Urban Studies Commons^™

Downtown Portland Waterfront Activation Strategy, Rachel Cotton, Janai Kessi, Eve Nilenders, Lauren Russell, Andrew Yaden, Jeremy Young

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Despite longstanding ambitions and multiple planning efforts, Portland’s goal of embracing and enhancing the Willamette River as the heart of the central city has only been partially fulfilled. The removal of an expressway and the creation of Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park in the 1970s and the river’s recently improved environmental quality represent major successes. However, few opportunities exist for park visitors to use the river for recreation, and Portland’s downtown waterfront lacks vibrancy, largely as the result of difficult or unclear connections to the downtown business district, surrounding neighborhoods, and the eastside. Additionally, public use of the park, a …

Salem-Keizer Transit Flexible Service Plan, Darwin Moosavi, Brenda Martin, Cj Doxsee, Mike Sellinger, Lauren Wirtis, Matt Berggren

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Capturing the Ride is an exploration of flexible transportation options for low-density communities in Salem and Keizer. The current transit system does not serve Keizer, South Salem, and West Salem well; each of these communities has areas with limited or no access to current bus routes. The project intends to provide a service that will better meet the communities’ transit needs than the current system. Over a five-month planning process, Paradigm Planning conducted extensive research and reached out to the public in Keizer, South Salem, and West Salem (herein referred to as the study areas) to determine what kind of …

Tigard Walks (A Plan For Walkable Neighborhoods In Tigard), Chase Ballew, Mark Bernard, Jeremy Dalton, Laura Goodrich, Szilvia Hosser-Cox, Steven Mcatee

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Walkable Neighborhoods Plan for Tigard outlines a set of strategies to help Tigard’s residents, businesses, and leaders build their city into a more walkable place. These five strategies are based on three core values gleaned from StepUP Studio’s outreach efforts to the people living and working in and for the city of Tigard.

This project was conducted under the supervision of Sy Adler, Marisa A. Zapata and Gil Kelley

Gresham Opportunity Framework Plan, Belinda Judelman, Carlos Gonzalez, Hayley Pickus, Lori Parks, Mike Simpson, Pamela N. Phan

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Map Gresham project was a five-month long planning process led by Camassia Community Planning (CCP) to create “opportunity maps” and an Opportunity Framework Plan for the City of Gresham, OR. Opportunity mapping is a relatively new planning method for analyzing the spatial distribution of indicators linked to opportunity and determining which populations have access to these factors.

The overarching objective of the Framework Plan is to improve equitable access to opportunities for Gresham’s neighborhoods and diverse populations. We created the plan by putting community at the center and collaborating with local organizations, technical advisors, and City staff. It includes …

How Clean Is The Air On Bicycle Routes?, Miguel Figliozzi, James F. Pankow

TREC Project Briefs

A NITC research project evaluates cyclists’ exposure to air pollution along distinct types of bicycle facilities.

Evaluation Of Advanced Traffic Control Systems, Miguel Figliozzi

TREC Project Briefs

Researchers from Portland State University develop performance measures and algorithms for evaluation of state-of-the-art traffic signal control technologies..

Cultivating Portlandia: A Mixed-Method Study Of Residential Urban Agriculture In Portland, Oregon, Nathan Mcclintock, Mike Simpson, Dillon Mahmoudi, Jacinto Pereira Santos

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Research Question:

• What is the scale and scope of residential urban agriculture (UA) in metro Portland?
• How does the practice of UA vary spatially?
• How do gardeners' motivations and practices vary along socioeconomic lines?

The “Community Entertainment District” Designation As A Tool For Urban Redevelopment In Cincinnati, Ohio, Whitney Mcintyre Miller, Julie Cencula Olberding

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Many urban neighborhoods in the United States have experienced an exodus of businesses. Their Main Streets—once consisting of bustling restaurants and stores—are now marked by “for rent” signs and boarded windows. Some community leaders have given up, but others are actively trying to bring businesses back. In Cincinnati, Ohio, several neighborhoods are starting to use the community entertainment district (CED) designation to attract entertainment and arts establishments. This paper presents an evaluation of the implementation and early impacts of the CED in one neighborhood, which may be insightful to leaders in other urban areas in Ohio and beyond.

