interest in the strength of the manufacturing sector, due to its longtime status as one of the major drivers of the domestic economy. Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP), the Oregon branch of MEP, works to provide data-driven analysis …

Portland Green Loop Economic Analysis, Jenny H. Liu

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

The Portland “Green Loop” is a proposed 6-mile linear open space running through the heart of the city, connecting existing and new open spaces, parks, gathering areas, and walking and biking pathways. As envisioned, the Green Loop concept requires significant infrastructure investments, and would result in both short-term and long-term impacts on transportation (for all travel modes), environment and economic development. The goal of this project is to characterize, quantify and analyze these costs, benefits and impacts, particularly focusing on case studies of similar infrastructure investments in active transportation and analyses of property value impacts, economic (input-output) impacts and preliminary …

Developing A Model For Transit Oriented Development In Latino Immigrant Communities: A National Study Of Equity And Tod, Gerardo Francisco Sandoval

TREC Final Reports

This research project is a continuation of a previous NITC-funded study. The first study compared the MacArthur Park TOD in Los Angeles to the Fruitvale Village TOD in Oakland. The findings from this new study further validate the key findings from the first study. This new comparative case study analyzed the extension of Los Angeles’ Gold Line into Boyle Heights and the revitalization linked to Boyle Heights due to two TODs built in that neighborhood. I conclude from all four cases that TODs can help serve as catalysts for neighborhood revitalization in low-income communities by paying attention and building upon …

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 …

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 …

The Landscape: Tiny And Very Small Houses, Andrés Oswill

Metroscape

The article describes one of many approaches to creating more affordable housing choices -- tiny and very small houses. The author explains how the current trend returns to an affordable housing approach used much earlier in Portland's history.

Indicators Of The Metroscape: The Young, The Old, And The Single, Elizabeth Morehead

Metroscape

Elizabeth Morehead focuses on the changing demographic of households in the Portland metropolitan region

Periodic Atlas Of The Of The Metroscape: The Geography Of Publicly Subsidized Affordable Housing, Meg Merrick

Metroscape

Meg Merrick maps publicly subsidized affordable housing units across the region, discusses their geography, and describes their location in relation to two important amenities: schools and libraries.

From The Frontlines Of The Housing Crisis: Two Vulnerable Tenants Discuss Their Experiences In Portland's Increasingly Brutal Housing Market, Thomas Kerr

Metroscape

Homelessness is the most visible face of Portland's affordable housing crisis, but the numbers of street sleepers and tent campers are nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of beleaguered tenants. They may be hidden away in their separate apartments, but they are suffering the effects of crisis all the same. Forty percent of the 900,000 households in the Portland Metro area are tenants, and half are paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent. A quarter pay more than 50 percent, and the percentages go higher as the households get poorer. Besides forcing them to impoverish themselves …

Living On The Edge: The Forgotten Tribulations Of Affordable Housing In The Suburbs, Linn Davis

Metroscape

The article describes how the housing crisis is playing out in the region's suburbs.

Pathway 1000 Community Housing Plan, Kaitlin Berger, Anna Dearman, Beth Gilden, Karen Guillén-Chapman, Jasmine Rucker

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Housing prices in the City of Portland have risen dramatically in recent years, and low income and communities of color have been particularly hard hit in the northeast neighborhoods of the city. Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives has embarked on the development of 1000 affordable units over the next 10 years to help meet the needs of displaced residents. The Pathway 1000 Community Housing Plan sets out a strategy for providing those 1000 affordable, stable homes.

This project was conducted under the supervision of Marisa Zapata, Ethan Seltzer, Susam Hartnett, and Lisa Bates.

Lents Strong: Community Action Plan For A Livable, Affordable Neighborhood, Adam Brunelle, Drew Devitis, Carson Groecki, Claire Lust, Katie Sellin, John Todoroff

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

This is a community action and advocacy plan, created in consultation with neighborhood organizations and underrepresented communities most at risk for displacement. It focuses on actions where collaboration and community engagement will have the largest impacts. This is a plan for the next five years.

