Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Collaboration In The Spread Of Missionary Christianity In Africa: The Case Of The Apostolic Church Of Nigeria, Caleb Abiodun Adeleye, Oluwasegun Peter Aluko

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This article explores the significance of collaboration in the spread of missionary Christianity in Africa through a historical study of The Apostolic Church of Nigeria (TACN). It examines how the partnership between British missionaries and Nigerian leaders produced a hybrid mission model that combined Western ecclesiastical structure with African spirituality. Drawing on historical records, church documents, and existing scholarship, the article adopts a narrative–analytical method to trace how figures such as Pastors George Perfect, Idris J Vaughan and DO Odubanjo negotiated issues of theology, finance and cultural identity. The study finds that collaboration initially fostered institutional growth and doctrinal development …

Data Governance In Local Government: Evidence From Spatial Data Initiatives, Maame Efua Q. Arthur

Capstone Projects – Politics and Government

The adoption of modern digital applications and tools enables community development organizations to improve public services and community well-being. In response to the data surge, several local governments in the U.S. are converting spatial data into user-friendly geospatial products, including maps, dashboards, web, and instant apps. Research suggests that while these tools enhance operations for municipalities, they also increase public accountability and data transparency. However, developing data-driven tools is dependent on structured data governance practices that ensure data accessibility, accuracy, reliability, and security. Using the City of Bloomington, Illinois, as a case study, this study assesses the city's data-driven initiatives, …

Urban Indian Parents' Occupational Perceptions Of Play And Governance Of Children's Excessive Screen Time Preferences And Behaviours In This Digital Era, Joanna Priyadarshini Udaykumar, Tony Sam George

International Journal of Playwork Practice

Abstract

Children’s innate urge to engage in joyous, self-directed, meaningful, iterative activities embodies their unique play experiences and facilitates their holistic development. However, the exponential growth of digital technology in an urbanized world has transformed their social landscape by offering them a plethora of novel play opportunities that ‘pushes children away from the outdoors and pulls them indoors’. Moreover, the radical transition from nature-based recreation to media-centric activity insinuates the surge of a global pandemic characterized by low physical activity, sleep deprivation and sedentary, lifestyle diseases. This emerging trend reflects children’s predilection for videophilia over biophilia due to the dominance …

A Conceptual Model Of The External Costs Of Truck Overloading On Road Damage, Emissions, And Traffic Congestion: A Systematic Literature Review, Aleksius Sitepu, Sutanto Soehodho, Andyka Kusuma

Smart City

Freight transport services cannot be separated from the infrastructure and facilities involved, each of which faces its own challenges in delivering optimal performance in the logistics sector. A common challenge in Indonesia’s road sector is the presence of overloaded freight vehicles, which has become a national issue. This phenomenon has a negative impact not only on road infrastructure but also on the environment and traffic. This study aims to develop a conceptual model of the external costs caused by truck overloading practices in terms of road infrastructure damage, increased exhaust emissions, and traffic congestion through a systematic literature review. This …

Leveraging A Centralized Fleet Assignment Management For An Aviation Resilience, Inof Seno Acton Mr., Sutanto Soehodho, Nahry Yusuf

Smart City

Since deregulation in the aviation industry, competition among airlines has intensified. This competition is shown by the increasing number of routes, service times, aircraft, and airports served. This competition causes not all flight services to meet their targets, resulting in aircraft operating less efficiently. Passenger seats are not filled, and flight delays are becoming more frequent. Obviously, this will negatively impact consumers and the airline's finances. The study focused on assigning the fleet used to serve flights to maintain existing aviation services and improve aircraft operational efficiency. This study aims to maximize profits by optimizing fleet assignments through the Centralized …

Optimization Of Sea Transportation Services In The Kepulauan Seribu Using The Vehicle Routing Problem (Vrp) Model, Darmadi Darmadi, Sutanto Soehodho, Nahry Nahry

Smart City

The Kepulauan Seribu regency relies heavily on sea transportation for passenger mobility and goods distribution. However, current systems face efficiency challenges, high operational costs, and potential imbalances between demand and service capacity. This study proposes a framework to optimize sea transportation services in the Kepulauan Seribu using the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) method, especially the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem – Many Single Depot (CVRP–MSD) model with heterogeneous fleets and mixed cargo (passenger and goods). The main objective is to minimize total operating costs, which include fixed costs of using the vessel and variable travel costs, and unmet demand, both passenger …