Feasibility Study Of Consolidating Public Safety Answering Points In Highland Heights, Lyndhurst, Mayfield Heights, Mayfield Village And Richmond Heights, Ohio, Daila Shimek, Kyle Johnson, Eugene Kramer, Charles Post

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This study found that – based on certain configurations of communities and cost considerations – it is economically viable to consolidate public safety answering points (PSAPs) in Highland Heights, Lyndhurst, Mayfield Heights, Mayfield Village and Richmond Heights, Ohio. When comparing 2012 staffing and noncapital costs to estimated staffing and noncapital costs for a consolidated PSAP, the consolidated PSAP would provide an estimated collective reduction in staffing and noncapital costs of ranging from $775,400 to $1.19 million. When comparing 2012 staffing and noncapital costs to estimated staffing and noncapital costs for a consolidated PSAP – plus costs for additional staff to …

Assessing “Mixed-Use” - Evaluating New Urbanism In New England, Michael K. Daniels

Honors Scholar Theses

New urbanism is a movement in city and regional planning that is primarily based upon a return to mixed-use development. New urbanists contend that reintegrating land uses to make “walkable” urban neighborhoods will help increase residential financial diversity and make once downtrodden areas desirable again. It remains unclear if physical design changes can truly impact economic and social conditions. Is mixed-use development worth pursuing for cities looking to restore economic diversity? To investigate this question, I turn to two Southern New England cities of similar population which have faced parallel struggles: Worcester, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. I analyze the …

The State Of The Upper Bay Of Panama Wetlands: Ecological Significance, Environmental Policy, Urbanization, And Social Justice, Madeline A. Price

Celebration

I conducted this research while studying abroad with SIT Panama: Tropical Ecology, Marine Ecosystems, and Biodiversity Conservation. This is a multidisciplinary investigation of the Upper Bay of Panama wetlands, a 49,000 hectare region east of Panama City that features mangrove, intertidal mudflat, and grassland habitat internationally recognized as a stopover site for two million shorebirds every migration season. However, with economic pressure to increase urban development in the area, this land’s protected status under the Ramsar convention was suspended for a year in April 2012. By compiling scientific studies, news articles, photographs, and interviews with local conservationists and community members, …

Using Creativity As A Form Of Intervention For At-Risk-Youth: The Development Of Creativity2day, Tamika T. Lewis

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project is a detailed description of the development of Creativity2Day, the organization and its workshops, its sole purpose is to positively impact the lives of at-risk-youth and the communities they live in. This project provides a synthetized definition of creativity and a detailed outline on how the deliberate use of the Creative Change Leadership Model, Creative Problems Solving, and the Torrance Incubation Model of Teaching and Learning can be used together as a form of micro-level intervention methods, geared towards the positive development of at-risk-youth who attend Title I schools and reside in low-income communities.

Disaster And Poverty : The Differential Impacts Of Disaster On The Poor In The Gulf Coast Region., Abu Muhammad Sufiyan 1979-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Low-income and vulnerable populations that suffer most in natural disasters are females, children, elderly, disabled, and ethnic minorities This dissertation explores the association between natural disaster and poverty conditions among socially disadvantaged subgroups within the social, economic, and political contexts of the disaster affected regions in the Gulf Coast States. It argues that poverty conditions increase the negative impacts of disaster for socially vulnerable populations. This dissertation advocates incorporating the vulnerabilities of the marginalized population in each phase of disaster management planning, from mitigation to recovery. The study uses correlation and regression analyses to find the association between disaster impacts …

Urban Livestock Ownership, Management, And Regulation In The United States: An Exploratory Survey And Research Agenda, Nathan Mcclintock, Esperanza Pallana, Heather Wooten

