Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Generation Rent Needs Grown-Up Housing Guidelines Now, Lorcan Sirr

Media

The private rented sector in Ireland accommodates 705,000 people in 324,000 tenancies—in properties owned by 172,000 registered landlords. In the past 18 months alone there has been an increase of 12,000 registered landlords.

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.

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 …

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

Center For Population Dynamics Quarterly Brief July 2016: Population Loss And Development Trends In Cleveland, Richey Piiparinen, Jim Russell, Charlie Post, Kyle Fee

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

When a place loses population, it’s assumed that’s because people leave. But it’s not that simple. What’s lost in translation is today’s households have fewer people living in them than they did years prior. For instance, 40% of mothers aged 40 to 44 had four or more children in 1976. Today, it’s 14%. Overall, the average American household contracted from 3.14 people in 1970 to 2.54 today. This can explain the apparent paradox of population loss in “shrinking” communities while the number of occupied households grows.

Such was the case in Cuyahoga County. There were 1.72 million residents in the …

Singapore: Real State Control, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The author explains how the government of Singapore has taken on the role of land use planner and housing developer to ensure affordable housing. Numerous instruments have been devised by governments to provide affordable housing. These can be classified into four broad categories: taxes and subsidies, land use and market regulations, public-private partnerships, and institutions that supply housing or provide financing.

Sequential Decision Making For Improving Efficiency In Urban Environments, Pradeep Varakantham

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Rapid "urbanization" (more than 50% of world's population now resides in cities) coupled with the natural lack of coordination in usage of common resources (ex: bikes, ambulances, taxis, traffic personnel, attractions) has a detrimental effect on a wide variety of response (ex: waiting times, response time for emergency needs) and coverage metrics (ex: predictability of traffic/security patrols) in cities of today. Motivated by the need to improve response and coverage metrics in urban environments, my research group is focussed on building intelligent agent systems that make sequential decisions to continuously match available supply of resources to an uncertain demand for …

Coveney Must Grasp The Nettle Of A Flawed Housing Report, Lorcan Sirr

Media

On June 17, the Oireachtas committee on housing and homelessness published its report after convening in April. It interviewed 38 witnesses and received about 82 submissions from the public and various bodies. These reports do not write themselves, so the committee must be commended for its efforts. Indeed, as I suspect many of its members did not appreciate the infinite complexities of housing, apart from the normal personal experiences, what they have read and constituents’ queries. They did well to get their heads around some of the main issues involved. The final report has some good recommendations but it misses …

Toward Regional Resilience In Toronto: From Diagnosis To Action, Zack Taylor, Leah Birnbaum

Western Urban and Local Governance Working Papers

Greater Toronto is recognized as a high-performing urban region. Over the past decade, however, negative social, economic, and environmental trends have emerged that threaten the region’s future. On the basis of documentary research and four focus group workshops with a diverse array of professional practitioners, this paper assesses the Toronto region’s current assets and vulnerabilities in relation to future risks.The discussion is framed by the concept of resilience—an increasingly popular, yet abstract, concept in urban planning and public administration. This paper proposes, first, that planning and policymaking be directed toward increasing the region’s resilience, understood as the diversity and redundancy …

The Effects Of Age And Gender On Pedestrian Traffic Injuries: A Random Parameters And Latent Class Analysis, Tatok Raharjo Raharjo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pedestrians are vulnerable road users because they do not have any protection while they walk. They are unlike cyclists and motorcyclists who often have at least helmet protection and sometimes additional body protection (in the case of motorcyclists with body-armored jackets and pants). In the US, pedestrian fatalities are increasing and becoming an ever larger proportion of overall roadway fatalities (NHTSA, 2016), thus underscoring the need to study factors that influence pedestrian-injury severity and potentially develop appropriate countermeasures. One of the critical elements in the study of pedestrian-injury severities is to understand how injuries vary across age and gender ‒ …

Responding To Foreclosures In Cuyahoga County 2015 Update: Ninth Annual Report January 1 - December 31, 2015, Kathryn W. Hexter, Molly Schnoke

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs has been the evaluation partner for the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program (CCFPP) since the program was adopted in 2006. This report is an update to the County for 2015. The evaluation provides the County with metrics to track progress and provides feedback about the program that can be used to improve and adapt it to meet the rapidly changing state and national context surrounding foreclosures.

Since consistent tracking began in 2009, the Cuyahoga County foreclosure prevention program has served over 24,000 homeowners at the five participating counseling agencies. In 2015 alone, …

The State Needs To Supply Its Own Housing — To Save Money, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Much debate about housing has centred on proposed solutions such as the Central Bank’s lending limits and a reduction in VAT for developers. The Department of the Environment’s contribution managed to bypass the democratic process, ignore its own civil service rules, then introduce newmandatory smaller apartment sizes, which, it said, would bring down costs and stimulate development. Of course, such a crude move did no such thing—just as reducing VAT for developers and lifting bank lending ratios for lenders will not create an affordable housing system. These “solutions” are like Nero fiddling as Rome burned behind him.

Fellowship Programs: Best Practice Scan, Walter Wright, Kathryn W. Hexter, Joyce Huang

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Best Practices Of Creating Innovation Exchange Web Portals Across The States, Iryna Lendel, Simon Husted, Luke Seaberg, Serena Alexander

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Since their initial development in the late 1990s, expert web portals have been an evolving tool for universities, systems of higher education, and economic development organizations. The web portals are searchable, web-based databases of university scholars and researchers that feature, at a minimum, information on their expertise, innovation products and publications. Many of the portals are growing to include information on universities’ physical assets and equipment, regional strengths, and additional services such as networking and analytical tools for research.

Although these searchable databases have proven useful in helping economic development leaders, government, research colleagues, and internal university staff, their role …

Westside Community Park: A Vision For Public Space, David Fiske, Nathen Lamb, Will Roberts, Kara Srnka, Grace Stainback, Jeffrey Waldo

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Hood River, both the City and the County, are growing and projected to grow substantially in future years. An opportunity has arisen to consider one of the last well-located and large parcels for development as a new park in a fast-growing area of the community. However, what makes a good park? Would that differ based on who was being asked? How can a wider range of voices join this conversation? This work was undertaken to tell the story of what a westside park could be, and what it would take to make it happen.

his project was conducted under the …

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 …

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.

Religious Tourism And Italian Sacred Mounts: Experiences Of Networking And Co-Operation At A Unesco Site, Raffaella Afferni, Carla Ferrario

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

A Sacred Mount is a historical holy site and former pilgrimage attraction. It is a devotional complex located on a mountain, and composed of a series of chapels and shrines in which scenes from the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary or the saints are represented through paintings and sculptures. In 2003 the Sacred Mounts of Piedmont and Lombardy were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List being considered as representative of something that can be understood, in part, through visitor interactions with the areas in which they are located (see Di Giovine, 2009:208).

The visitors to Sacred Mounts are: …

The Cycling Gender Gap: What Can We Learn From Girls?, Jennifer Dill

PSU Transportation Seminars

In the U.S., women are far less likely to bicycle for transportation than men. Explanations include, among others, safety concerns (traffic and crime), complex travel patterns related to household responsibilities, time constraints, lack of facilities that feel safe, and attitudes. This talk will explore how this gender gap emerges in childhood, using data from the Family Activity Study. The study collected data from 300 Portland families (parents and children) over two years, allowing us to see how things change over time.