Urban Studies Commons^™

Development, Deployment, And Assessment Of A New Educational Paradigm For Transportation Professionals And University Students, Christopher M. Monsere

TREC Final Reports

Traditionally, engineering coursework has been delivered in a lecture-based format with accompanying exercises assigned for time outside of class. The activity-based approach to learning aims to keep students engaged in and responsible for their own learning processes. This approach has been shown to be more effective than conventional teaching approaches in terms of long-term retention of the educational material.

Designing Affordable Housing For Adaptability: Principles, Practices, & Application, Micaela R. Danko

Pitzer Senior Theses

While environmental and economic sustainability have been driving factors in the movement towards a more resilient built environment, social sustainability is a factor that has received significantly less attention over the years. Federal support for low-income housing has fallen drastically, and the deficit of available, adequate, affordable homes continues to grow. In this thesis, I explore one way that architects can design affordable housing that is intrinsically sustainable. In the past, subsidized low-income housing has been built as if to provide a short-term solution—as if poverty and lack of affordable housing is a short-term problem. However, I argue that adaptable …

Fruitful Communities: Evaluating The History And Impacts Of Treepeople’S Fruit Tree Program, Kayla B. Imhoff

Pitzer Senior Theses

TreePeople is a Los Angeles based non-profit organization that uses environmental education, initiatives, and programs to engage with the greater community to work towards the goal of a sustainable future for Los Angeles. The Fruit Tree Program is one of TreePeople’s longest running programs of 29 years, which distributes free bare-root fruit trees to economically disadvantaged communities as a source of fresh fruit and the other environmental benefits that trees offer. This paper is a comprehensive report detailing the history of the program and the impacts it has had on communities across Los Angeles County. Looking at three communities in …

Improved Pedestrian Safety At Signalized Intersections Operating The Flashing Yellow Arrow, David Hurwitz, Christopher M. Monsere

TREC Final Reports

In some jurisdictions, protected left-turn phasing has been replaced with the flashing yellow arrow (FYA) for protected/permissive left turns (PPLTs) to reduce delay. However, it is important to have a thorough understanding of the conflict between pedestrians and the permissive left-turning vehicle. This presentation summarizes the results of research conducted with a high-fidelity, motion-based driving simulator and mobile eye-tracking equipment to study the effects of the opposing traffic, the presence and walking direction of pedestrians, and the number of section heads to display the FYA on driver performance. To accomplish this research, a six-intersection simulated environment was created. In total, …

Vocational Rehabilitation: Return On Investment In Oregon, Jeff Renfro, Janai Kessi, Ayesha Khalid, Hudson Munoz

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

This report estimates the return on investment of rehabilitation programs administered by Oregon Vocational Rehabilitation Services.

Green Mind Gray Yard: Micro Scale Assessment Of Ecosystem Services, Erin Jolene Kirkpatrick

Dissertations and Theses

There is a spatial mismatch between the size of the area where people are living and the extent of land needed to ecologically support developed areas. More people are living in urban areas than any time in history, and the resources need to support cities have had to expand to try and meet the demands of increasing urban populations. However, areas of opportunity exist for urban areas to begin to positively contribute towards the available resources in a region. Because a large portion of urban areas is within private control, gaining a baseline understanding of how residents interact with ecosystem …

'We Are Radical': The Right To The City Alliance And The Future Of Community Organizing, Robert Fisher, Yuseph Katiya, Christopher Reid, Eric Shragge

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper seeks to situate current efforts of The Right to the City Alliance and selected member groups in a longitudinal and cross-sectional qualitative study of the limits and potential of contemporary organizing. For three decades politicians, policy makers, advocates, academics, and even activists have promoted community-based efforts as the primary vehicle for contemporary social change. Local organizing has been seen as the best site and strategy for initiatives as diverse as community economic development, public school reform, social service delivery, and challenging the powers that be. In almost all cases these efforts have been constrained and moderated by a …

New Census Data Show Poverty On The Rise In Oregon And Nationwide, Jason R. Jurjevich, Jack Byerly

Publications, Reports and Presentations

The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE), released in December 2012, show an increase in poverty in Oregon and nationwide from 2010 to 2011. During this period, the nation’s poverty rate rose from 15.3 percent ( /- 0.1 percent) to 15.9 percent ( /- 0.1 percent), while the rate in Oregon rose sharply from 15.8 percent ( /- 0.3 percent) to 17.3 percent ( /- 0.4 percent). Both the national and state increases are statistically significant. In 2011, Oregon had the sixteenth highest rate of poverty (tied with Oklahoma) among the fifty states and the …

Assessing The Potential Contribution Of Vacant Land To Urban Vegetable Production And Consumption In Oakland, California, Nathan Mcclintock, Jenny Cooper, Snehee Khandeshi

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

As urban agriculture grows in popularity, researchers are attempting to quantify its potential contribution to local food systems. We present the results of a vacant land inventory conducted in collaboration with the HOPE Collaborative, a multi-stakeholder, community-based initiative in Oakland, CA, USA. Vacant lots, open space, and underutilized parks with agricultural potential were identified using GIS and aerial imagery. Using visual interpretation, we identified 1201 ac (486.4 ha) of public land and 337 ac (136.4 ha) of private land that could potentially be used for vegetable production. Based on USDA loss-adjusted consumption data, we calculated the potential contribution of these …

Measuring The Performance Of Transit Relative To Livability, Marc Schlossberg, Jennifer Dill, Liang Ma, Cody Meyer

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This project sought to understand the relationship between urban form, transit service characteristics, and ridership measured at the stop level. Most previous work in this area has looked at these issues separately, by either linking system performance (e.g. on-time performance, cost, etc.) to ridership or exploring the connection between urban form (e.g. density) and transit use. This project synthesized these disparate approaches. While transit service characteristics (e.g. frequency, travel time, etc.) are important to help individuals reach their desired destinations, most transit users are pedestrians at the beginning and end of any transit trip. Therefore, focusing on the walkable zone …