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

As interest in urban agriculture sweeps the country, municipalities are struggling to update, code to meet public demands. The proliferation of urban livestock—especially chickens, rabbits, bees, and goats—has posed particular regulatory challenges. Scant planning scholarship on urban livestock focuses mostly on how cities regulate animals, but few studies attempt to characterize urban livestock, ownership and management practices in the US in relation to these regulations. Our study addresses this gap. Using a web-based survey distributed via a snowball technique, we received responses from 134 livestock owners in 48 US cities, revealing the following: why they keep livestock; what kind of, …

Connecting People And Place Prosperity: Workforce Development And Urban Planning In Scholarship And Practice, Greg Schrock

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, the field of workforce development has emerged as a distinct area of policy and practice. While planning scholars have begun to engage with the workforce development field, its relevance and points of connection to planning scholarship remain underexplored. This article attempts to define the workforce development field by articulating its core concerns as well as its domains of practice and scholarship outside the planning field. The article locates workforce development within three stands of planning scholarship, concluding that workforce development represents an important bridge for planners between “place” and “people” prosperity within communities.

Exploring The Neighborhood Preferences Of A Segment Of Millennials In Omaha, Nebraska, Aaron Kloke

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

In 2010, Millennials, or those between 18 and 34, surpassed the Baby Boomers in population size. Today, Millennials, also known as Generation Y, make up over 25 percent of the United States’ population. In Omaha, they make up 26.9 percent of the population. The next largest generation in Omaha, the Baby Boomers, make for 19.2 percent of the population. Clearly, this emerging demographic has the ability to change the way we create and design our built environment if it so chooses.

To review how this generation may choose to change the way we design our future neighborhoods, national trends were …

Assessing Impacts Of Time Use On Children's Physical Fitness In Relation To Risk For Obesity And Diabetes, Jessica Guo

PSU Transportation Seminars

Researchers from the transportation, planning and health fields share the common goal of promoting physically active lifestyle. One challenge that researchers often face is the measurement of physical activity, particularly among children. This is because the sporadic nature of children’s physical activity patterns makes it difficult to recall and quantify such activities. Additionally, children’s lower cognitive functioning compared to adults prevents them from accurately recalling their activities. This presentation will describe the design and application of a novel self-report instrument - the Graphs for Recalling Activity Time (GReAT) - for measuring children’s activity time use patterns. The instrument was applied …

Transit Planning Practice In The Age Of Transit-Oriented Development, Ian Carlton

PSU Transportation Seminars

Transit serves as backbone infrastructure for many regional and local visions for sustainable urban development. Also, many modern policies predicate transit funding on the potential for transit-oriented development (TOD) near proposed infrastructure investments. However, little research has examined how TOD considerations have informed transit planning. This presentation discusses the results of recent dissertation research that fills this gap. Through multiple transit project case studies and interviews with nearly 100 transit planning professionals, this research categorized how transit projects across 19 U.S. regions were designed to foster TOD and how transit planning professionals identified TOD opportunities as projects were planned. During …

An Introduction To The Nacto Urban Street Design: Changing The Dna Of City Streets, Peter Koonce

PSU Transportation Seminars

In this seminar Peter will summarize his contributions to the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide, a guidebook focused on a paradigm shift in transportation, pulling away from the traditional bias toward highway designs that do not always meet the complex needs of streets in cities.

Home Foreclosures And Neighborhood Crime Dynamics, Sonya Williams, George Galster, Nandita Verma

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

We advance scholarship related to home foreclosures and neighborhood crime by employing Granger causality tests and multilevel growth modeling with annual data from Chicago neighborhoods over the 1998-2009 period. We find that completed foreclosures temporally lead property crime and not vice versa. More completed foreclosures during a year both increase the level of property crime and slow its decline subsequently. This relationship is strongest in higher-income, predominantly renter-occupied neighborhoods, contrary to the conventional wisdom. We did not find unambiguous, uni-directional causation in the case of violent crime and when filed foreclosures were analyzed.