Development Of An Adaptive Pelican Crossing Model Using Fuzzy Logic In Mixed Traffic Conditions, Manazil Adam, Andyka Kusuma, R. Jachrizal Sumabrata

Smart City

Traffic management at at-grade pedestrian crossing facilities (pelican crossings) in highly populated areas, such as the Universitas Indonesia Station, faces significant inefficiency challenges. During peak hours, the fixed-time system is frequently disabled and replaced with subjective manual control by security personnel, thereby triggering irregular stop-and-go cycles and a high accumulation of vehicle delays. This study aims to develop a hybrid adaptive control model integrating Computer Vision, Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Fuzzy Logic to optimize intersection performance under mixed traffic conditions. The research methodology begins with the extraction of traffic and pedestrian characteristic data, calculated manually through recorded field observations. This …

Spatial Tax Intelligence: Implementing Integrated Spatial Decision Support Systems For Smart Urban Governance, Wildan R. Irfana, Haldis A. Bahar, Muhammad H. Candra

Smart City

The transition toward smart governance requires local governments to adopt data-driven policy approaches, particularly in managing urban tax capacity. However, tax administration in many developing regions remains predominantly tabular and administrative, limiting the ability to capture the spatial dynamics of economic activities. This reveals a critical knowledge gap, as integrated frameworks combining spatial and tax data to identify geographic disparities in tax performance remain limited. Consequently, areas with high economic activity but low tax compliance, referred to as tax blind spots, often remain undetected. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of integrating spatial and tax data in identifying spatial-tax …

Manufactured Homes In The Mountain West, 2025, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Dre Boyd-Weatherly, Taylor Volk, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet presents 2025 data on manufactured homes in the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The Construction Coverage report, “U.S. States Investing Most in Manufactured Homes,” based on analysis from the U.S Census Bureau and Zillow’s Home Value Index, includes data on all fifty states. This fact sheet focuses on the number of manufactured homes, site-built home permits, and the average price of manufactured homes in the Mountain West.

Congestion Pricing: A Comprehensive Look At International Congestion Pricing Models And Applying Them To The United States, Ian Ertel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Urban traffic congestion imposes large costs through wasted time, excess fuel consumption, air pollution, and lost productivity. Although congestion pricing has been recognized as the economically efficient remedy since Pigou and Vickrey, implementation has been rare. This thesis examines the conditions under which congestion pricing succeeds by analyzing three pioneering cases: London, Singapore, and New York City. Across all three, charges reduced traffic volumes and improved speeds within the priced zones. Benefits extended beyond cordon boundaries, with measurable improvements on untolled suburban roads. The distributional effects depended on how revenues were recycled rather than on the charge itself. Political viability, …

The Impact Of Slow Tourism On The Psychological Well-Being Of Urban Recreational Tourists In Jakarta, Ahmad Ghazy Dananjaya

Journal of Indonesian Tourism and Policy Studies

This study addresses the urgent need for psychological escape among Jakarta's population due to high life pressure, noise pollution, and density. While slow tourism offers tranquility and deep connection, its application in fast-paced metropolitan settings remains under-researched. This study analyzes the impact of Tranquility and Physical Activity Involvement on the Psychological Well-being of urban recreational tourists. Adopting a sequential explanatory mixed-method design, quantitative data were collected from 200 purposively selected domestic tourists and analyzed using Multiple Linear Regression, followed by in-depth interviews. Surprisingly, statistical results indicate that neither tranquility nor physical activity significantly influences psychological well-being, either simultaneously or partially. …

Commute Times And Remote Workers In Mountain West Cities, 2019-2023, Maisoon Faris, Mia Tschan, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Transportation & Infrastructure

This fact sheet presents 2019 to 2023 data on city-wide travel times, the number of remote workers, and the amount of time lost and saved by commuters across seven Mountain West cities: Mesa, AZ; Phoenix, AZ; Tucson, AZ; Colorado Springs, CO; Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; and Albuquerque, NM. The data are derived from the 2025 Yardi Kube report, “Back on the Road: U.S. Commutes Increase Amid a Hybrid Work Era,”  which includes commute time and remote worker data for the 50 largest cities across the United States. The year 2022 is used as a base comparison to show changes …

