Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Investigating The Housing Market For Student Tenants Surrounding An Urban University, Olivia M. Dobbs Ms.

Honors College Theses

The private housing market for students around Wayne State University, an urban campus in Detroit, Michigan, stands in a fast-changing period. The area has grown economically from institutional and medical center investment in the past few years, causing occupancy and rents to rise. This follows years of disinvestment that allowed rent rates to fall to comfortable rates for students. The University has published its interest in developing the “campus life” including more off-campus private market housing for students, while developers see potential for even higher rents for young professionals. This study assesses the current perceptions of a sample of rental …

The Impact Of Local Public Education On Economic Development, Curtis Cobert

Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this thesis is to seek and observe the patterns of economic development around local public schools of varying quality. The Greater Richmond Region (consisting of the City of Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico) were used as the basis of the study. The scores for the schools were derived from an equation that took into account some of the main quality aspects. The factors that went into the equation were graduation rates, dropout rates, standardized test scores and AP (Advance Placement) enrollment. The basis of the economic development evaluation is based on a set …

The Privatization Of Hazard Mitigation: A Case Study Of The Creation And Implementation Of A Federal Program, Alessandra Jerolleman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the role of the private and public sectors in hazard mitigation, an important part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) performance requirements from the Stafford Act. Hazard mitigation is the effort to reduce societal impacts from natural disasters by reducing their risk to people, property and infrastructure; before hazards occur. The goal of the work is to contribute to the literature examining the national trend towards privatization and reliance on the free market economy for the provision of government social services, through such public management movements as the “New Public Management” (NPM) of the 1980s and …

A Gateway For Everyone To Believe: Identity, Disaster, And Football In New Orleans, Brandon D. Haynes

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to analyze the dynamic processes of collective identity by examining the relationship between New Orleans and its professional football team, the Saints, after Hurricane Katrina. Much of the discourse written on American professional sports focuses on economic transactions between player and franchise or franchise and city. This study explores sports from a cultural perspective to understand the perceived social values provided to the host community. This case study spans the years from 2006 to 2013 and discusses several major events, including the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the reopening of the Superdome, the Saints winning a …

Feasibility Study Of Consolidating Public Safety Answering Points In Perry County, Ohio, Daila Shimek

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This report provides an assessment of the feasibility of consolidation of the public safety answering points (PSAPS’s) in Perry County, Ohio and the Village of New Lexington (in Perry County), Ohio. The report describes the methodology used to assess the feasibility of consolidating these PSAPs. The findings are that consolidation of PSAPs and dispatch services among the participating entities would not be feasible if the decision is made purely on costs. However, a consolidated PSAP would reduce the duplication of services and redundant capital projects. This in turn would free up funds to maintain and replace capital items as they …

Planning For Resilient Coastal Communities: An Analysis Of Coastal Plans In South Carolina, Felicia Boulware

All Theses

Resilience is very important to the longevity of inhabited coastal regions. Sea level rise threatens human systems and exacerbates erosion, saltwater intrusion and flooding in coastal regions. Planning for resilience is one way to ensure that coastal communities are prepared for and able to persist through hazardous events, both ongoing and intermittent. This research amasses resilience policies in four categories: ecological, land uses, social, and economic, which reflect concepts of social-ecological resilience. These policies were selected based on their applicability to coastal regions and academic consensus on best practices to increase resilience. These policies were combined in a matrix that …

Charleston Contradictions: A Case Study Of Historic Preservation Theories And Policies, David Payne

All Dissertations

The philosophy, policies, and practices of historic preservation are currently struggling with how to incorporate Modern architecture, as many of these buildings are reaching the threshold to be considered historic. Since one of the movement's original goals was to counteract Modernism, it is ironic that many of the buildings initially opposed by historic preservation are now forcing the profession to consider their designation and preservation. The potential preservation of many of these buildings raises important philosophical and practical contradictions for the profession that require further study and resolution.
This study presents the results of a case study of three Modern …

