Urban Studies Commons^™

Spatial Validation Of Agent-Based Models, Kristoffer Wikstrom, Hal T. Nelson

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper adapts an existing techno–social agent-based model (ABM) in order to develop a new framework for spatially validating ABMs. The ABM simulates citizen opposition to locally unwanted land uses, using historical data from an energy infrastructure siting process in Southern California. Spatial theory, as well as the model’s design, suggest that adequate validation requires multiple tests rather than relying solely on a single test-statistic. A pattern-oriented modeling approach was employed that first mapped real and simulated citizen comments across the US Census tract. The suite of spatial tests included Global Moran’s I, complemented with bivariate correlations, as well as …

The Next Wave Of Abolishing Parking Mandates, Catie Gould, Jeannette Lee

PSU Transportation Seminars

The movement to eliminate parking mandates is having a big moment. This summer, both Oregon and California took statewide action to roll back minimum off-street parking requirements, relegalizing homes and businesses regardless of how many parking spots they have. We’ll take a look at why parking reform is so important, what to expect next in Oregon, and lessons from cities who have already gone all the way to delete this regulation from their zoning code.

Death And Dignity: Approaches To Medical Aid-In-Dying And Recommendations For Nevada, Cecilia Winchell

Student Research

Advancements in medicine, surgery, and treatment have prolonged life spans in a way that presents new considerations for death and dying. When it comes to terminal illnesses, all of these innovations increase life expectancy but cannot do the same for a patient’s quality of life. In fact, many people with terminal illnesses lose their autonomy and dignity, leading to the emergence of assisted dying as a way to provide terminally ill patients with an alternative to palliative care. This report takes a look at how assisted dying has developed within the US over the past two and a half decades, …

The Relationship Between Residential Land-Use Regulations And Regional Air Pollutants, Caren Royce Yap

Student Research

As cities continue to grow at exponential rates, land use regulations, specifically density restrictions, have been implemented to mitigate economic effects, from increasing housing prices to difficult public transportation construction. These regulations range in type, taking into account factors regarding the most effective urban form for cities and recently the presence of COVID-19. Land use effects on housing prices are also adjacent to tackle the climate crisis. Two of the most common air pollutants, PM 2.5 and Ozone, are run in a comparative analysis to areas with varying measures of density restrictions to detect a possible association using multiple regression …

Applying A Mt. Mazama Volcanic Ash Treatment As A Trail Accessibility Improvement, Charles Riley, Ashton Greer, Matthew D. Sleep

TREC Final Reports

A procedure has been developed for implementing a topically applied Mt. Mazama volcanic ash trail surface amendment for improving trail firmness and stability. This project involved implementation of previously conducted Mt. Mazama volcanic research by applying a Mazama Ash and Portland Cement solution over a 0.2-mile section of the Geo Trail at the Oregon Institute of Technology Klamath Falls campus. Testing was performed to verify ideal Ash-to-Cement-to-Water ratios. A procedure was developed and applied for batching and mixing the dry materials on-site, spreading and integrating the dry material with the existing trail surface, and wetting and compacting the surface. After …

Enabling Decision-Making In Battery Electric Bus Deployment Through Interactive Visualization, Xiaoyue Cathy Liu, Gabrielius Kudirka, Biao Kuang, Yirong Zhou, Jianlin Chen

TREC Final Reports

The transit industry is rapidly transitioning to battery-electric fleets because of the direct environmental and financial benefits they could offer, such as zero emissions, less noise, and lower maintenance costs. Yet the unique spatiotemporal characteristics associated with transit system charging requirements, as well as various objectives when prioritizing the fleet electrification, requires the system operators and/or decision-makers to fully understand the status of the transit system and energy/power system in order to make informed deployment decisions. A recently completed NITC project, No. 1222 titled An Electric Bus Deployment Framework for Improved Air Quality and Transit Operational Efficiency, developed a bi-objective …