Report On The Ethical Use Of Ai For Participatory Planning, Sahana Kotha, Blythe Wilson

City and Regional Planning

This report provides an overview of key considerations for using artificial intelligence for community engagement in urban planning. As interest in AI adoption in the public sector increases, an understanding of ethical issues is needed to guide responsible AI implementation. Informed by a literature review and interviews with urban planning practitioners and academics, this report describes and analyzes different AI-supported community engagement methods, explores case studies, and outlines key concerns and opportunities for using AI. We recommend that AI use for community engagement prioritizes transparency, human oversight and accountability, intentional AI implementation, and community involvement.

Transit Infrastructure And Neighborhood Change: The Impact Of The Q Train Expansion On Commercial Space Use In New York City's Upper East Side, Lily E. Levick

Quantitative Social Science Undergraduate Senior Theses

This paper examines the impact of the 2017 Second Avenue Subway expansion on commercial land uses on New York City’s Upper East Side. The research leverages quantitative models alongside qualitative personal experiences and literature to understand the relationship between infrastructure, space, and neighborhood change from a nuanced perspective. The results show that the studied area experienced a broad trend of de-commercialization between 2003 and 2025, and a simultaneous shift toward commercial zoning in areas closest to new subway stations. These findings encourage us to consider how mobility access is an important driver for change within neighborhoods and urban space, and …

Oregon Metro’S Regional Land Banking Site Selection Strategy, Margot Mcneely, Autumn Fluetsch, David Archuleta, Denise Torres, Dylan Giliberto, Rebekah Markillie

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Project Background

For over a decade, communities in the Portland metro area have been struggling under a mounting housing affordability crisis. These trends particularly affect Black, Indigenous, and other people of color as well as immigrants, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities. Given these mounting challenges, the region has turned to Oregon Metro to intervene.

Metro is currently studying land banking as a tool for implementing its Regional Housing Coordination Strategy and promoting affordable housing development in the Portland metro region. While they have acquired numerous sites that have been successfully developed into affordable housing, they are looking to improve …

Can Chinatown Speak? Mapping Hauntings, Dispossessions, And Diasporic Lifeworlds In Boston’S Chinatown, Lin Lin

Geography Undergraduate Senior Theses

Boston's Chinatown has persisted despite highway construction, urban renewal, and institutional expansion that destroyed much of the neighborhood. This thesis asks how residents have shaped and inhabited that space and whose contributions have been forgotten in the process. Through entangling frameworks from Geography and Asian American Studies, the thesis approaches Boston's Chinatown through walking, archiving, and counter-mapping. The first chapter reads the streets as a layered record of historical ruptures, which leads to a dichotomy of presence and absence. The second chapter then examines the archives of the 1993 Parcel C struggle. It creates an original counter-archive, titled the "Collection …

Flood Risk Assessment And Water Diversion Scenarios For Terre Haute, Indiana Based On Time-Series Remote Sensing And In-Situ Measurements, Hung Q. Ha

2026 Spring Reports (Terre Haute)

The City of Terre Haute has faced growing concerns over the increasing frequency and intensity of riverine flooding along the Wabash River, alongside risks associated with urban inundation. To create more safely floodable areas – specifically by locating wetland areas using GIS and researching government ordinances on development in those areas – the City of Terre Haute sought to better understand flood patterns and identify viable floodwater diversion strategies. The project was formally titled as “Pattern of Flooding along the Wabash River in Vigo County and Scenarios for Floodwater Diversion”. Faculty and students from Geospatial Intelligence Lab, Department of Earth …

Electric Vehicle Charging Station Project, Fangling Zhu

2026 Spring Reports (Terre Haute)

The electronic vehicle (EV) charging station project was developed through a partnership between BUS 205 Business Statistics at Indiana State University and the City of Terre Haute as part of the Sustainable Cities Program. The city’s goal for this project is associated with the Theme: resilient infrastructure. The strategy RI-1 is to create a more resilient power grid. Terre Haute, aiming to advance sustainability and reduce emissions amidst growing EV adoption, faces challenges of limited charging infrastructure. Students work in four different groups and explore the optimization location for EV charging stations in the City of Terre Haute. The students …

Cathedral Park Strategic Action Plan: Guiding Community Development With Actionable Advocacy Strategies, Travis Mauzy, Dagny Daniel, Samuel Goldberg, Samantha Ishihara, Jacob Hagen

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Cathedral Park Neighborhood Association (CPNA) is interested in adopting a Community Plan. Area-specific plans are addendums to the City of Portland Comprehensive Plan which give a neighborhood the opportunity to identify issues and priorities for long-range planning in their community.