The overarching goals of the plan are to: Ensure the viability of Livable Lents. Livable Lents should remain a transparent, accountable, accessible, and holistic community engagement process that works collaboratively with nonprofits, city agencies, and community members. This plan serves in part as a collaboration strategy which integrates engagement on a wide range of projects …

The Value Of Place: Planning For Walkability In The Tigard Triangle, Wala Abuhejleh, Ray Atkinson, Linn Davis, Curtis Fisher

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The “Tigard Triangle” is bounded by highways and characterized by auto-oriented land uses in an incomplete street grid. It currently presents a challenge to the City of Tigard, whose vision is to be the most walkable community in the Pacific Northwest. The purpose of the Value of Place project is to develop a plan for improving walkability, safety, comfort, and aesthetics in the Tigard Triangle. In addition, this project was developed to test the application of the State of Place analytical tools to the planning and design challenges faced by the city.

This project was conducted under the supervision of …

Parking Space Estimation In The City Of Portland, Ashley Colder, Madison Weakley, J. Robert Zoeller

Student Work

This project is a collaboration with Portland Bureau of Transportation, to study city required parking lots spaces, and allowed on-street parking space in Portland. As the city begins to re-evaluate its transportation systems to encourage more travel by buses, trains, and bikes, we want to explore what is the current parking situation by the city of Portland. To understand better about the parking situation in Portland, and how this might affect the parking policies in the future in Portland.

The scope of this project is limited to East Portland. The group was assigned to the Far-Southeast (Far-SE) area. The Far-SE …

Washington County Affordable Housing Development Strategy, Mary Heberling, Hayley Mallen, Danelle Peterson, Jill Statz, David Tetrick

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Washington County Consolidated Housing Plan estimates a need for 14,000 housing units affordable to low and very low-income households. This project was developed to create an initial strategy for meeting that need. It provides 30 specific recommendations for Washington County to enable it to take action in the coming years. As the plan notes, there is no single action that will suffice. The County can make progress towards meeting the challenge posed by its affordable housing crisis by leveraging the proposed recommendations with each other.

Talent On The Move: Migration Patterns Of The Young And College-Educated In Pre And Post-Recession America - Migration Trends Across The 50 Largest U.S. Metros, Jason R. Jurjevich, Greg Schrock, Jihye Kang

Publications, Reports and Presentations

In this brief, we present U.S. Census Bureau data to compare recent migration trends for young and college-educated (YCE) individuals for the largest 50 U.S. metro areas in 2012-2014 relative to the pre-recession (2005-2007) and Great Recession (2008-2010) periods.

Talent On The Move: Migration Patterns Of The Young And College-Educated In Pre And Post-Recession America – Migration Trends Across The Largest Northeastern Metros, Jason R. Jurjevich, Greg Schrock, Jihye Kang

Publications, Reports and Presentations

In the most recent period, 2012-2014, the Northeast’s largest metro areas attracted and retained roughly 31,000 YCE migrants. However, this represents 9,000 fewer migrants compared to the Great Recession period— the Northeast is the only region to post a decline in net in/migration of YCEs between 2008-2010 and 2012-2014. All Northeastern metros experienced a decline or a very marginal gain in NMQ values between the two periods, except for Philadelphia, which posted more than a 2,000 gain in net YCE in-migration. In the end however, Boston and Pittsburgh remain the region's two most productive cities for attracting retaining and retaining …

Talent On The Move: Migration Patterns Of The Young And College-Educated In Pre And Post-Recession America – Migration Trends Across The Largest Western Metros, Jason R. Jurjevich, Greg Schrock, Jihye Kang

Publications, Reports and Presentations

In the West, Seattle recorded the largest NMQ gain of YCEs (31.6 percent), followed by San Francisco (28.5 percent), Portland (26.3 percent), and San Jose (26.1 percent). During the Great Recession, as well as the post-recession recovery period, only four metros outpaced the West’s regional gain in YCE net-migration: 1) Phoenix, 2) Denver, 3) San Francisco, 4) San Jose

Connecting People To Places: Spatiotemporal Analysis Of Transit Supply Using Travel-Time Cubes, Steven Farber

TREC Final Reports

Despite its importance, temporal measures of accessibility are rarely used in transit research or practice. This is primarily due to the inherent difficulty and complexity in computing time-based accessibility metrics. Estimating origin-to-destination travel times that include the “last mile” of travel between the transit network and actual start and endpoints of the trip is technically difficult. Not only do such estimations require multimodal network structures, they also require detailed knowledge of transit schedules and sophisticated algorithms for calculating shortest paths using such inputs. Recently, new standards for sharing transit schedules and geographic data, namely the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) …

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 …

The Economic Impacts Of A Gross Receipt Tax For Oregon With Implications For Initiative Petition 28, Mike Paruszkiewicz, Thomas Potiowsky, Eric Hoffman, Emma Willingham

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Discussion of the characteristics and projected economic impacts of a gross receipts tax for Oregon.