Carbon Tax And Shift: How To Make It Work For Oregon's Economy., Jenny H. Liu, Jeff Renfro, Janai Kessi, Hudson Munoz

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

This study analyzes a carbon tax and tax shift in Oregon as a means of reducing market inefficiencies by placing a meaningful price on carbon emissions. This study shows that a carbon tax can reduce distortionary income taxes, and provide new revenue opportunities for Oregon. By taxing carbon emissions and reducing Corporate and Personal Income tax rates, Oregon can reduce the negative incentives created by income taxes while generating revenue and reducing carbon emissions. The report shows that putting a price on carbon in Oregon can result in reductions in harmful emissions and have positive impacts on the economy.

Link Levy To Services- Not Urban Middle Class Assets, Tom Dunne

Articles

Paying any tax is an unwelcome burden, but in Ireland many have a particular aversion to taxes on their homes. We are not alone in this. Elsewhere, taxes on homes are also unpopular; witness the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation which forced the California state government to cut property taxes. Nevertheless, residential property taxes remain an almost universal feature of developed countries because of compelling economic arguments for them. Also, local property taxes are regarded as the best means of funding local government.

Rarely, it seems to me, is there such a distance between what the public wants and …

Developing An Oregon Access Management Best Practices Manual, Karen Dixon, Xiang Yi, Lacy Brown, Robert Layton

TREC Final Reports

This report reviews an Oregon research effort to develop an Oregon Access Management Best Practices Manual. In particular, this research effort develops a resource to help transportation professionals quantify safety and operational effects of various access management strategies, provide measurable criteria to evaluate these access management techniques, and identify data collection practices necessary to successfully perform these assessments. It is the expectation that this manual can be used by engineers, decision makers, and educators to help the transportation community better understand the appropriate application of access management strategies and how to quantify benefits of the various access management options. This …

Aging In Hingham: A Community Affair, Jan Mutchler, Caitlin Coyle, Hayley Gravette

Gerontology Institute Publications

The purpose of this needs assessment is to investigate the needs, interests, and opinions of mature residents of Hingham, Massachusetts, relating to their aging experiences and needs for age-related services. This assessment was undertaken by the Gerontology Institute of the McCormack Graduate School at UMass Boston on behalf of the Town of Hingham Department of Elder Services (hereinafter referred to as the Department of Elder Services). The focus of this report is on Hingham residents aged 60+ (referred to here as “Seniors”) and residents aged 45-59 (referred to here as “Boomers”). Information about these two age groups was obtained both …

Development Of Mobile Mapping Technology To Facilitate Dialogue Between Transportation Agencies And The Public, Ken Kato, Marc Schlossberg, James Meacham

TREC Final Reports

The goal of this grant was to take the technological innovations for deploying survey instruments to mobile phones, developed under a previous OTREC grant, and publish them as globally accessible mobile applications (apps) for use in a variety of transportation planning settings. Under this grant, three applications have been developed for three distinctly different user groups. The first, JLA Involve, was developed and deployed for JLA, a Portland, OR.-based public involvement firm, to support their work with the City of Tualatin, OR., in updating their Transportation System Plan (TSP). The second was developed and deployed for the City of Eugene, …

Closing The Gap: Developing A Transportation Curriculum For The Oregon Young Scholars Program: Project Summary Report, Carla Gary, Bethany Steiner, Chuck Kalnbach

TREC Project Briefs

This OTREC educational proposal links experiential and transportation education from the University of Oregon with minority youth during the Summer ‘08 two-week session of the Oregon Young Scholar’s Program (OYSP). The grant provides OYSP an opportunity to create a transportation based curriculum during the Summer ‘08 program with the ultimate purpose of increasing minority interest and hopefully eventual employment in transportation related fields. OYSP was developed in 2005 to nurture the potential of marginalized minority students, to prepare these students for higher education, and to increase the awareness of their parents or caregivers about what it will take for these …

The Impact Of Transit Oriented Development On The Travel Behaviors Of Workers In Denver, Colorado, Gregory J. Kwoka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To combat unsustainable transportation systems characterized by reliance on petroleum, polluting emissions, traffic congestion and suburban sprawl, planners encourage mixed use, densely populated areas that provide individuals with opportunities to live, work, eat and shop without necessarily having to drive private automobiles to accommodate their needs. Despite these attempts, the frequency and duration of automobile trips has consistently increased in the United States throughout past decades. While many studies have focused on how residential proximity to transit influences travel behavior, the effect of workplace location has largely been ignored.

This paper asks, does working near a TOD influence the travel …

Post 2015 -- What Comes After The Millennium Development Goals, Michael Switow

Social Space

In June 2013, a High Level Panel appointed by the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on UN member states to adopt a sustainable development agenda that will “Leave No One Behind.” Michael Switow shares civil society’s analysis of this report, taking a look at what it got right, what was wrong and where it missed out altogether.

Ua30/2 Facilities & Campus Services Parking & Transportation Services, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Parking & Transportation Services.

Finding Still Waters And Green Pastures: Understanding And Reducing Stress In Urban Church Planting, David R. Dunaetz

Selected Faculty Publications

The work of urban church planters is often hindered by high levels of stress. Stress may be viewed as a process that involves stressors and an individual’s perceptions of both the level of threat and his or her ability to deal with the threat. The long term and the short term consequences of stress can be attenuated through appropriate coping strategies such as problem solving, prayer, and seeking social support. Recent empirical evidence indicates that exposure to nature is also very effective, a strategy that might be especially beneficial to urban church planters and their ministries. Several practical applications are …