Posts

Last night, I found myself in an unlikely situation for an undergraduate student, having dinner with our college’s Board of Trustees. Inevitably, I find that, for all the mystique that the *Board of Trustees* gets, they really are supportive people, genuinely interested in the goings-on of the college they oversee and the lives of its students. And, as befits just about every social situation I find myself in these days, I found myself talking about my thesis research.

Now, I frequently have some sort of epiphany when discussing my academic projects with people whose perspective on issues is fundamentally different than my own. And, though it might not be representative of the american public as a whole, there is certainly a huge diversity of perspective to be had talking to the trustees and those who were invited to have dinner with them. So, in the process of explaining my thesis research to many someones with different backgrounds, I had somewhat of a revelation of my own.

The instrumental question was this: “Does your research have a hypothesis?” A straightforward question, especially to a self-styled social scientist like myself who values data and its analysis very highly. This is frequently reflected in my work—for example, my economics thesis had a scientifically conceptualized methodology designed to test what influence residential tree canopy has on property values. The self-structured nature of my environmental studies thesis, however, had thus far made me inclined to think about my research in terms of open-ended questions—ones that have any number of possible answers.

The notion of a hypothesis, however, simplifies the process of answering a question. That is, there is one conjectural “status quo” answer (the null hypothesis), and one alternative hypothesis. The fundamental question is whether or not the null hypothesis holds water, or whether the alternative is more likely to be supported. Thinking about my research in this way made me realize a fundamental assumption that I was making in my thesis discussion. I was assuming that trees can be treated as an amenity in that they influence the development of cities. Does my thesis research have a hypothesis? Yes! It asks whether trees can appropriately be treated as an urban amenity and therefore shape cities. Forcing myself to start my data analysis by addressing this basic question has given my work a groundedness that it previously lacked.

This really does bear on the value of the scientific method as a whole. It would be easy to dismiss *The Scientific Method* as unrealistic, and it wouldn’t be incorrect—the notion that experiments always proceed in a straightforward fashion following their initial design is pragmatically flawed. The fundamental structure of experimental design and testing, however, is a framework that it is worth our while not to dismiss entirely. Even if we are going to iterate on the basic process, it can be extremely valuable to remember that the basics—like defining a hypothesis—have stuck around this long because they are valuable tools.

At some point in the process of slogging though data early in this semester, I had an important realization about my proposed method of “The Qualitative Regression.” I realized my thinking that I could gather equivalent data on three separate cities in order that I be able to qualitatively regress them against each other was a flawed assumption. The reality is that I have a far greater level of detailed data available to me around Portland than I do for any other city. This is for two reasons. One, I have access to far more non-digital data about Portland to supplement my research—institutions such as the Oregon Historical Society, the Portland City Archives, and easier access to data collectors like the Oregon Department of Geologic and Mineral Industries has ensured that I have a much higher level of resolution in my Portland data than I can acquire for Ann Arbor or Chicago. Second, my personal familiarity with the city aids me in interpreting this data in a way that I am not able to do for cities that I do not have a personal history with. In a thesis which is fundamentally about the context in which amenities appear, familiarity with the area I am researching is a tremendous boon, as I am much more likely to be able to find relevant contextual information for any given data point.

The result of this realization was a re-centering of my situated context. My thesis now centers on Portland, but uses a comparative approach to situate Portland’s relationship with its urban forest within the context of US cities in general. This has several advantages. The major one is being able to play to my strengths, as I discussed in the prior paragraph with the greater level of detail I am able to acquire for Portland. Another important result, however, is my ability to compare phenomena in Portland to other cities beyond my initial three where relevant processes are in place (so far, I have used Sacramento and Boise as additional case studies). It is a little bit opportunistic, to be sure, as I mostly just compare Portland’s development and use of its urban forest to related happenings in other US cities. But being opportunistic in this way allows me to cite the most relevant information, as I am not bound by a particular subset of cities.

With this in mind, I’m continuing my series of white/blackboard pictures with my sketches of the current state of my research. Here, we have a sketch of my new hourglass approach. I look forward to greater success and less frustration with this altered methodology.

As I start to conceptualize the form that my data analysis will take, I have latched onto the idea of landscape as narrative. To that end, I have begun to compile a timeline for Portland that weaves together the stories told by several different pieces of data. For example, I have begun to research the Burrell Elm, Portland’s first Heritage tree. The Elm was planted around 1875 by Martin and Rosetta Burrell—the latter of whom would go on to be an active participant in Portland’s social history, helping to found the Portland Women’s Union. By 1973, the Burrell Land had been entirely repurposed for denser city development, with no original structures remaining—today it is the site of the Portland Art Museum. The Elm, however, remained, and was set aside as a city landmark in 1975. This was long before the Portland City Council would adopt a Heritage Tree Code in 1993.

The story of the Burrell Elm ties together many aspects of Portland’s development—initial large landowners, social activism, high-density infill, tree preservation, and the construction of trees as symbolic landmarks. By placing this narrative within the context of other significant narratives in Portland’s development (narratives such as the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition, the creation of Washington Park, and the establishment of the Portland Development Commission), I hope to paint a fuller picture of the role that the urban forest has played in Portland’s development. Once I have done this, I will be able to compare it to other cities in order to generalize about the role of trees in development.