Talent On The Move: Migration Patterns Of The Young And College-Educated In Pre And Post-Recession America – Migration Trends Across The Largest Southern Metros, Jason R. Jurjevich, Greg Schrock, Jihye Kang

Publications, Reports and Presentations

In 2012-2014, the South recorded the largest gain of YCE net in-migration, among its large metros, of any region at 138,000. What’s more, the only metros to post NMQ values above 30 were both in the South—Houston (36.9 percent) followed by Austin (35 percent). While most large Southern metros posted robust gains in net in-migration of YCEs between the two periods, Louisville (-18.7 percent), Baltimore, (-9.4 percent), San Antonio (-8.2 percent), Dallas/Ft. Worth (-5.5 percent), and Tampa (-1.5 percent) all recorded NMQ declines in net in-migration of YCEs.

Talent On The Move: Migration Patterns Of The Young And College-Educated In Pre And Post-Recession America – Migration Trends Across The Largest Midwestern Metros, Jason R. Jurjevich, Greg Schrock, Jihye Kang

Publications, Reports and Presentations

In the most recent period, 2012-2014, the Midwest’s largest metro areas attracted and retained almost 37,000 YCE migrants, which is almost double the number during the Great Recession period. Although the region’s largest city, Chicago, recorded the largest net in/migration of YCEs (11,033) in 2012-2014, Kansas City recorded the highest NMQ of YCEs (18.6 percent), followed by Columbus, OH (18.5 percent) and Detroit (16.4 percent). Detroit’s turnaround is particularly noteworthy; the Motor City metro posted the second highest change in NMQ values between the two periods (second only to Birmingham). Two metros reported a net out/migration of YCEs, one being …

The Economics Of Residential Building Deconstruction In Portland, Or, Mike Paruszkiewicz, Jenny H. Liu, Rebecca Hanes, Eric Hoffman, Peter Hulseman, Emma Willingham

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Impact analysis of the nascent deconstruction industry, in light of recent legislation.

Minimum Wage Increases And Oregon’S Long-Term Care Sector, Mike Paruszkiewicz, Peter Hulseman, Emma Willingham

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Analysis of direct and "ripple" effects of Oregon's recent minimum wage increase in the long-term care industry.

Minimum wage proposals have dominated recent policy debate in Oregon, culminating in the February 2016 legislative session that included the passage of Senate Bill 1532, a three-tiered minimum wage increase to be phased in between 2016 and 2022. Barring changes in other states, the law will give Oregon the highest minimum wage in the country. While the immediate impacts of the law on workers earning near the minimum are substantial and relatively clear-cut, businesses face less certain outcomes as the delicate balance between …

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.

The Economic Impact Of Oregon City’S County Seat Status, Mike Paruszkiewicz, Jeff Renfro, Peter Hulseman, Emma Willingham

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Impact analysis discussing the economic role of county presence in Oregon City.

Differential Health And Social Needs Of Older Adults Waitlisted For Public Housing Or Housing Choice Vouchers, Paula C. Carder, Gretchen Luhr, Jacklyn Nicole Kohon

Institute on Aging Publications

Affordable housing is an important form of income security for low-income older persons. This article describes characteristics of older persons waitlisted for either public housing or a housing choice voucher (HCV) (previously Section 8) in Portland, Oregon. 358 persons (32% response rate) completed a mailed survey with questions about demographics, health and housing status, food insecurity, and preference for housing with services. Findings indicate that many waitlisted older persons experienced homelessness or housing instability, poor health, high hospital use, and food insecurity. Public housing applicants were significantly more likely to report lower incomes, homelessness, and food insecurity than HCV applicants. …

Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership: An Economic Impact Analysis, Emma Willingham, Mike Paruszkiewicz

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

The Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), founded in 1988, is a network of non-profit agencies staffed by industry professionals and consultants. Historically, MEP has sought to increase the competitiveness of small to mid-size enterprises (which as a group comprise 99% of all U.S. manufacturing firms) by providing expert guidance and access to resources. In recent years, the severe economic recession sparked increased interest in the strength of the manufacturing sector, due to its longtime status as one of the major drivers of the domestic economy. Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP), the Oregon branch of MEP, works to provide data-driven analysis …