Housing Discrimination In New York City’S Housing Voucher Program, Tashana Brooks

Publications and Research

The Fair Housing Act (FHA), enacted as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibits discrimination from selling or renting a dwelling to any person because of race, color, disability, religion, sex, family status, and national origin. The federal government provides rental subsidies for many low-income renters through government programs. Rental assistance such as Section 8 vouchers administered by Housing and Urban Development is considered a lawful source of income for paying rent; however, many landlords or realtors discriminate against individuals utilizing Section 8 vouchers. According to the New York City Human Rights Law, this is illegal. The …

Forest Structure And Composition Alleviate Human Thermal Stress, Loïc Gillerot, Dries Landuyt, Rachel Oh, Winston T. L. Chow, Et Al

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Current climate change aggravates human health hazards posed by heat stress. Forests can locally mitigate this by acting as strong thermal buffers, yet potential mediation by forest ecological characteristics remains underexplored. We report over 14 months of hourly microclimate data from 131 forest plots across four European countries and compare these to open-field controls using physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) to reflect human thermal perception. Forests slightly tempered cold extremes, but the strongest buffering occurred under very hot conditions (PET >35°C), where forests reduced strong to extreme heat stress day occurrence by 84.1%. Mature forests cooled the microclimate by 12.1 to …

Nexuscapes: A Landscape Approach For A Transdisciplinary Water-Energy-Food Nexus Decision-Making Process, Fortino Acosta

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study develops a reliable transdisciplinary framework for complex ecological and social systems by characterizing, mapping, typifying, assessing, and testing enhanced water-energy-food nexus scenarios under critical time constraints, specialized skills, or sensitive data accessibility. Detached management of limited essential resources like fresh water, reliable energy from renewable sources, and nutritious food can jeopardize regional economies and governance. Using a novel landscape approach, this study recommends a decision-making the framework focused on the circular economy that induces collaboration among diverse sectors and brings strategic coordination, specificity, and magnitude to the proposed solutions. The study elaborates on a decision-making tool that integrates …

Resurfacing A Trail In Oregon Using Volcanic Ash, Charles Riley, Ashton Greer

TREC Project Briefs

In the latest instance of taking research to practice, researchers at Oregon Tech have completed a pilot section of trail using a NITC-developed sustainable paving method. A quarter-mile section of the Klamath Geo Trail, just east and up the hill from the Oregon Tech Klamath Falls campus, has been successfully resurfaced using volcanic ash from Mount Mazama.

Moving From Probabilistic To Time-Based On-Time Performance (For Practitioners), Miles James Allen Crumley

PSU Transportation Seminars

On-Time Performance (OTP) is a probabilistic measure that tells the customer the likelihood that the trip they are about to take will arrive "on-time." However, this metric forces the customer to think in terms of a probability of trip timeliness and not an actual time value for how timely the trip will be. This presentation will explore a new way to examine on-time performance by quantifying the timeliness of trips. Customers can then use this information to determine which trip would be the best to take based on when they need to arrive at their destination. Using a system science …

A Gis Analysis To Identify Historical, Contemporary, And Spatial Housing Discrimination In Denver, Colorado, Ian Sharkey

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

This study analyzes the relationship between housing discrimination and equity within the City of Denver. This study creates a discrimination index by combining (1) historical Discrimination, (2) contemporary segregation, and (3) housing inequity data into an index to compare the Denver Department of Health and the Environment (DDPHE) 2020 equity index using a local bivariate analysis. This study found a negative linear relationship between the created and Denver equity indexes. The variables used for the discrimination index can explain some of the relationships, but future studies should use more variables for a discrimination index.