Route Segment Level Analysis Of Bus Safety Incidents, James G. Strathman, Sung Moon Kwon

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper analyzes collision and non-collision incidents that occurred on TriMet’s bus system over a near two-year period. The bus route network was decomposed into stop and line haul segments, and a typology of models was estimated from segment level incident, risk exposure, and roadway feature data. The frequency of non-collision incidents – mainly slips, trips and falls – was estimated to be primarily related to associated risk exposure variables. The frequency of collision incidents was also estimated to be related to risk exposure variables, as well as a number of roadway design variables. The findings serve as an initial …

The Application Of Smart Phone, Weight-Mile Truck Data To Support Freight-Modeling, Performance Measures And Planning, Katherine E. Bell, Miguel A. Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Oregon is one of the few states that currently charge a commercial truck weight-mile tax (WMT). The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has developed a data-collection system – Truck Road Use Electronics (TRUE) – to simplify WMT collection. The TRUE system includes a smart phone application that collects and records Global Positioning System (GPS) data. The TRUE data has enormous advantages over GPS data used in previous research due to its level of geographic detail and the potential to also integrate trip origin and destination, vehicle class, and commodity-type data. This research evaluates the accuracy of the TRUE data and …

Contesting Sustainability: Bikes, Race, And Politics In Portlandia, Amy Lubitow, Thaddeus R. Miller

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite decade old calls for a "just sustainability," urban sustainability policy and practice remains oriented toward environmental outcomes and eco-lifestyle projects. Notions of equity, justice, and inclusion continue to be marginalized in favor of technological solutions, such as green buildings, that are visible, easy to implement, and help to promote economic development. By examining a controversy over a bikeway development project in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Portland, Oregon, this article explores how despite apolitical appeals to broadly shared values or visions of what a sustainable city ought to look like, sustainability projects can be—and perhaps should be—hotly contested. …

Overlooked Destinations: Suburban Nodes, Centers, And Trips To Strips, Nico Larco, Robert Parker

TREC Final Reports

This study looks at travel to typical suburban commercial strips by residents living within one-third of a mile of the strip by focusing on six sites – four in the Portland, OR., metro area and two in the Atlanta, GA., metro area. The study mapped pedsheds around the commercial strips in these sites and found significant increases in network extents when formal and informal pedestrian paths were added to street centerline data. Informal networks such as goat paths through vacant land and cuts in fences were widespread and suggest a pent-up demand for route directness. Travel surveys of residents found …

Responding To Foreclosures In Cuyahoga County: 2012 Evaluation Report, Kathryn Hexter, Molly Schnoke

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Medicaid Expansion, Long-Term Care Financing In Retirement States And The Post World War Ii Birth Cohort, Toni P. Miles

Center for Policy Research

This policy brief contains a formal consideration of ideas discussed during a presentation to the 2012 Syracuse Seminar on Aging. Like most briefs, it will appeal to policy makers and academics craving detailed demographic, fiscal and policy data. Before diving into this brief, I would encourage readers to view the presentation video (available at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=bsv8K7DdJFY). As you will see, the seminar was informal and the discussion was wide ranging. In contrast, this brief focuses on limitations faced by states as they finance longterm care. It is primarily concerned with the Medicaid expansion and growing need for care as the …

The Formalities Of Informal Urbanism: Technical And Scholarly Knowledge At Work In Do-It‐Yourself Urban Design, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Among the numerous ways people make illegal or unauthorized alterations to urban space, of particular interest in recent years have been the creative, local, and often anonymous efforts at informal but functional “improvement” to the built environment where the state or property owners have failed to act – practices I call “do-it-yourself urban design.” Authorities, planners, and community members alike rightfully wonder about the meanings of these actions, and the questions they raise about rights, responsibilities, benefits, and consequences. Building from alarger qualitative study on DIY urban design across eleven cities, this paper focuses on the motivations, methods, and self-perceptions …