Cathedral Park is currently a part of the St. John's/Lombard Plan (2004), but the neighborhood has experienced many changes since then, including new housing development, shifting demographics, and awareness of environmental threats such as the Critical Energy Infrastructure hub.

Reimagining The Cully 5 Corners, Samuel Anderson, Noah Brown, Kaitlyn Cook, Nicholas Pelster, Michael Wickham, Steven Yee

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Reimagining the Cully 5 Corners is a project spearheaded by the Cully Coalition and Confluence Planning + Design, aiming to create a vision and plan for a centralized, connected, resilient hub for this area of NE Portland, Oregon.

The Cully Coalition envisions Cully as an equitable and socially just neighborhood that enriches and uplifts all community members while minimizing displacement, improving community cohesion, and supporting economic vitality.

Like many Portland areas annexed in the late 20th century, the Cully neighborhood has experienced decades of relative underinvestment in terms of public services, urban design, and business development.

Uplifting Cully starts with …

Historic Parkrose: Planning For Vacant Properties, Rowan Anderson, Julia Cruz Jones, Akasha Lawrence Spence, Clara Lietz, Cal Storrs

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Crescent Consulting was engaged by Historic Parkrose, a Portland-based non-profit, to analyze vacant and under-utilized properties along Northeast Sandy Boulevard within the Historic Parkrose Business District. The area has been the focus of many planning efforts at the neighborhood, city, and state level that have identified community needs and priorities, yet implementation has been limited. Forthcoming Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funding may create opportunities to implement these plans and encourage reinvestment that will contribute to the corridor’s vitality and economic capacity. This report is a resource for evaluating and prioritizing vacant lot redevelopment opportunities in Parkrose, helping align future investment …

Westside Foodshed Hub Initiative: Farm-To-Food-Assistance Feasibility Study, Andrew Bugh, James Shelstad, Jordan Rasmussen, Kenton Marquigny, Reed Johnson

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Westside Foodshed Planning Initiative is a feasibility study exploring how Farm-to- Food-Assistance, or F2FA, can supplement CAFE's food assistance work in Northwest and Downtown Portland. The study was conducted by Soil for Roses, a planning team consisting of members of Portland State University's Master of Urban and Regional Planning program. Through this project, Soil for Roses envisions the F2FA as a regional food aggregation and distribution hub tailored to CAFE’s goals of advancing food security and nutrition, environmental stewardship, and resilience.

Gateway: Heat Resilience Focus Area Final Report, Jill Coleman, Sletsy Dlamini, Luke Gordon, Danny Harden-Ramella, Joe Kortenhof, Devery Sheridan

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

In the Summer of 2021, Multnomah County experienced a heat dome that resulted in the tragic deaths of 75 people and caused 258 individuals to seek medical care in emergency rooms and urgent care facilities. While heat related treatment had been experienced in previous heat waves, no heat related deaths had been recorded by the county prior to the Heat Dome. Since 2021, heat-related fatalities have remained elevated above the pre-2021 baseline. Medical visits for illness and injury also remain elevated from 2021 onwards. Many of the more easily implementable short-term solutions have already been implemented in Portland, and the …

C-Tran Bus Stop Accessibility Action Plan, Grace Alston, Michelle Auster, Zoe Beckley, Noah Crawford, Ryan Gallo, Angelique Wallmann

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Project Background

C-TRAN is the regional public transportation provider for the Clark County Public Transportation Benefit Area in Southwest Washington, providing connections to the Portland, Oregon, metro region. C-TRAN connects people to opportunities, supports economic vitality, and enhances the quality of life for the community.

The challenge - 66% of C-TRAN’s bus stops are non-ADA compliant, C-TRAN’s existing capital investment strategy lacks community input and a multi-year application.