Using Gis To Identify Barriers To Access On The Rtd W Line In Denver, Colorado, Tristan Johnson

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Denver, Colorado has a long history of public transportation usage beginning with horse-drawn streetcars in 1871. As the automobile began to flourish however, the use of public transportation has languished. In 2013, the W light rail line opened serving the West Denver area. As Denver has moved toward a more transit-oriented growth model, this rail line can create a more vibrant future. Using GIS, a better understanding of the barriers to access for light rail travel is obtained and considering key variables outputs are created to assist policy makers in utilizing the W line. By using GIS to address population …

Unequal Burdens: Cost Burdens In The New York Metropolitan Area, 2000-2017, Marco Castillo, Kasey Zapatka

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report analyzes different demographic cross-sections for cost-burdened households at various times over the study period (2000, 2010, and 2017).

Methods:

The metro areas include the Public Use Micro Areas (PUMAs) associated with following counties for New York (Rockland, Orange, Westchester, Putnam, Duchess, Nassau, Suffolk, Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, and Richmond), New Jersey, (Passaic, Bergen, Hudson, Essex, Union, and Middlesex), and Connecticut (Fairfield). Since counties are not identified in public-use microdata from 1950 onward and PUMAs change over time, we used consistent PUMA boundaries from 2000 to 2010 (https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/CPUMA0010#description_section). For more on this see a discussion here https://forum.ipums.org/t/i-can-see-couple-of-distinct-countyfips-whereas-the-rest-of-them-are-under-0-countyfips-for-minnesota/1585/4 …

Transit Equity: Trends In Commuting Among The Employed Population In New York City, 1990-2019, Beiyi Hu

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines key trends in commuting among the employed population in New York City between 1990 and 2019.

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2021.

Discussion:

Between 1990 and 2019, most of the employed …

Mountain West States Most Dependent On The Federal Government, 2022, Saha Salahi, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet synthesizes data from the SmartAsset report, “States Most Dependent on the Federal Government – 2022 Edition.” This fact sheet explores federal government dependency for the following Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

Commuting Times To Work In The United States, 1990 - 2018, Sebastián Villamizar-Santamaría

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report documents the evolution of commuting times in the United States between 1990 and 2018, focusing on disparities with respect to race and ethnicity, sex, marital status, income, and poverty status

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: …

Means Of Transportation To Work In The United States, 1990-2018, Sebastián Villamizar-Santamaría

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines how people commuted to work in the United States between 1990 and 2018, focusing on disparities with respect to race and ethnicity, sex, marital status, income, and poverty status

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: …

Exploring The Impact Of The Habitat For Humanity Home-Building Process On Partner Families' Holistic Well-Being, Hawkley Pusey, Nikhil Mathur, Kathryn Figliomeni, Nanditha Srinivasan, Keely R. Dehn, Jason A. Ware

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how participating in the Habitat for Humanity house-building process influenced participants’ purpose well-being, social well-being, community well-being, physical and mental well-being, and financial well-being, and how effective Habitat for Humanity is in aiding neighborhood revitalization within the Greater Lafayette area. The research project resulted in a presentation of quantitative data and a testimonial video that highlighted the stories of families that had worked with Habitat for Humanity. Quantitative data was gathered through a survey that addressed respondents’ levels of satisfaction within the various categories of well-being mentioned above. Testimonial information was gathered …

Pedestrian Wayfinding Under Consideration Of Visual Impairment, Blindness, And Deafblindness: A Mixed-Method Investigation Into Individual Experiences And Supporting Elements, Martin Swobodzinski, Amy T. Parker, Elizabeth Schaller, Denise Snow

TREC Final Reports

In this report we discuss to-date findings of a project that aimed at assessing individual and environmental affordances in the context of human pedestrian wayfinding of visually impaired, blind, and deafblind travelers in public spaces. Our project afforded collaboration, co-design, and co-creation of knowledge between the investigators, partners at the American Printing House of the Blind and GoodMaps, the Portland State University Digital City Testbed Center, and members of the disability community. The objective of the project was to better understand how different wayfinding aids, that is, wayfinding apps, tactile maps, and verbal route descriptions, are employed by visually impaired, …