Utilizing Atcs Data To Inform A Dynamic Reassignment System For Muni Metro Light Rail Vehicles Departing Embarcadero Station, April M. Hickey

Master's Theses

This is a report of a professional project intended to act as an informational tool for the evaluation of a dynamic dispatch system at Embarcadero Station for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). Systems that operate dispatch algorithms do so in response to on-time performance and reliability. The optimization problem is documented in many transportation contexts including airline networks, bus dispatch, and freight routing. According to the research, optimizing available options and re-routing based on available options can create a more efficient system that would minimize operating costs and improving service reliability for customers.

The methodology presented here uses …

The View From The Table: An Analysis Of Participant Reactions To Community-Based Dialogues On Food And Justice, Jennifer Turner

Dissertations and Theses

While Portland, Oregon's sustainable food movement wins accolades for explicitly situating itself in opposition to the industrialized global food system, it often fails to address systems of oppression that are reproduced within the alternative agri-food movement itself. This demonstrated aversion towards the messy, complex, contingent nature of the social world reflects larger processes of "de-politicization" of the overall sustainability agenda, which leads to the favoring of technological and/or spatial solutions that may undermine the social equity and justice dimensions of the "triple bottom line." This thesis focuses on an action research project involving a series of community dialogues that provided …

Improving Vehicle Trip Generation Estimations For Urban Contexts: A Method Using Household Travel Surveys To Adjust Ite Trip Generation Rates, Kristina Marie Currans

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research is to develop and test a widely available, ready-to-use method for adjusting the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Trip Generation Handbook vehicle trip generation estimates for urban context using regional household travel survey data. The ITE Handbook has become the predominant method for estimating vehicle trips generated by different land uses or establishment, providing a method for data collection and vehicle trip estimation based on the size of the development (e.g. gross square footage, number of employees, number of dwelling units). These estimates are used in traffic impact analysis to assess the amount of impact …

Bicycle Traffic Count Factoring: An Examination Of National, State And Locally Derived Daily Extrapolation Factors, Josh Frank Roll

Dissertations and Theses

Since nearly the beginning of the wide spread adoption of the automobile, motorized traffic data collection has occurred so that decision makers have information to plan the transportation system. Widespread motorized traffic data collection has allowed for estimating traffic volumes using developed extrapolation methods whereby short-term counts in sample locations can be expanded to longer periods. As states and local planning agencies make investments in bicycle infrastructure and count programs develop, similar extrapolation methods will be needed. The only available guidance on extrapolating bicycle counts comes from the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project (NBPDP), yet no validation of these …

Measuring The Effects Of Environmental Certification On Residential Property Values - Evidence From Green Condominiums In Portland, U.S., Xi Yang

Dissertations and Theses

Green building, as an environmentally responsible and resource-efficient product, has emerged in recent decades. Along with the growing interest in green building design and operating practices, a number of green building certification standards and rating systems have been developed by different organizations worldwide. Those rating systems allow government regulators, building professionals, and consumers to embrace green building with confidence. Many recent studies find that LEED and Energy Star certified commercial buildings gain significant rental and sales price premiums and have higher occupancy rates. However, little research has been conducted to measure the market value of certified multi-family residential buildings, for …

The Historical, Political, Social, And Individual Factors That Have Influenced The Development Of Aging And Disability Resource Centers And Options Counseling, Sheryl Dejoy Elliott

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis reports on the perspectives and experiences of policymakers, advocates, agency supervisors, and experts in the field of gerontology, about the development of Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRC) programs and Options Counseling (OC). By examining the foundations upon which ADRCs and OC are built, this study sought to inform future research about the effectiveness of existing practice, increase understanding of best practices, and clarify whether these emerging services are accomplishing original goals.

ADRCs and OC intend to address long-term care issues and healthcare needs by providing a single entry point to the social service system. ADRCs offer information, …