The Opportunity - Our Bus Stop Accessibility Action Plan will leverage community engagement and social metric data to develop a long-term investment strategy.

Goddess In A Trash Can: Religious Ritual Disposal In New York City Public Parks, Zoe Oro-Hahn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Practitioners of Afro-Caribbean religions, including Santería, Vodou, Espiritismo, and Las 21 Divisiones, utilize the New York City Public Parks system to hold rituals, connect with spirits and ancestors, and dispose of religious remains leftover from trabajos (workings) and brujería (witchcraft). Utilizing photos from Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, my thesis considers the religious, political, social, and practical rationale behind this phenomenon, explores the rituals occurring, and provides policy suggestions that balance religious needs of practitioners with the safety and wellbeing of New York City’s parks.

Urban Sacred Grove: A Visioning For Collective Care, Preservation, Environmental Justice, And Resilience, Oluwadara A. Ojugbele

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My capstone explores how the concept of sacred groves—a community-based practice of conserving forest areas for cultural, spiritual, or religious purposes—can be reimagined as a framework for urban environmental stewardship and community care. Sacred groves have historically varied across time and place but consistently serve as protected spaces that honor divine forces, ancestors, and community values. In the Yoruba context, groves demarcate lush forests as abodes for oriṣas (divine forces) and spiritual beings, often containing shrines and artifacts that embody cultural beliefs. My capstone draws on the sacred grove concept and aims to illustrate how urban communities might adopt sacred …

The Economy Of College Closure: Institutional Failure And The Quiet Loss Of Public Knowledge, Kristen A. Blazek

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

In 2024, Notre Dame College in South Euclid, Ohio, announced its permanent closure. Notre Dame College was founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame in 1922 as a teaching and nursing college for local women. Over the course of more than a century of operation, more than 6,000 students graduated from the small private catholic college. NDC was not only important to their alumni, but served as South Euclid’s largest employer, with an $82.5 million loss of GDP for the Cleveland-Euclid MSA¹. Alumni raised funds for the struggling college; however, their efforts failed, and at its 100^{th …}

Engineering Immunity? Biotechnical Governance And The Experimental Failures Of Project Wolbachia In Singapore, Siew Ying Shee, Orlando Woods, Sayd Randle

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper introduces the idea of ‘experimental failure’ to critically interrogate the limits of engineering biological systems for urban governance. Whilst experimentation through projects related to smart cities and eco-cities has garnered significant attention, biotechnical experiments––which manipulate living organisms through technology––remain underexplored. Unlike interventions leveraging non-living, inanimate systems, engineering life must contend with ecological ‘unruliness’ and social uncertainties. These complexities often resist straightforward quantification and exceed conventional evaluation frameworks, demanding a rethinking of what constitutes ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in such interventions. Drawing on ethnographic research with public health officers, pest management professionals and residents in Singapore, we analyse the government-led …

The City As Showroom: Singapore And The Rise Of The "Urban Solutions" Industry, Sol Andrew Stokols

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This article uses the concept of the “city as showroom” to describe an emergent logic shaping urban development that stems from the growing importance of “urban solutions” as an industry. Focusing primarily on Singapore, the article examines how certain urban districts and high-profile sites are conceptualized as “showrooms” for the infrastructure and urban technologies they aim to export around the world. The idea of the “city as showroom” combines aspects of the curation of a city’s image through showcase districts, as well as “testbed urbanism” seen in certain smart-city projects. Singapore's need to reproduce itself as a model of urban …

Significant Crash Characteristics Associated With E-Scooter And E-Bike Crashes, Aimee Jefferson

Dissertations

Micromobility devices—namely e-scooters and e-bikes—have rapidly gained popularity in the United Sates, rising from 35 million annual shared rides in 2017 to over 133 million in 2023 (NACTO 2024). But also increasing is the number of injuries associated with these devices; however, most research emphasizes injury and demographic patterns rather than crash characteristics that would inform prevention strategies. Most existing crash research also relies on small sample sizes, lacks nuance distinguishing between involved parties (motorists, pedestrians, single device), and fails to distinguish between bicycle and micromobility crash patterns despite micromobility devices often being instructed to use conventional bicycle facilities. These …