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Designing Environment

The Stories and Scholarship of Aaron Fellows

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Transitioning To an Amenity

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Moving from the broad framework of my concentration to a specific context for my thesis research, I have chosen to analyze Urban Tree Canopy as a nuanced, multi-faceted amenity that may play a significant role in shaping city growth. I intend to analyze this amenity within the context of Portland’s growth as a city. In addition to my previous experience (and current residence) in Portland, it’s recent, rapid growth makes it an excellent case study.

Going forward, my biggest challenge at the moment is to define how I am analyzing the shape of the city. However, getting specific and definitional is what this is all about!

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Worldwide Contributing Factors To Resident Displacement

Question: What characteristics of city redevelopment exacerbate or alleviate the burden of displacement for low-income residents?

Background: While urban renewal is typically viewed as the positive result of a revitalized city economy, it can also result in the displacement of low-income residents. Because the cost of living increases for all residents, but income does not increase for all residents, some are forced to move to lower-cost neighborhoods, which are further and further from desirable residential areas of the city. The causes of gentrification are varied: business growth, migration of high-income professionals and inadequate supply of housing at different income levels are a few. The landscape is substantially different, however, from city to city.

In Portland, Oregon, which has the highest rates of gentrification in the United States, 58% of low-income neighborhoods have been occupied by middle-class professionals since 2000. But Dallas, while also having gentrified in the last decade, has experienced not only lower rates of gentrification, but also a more positive perspective toward it, with some praising the redevelopment for adding to the culture of the city. This is not to say that cities such as Dallas do not express caution that populations might one day be displaced, but their attitude toward urban renewal is certainly different in the present.

The situation is even more varied on the international scale. In Nairobi, for example, city redevelopment frequently involves slum eviction. In Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum, around 2,000 residents were evicted in 2004 to make way for road construction. Similar evictions have taken place in other Nairobi locations as well as other cities throughout Kenya. They are justified by a variety of means, including some for the development of new housing.

What commonalities exist between domestic resident displacement in US cities versus international locations? How does the overall speed of the country’s industrialization come into play? The goal of this project is to describe gentrification from a generalized standpoint, and then zoom in to individual cities to explain their individual situations more specifically. Once the contributing factors to gentrification are well-understood, then solution-focused initiatives can be undertaken.

Methodology:

  • Select three cities from different countries. Code press releases, scholarly work, and social media for opinions and analysis of factors contributing to resident displacement and gentrification. Identify many possible key characteristics.
  • Expand to twenty or more cities, and set up regression equations with % of tracts gentrifying and % of residents displaced as dependent variables, and the the identified key characteristics as independent variables.
  • Interpret results, continue to re-work equation based on goodness-of-fit and usefulness of findings.

References:

Marcuse, Peter. 1985. “Gentrification, Abandonment, and Displacement: Connections, Causes, and Policy Responses in New York City.” Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 28: 195.

Wile, Rob. 2015. “Portland Is the Most Gentrified City of the Century.” Fusion. Accessed May 7. http://fusion.net/story/44321/portland-is-the-most-gentrified-city-of-the-century/.

“Gentrification Rolls On in Dallas, But Will It Grow Up?” 2015. The Huffington Post. Accessed May 7. http://social.huffingtonpost.com/ginger-mcknightchavers/gentrification-rolls-on-i_b_5697768.html.

Mohindra, Katia S., and Ted Schrecker. 2013. “From Bulldozing to Housing Rights: Reducing Vulnerability and Improving Health in African Slums.” Global Health Promotion 20 (1 suppl): 64–69. doi:10.1177/1757975912462425.

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Mixed Income Communities as a Solution to Chicago’s Low-Income Displacement

Question: How does the planning and management of intentional mixed-income neighborhoods serve to combat displacement of Chicago’s low-income residents? How can the architectural design of buildings and neighborhoods promote equitable access to housing and amenities?

Background: In 1969, U.S. Supreme Court decided Hills v. Gautreaux, a case which awarded vouchers to families in dilapidated Chicago public housing developments to allow them to move to the suburbs. The court ruled that the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) had discriminated against poor black tenants by concentrating them in substandard neighborhoods. With this decision, the supreme court set a new standard for low-income housing in the United States. By “deconcentrating” public housing in Chicago and dispersing residents through existing residential neighborhoods, the Supreme Court set the standard for mixed-income housing as an approach to the problem of low-income displacement.

Today, mixed-income housing is a tool most often used to redevelop dilapidated public housing projects. In doing so, developers ensure that low-income residents will be able to continue living in an area even as it is opened up to settlement by an influx of higher-income professionals. This is accomplished through rent controls, and is a direct-management strategy for preventing low-income residents from being displaced.

Designing new developments that accomplish the goals of mixed-income communities makes use of the principle of compact development. By building more housing in the same area, the supply of housing is increased to allow for new settlement as the city grows, while not depriving current residents of their homes. In this way, it is a potential solution both to the problem of population displacement and to dilapidated public housing.

These communities are costly to develop and maintain, however, and may only be partially effective. Because these communities often replace public housing, but do not necessarily replace low-income units on a one-to-one basis, there is no guarantee that adequate supply of housing will still be available to low-income residents. With this in mind, it is necessary to assess the pros and cons of mixed-income developments compared to other methods of preventing the displacement of low-income residents.

Methodology:

  • Select three cities with varying degrees of equitable housing access, and examine mixed-income communities throughout the city. What characterizes the design of these communities? What management strategies are in place?
  • Compare the mixed-income communities to highly-segregated areas, and analyze for differences.
  • Compare the mixed-income communities before and after redevelopment (in many cases, mixed-income communities are redeveloped from dilapidated areas). Analyze for potentially significant changes.
  • Collect data on characteristics of these communities throughout the country, and test for pairwise correlation between the characteristics. Find which architectural or managerial aspects are most highly correlated with aspects of land use and equitable access.

References:

Popkin, Susan J., Larry F. Buron, Diane K. Levy, and Mary K. Cunningham. 2000. “The Gautreaux Legacy: What Might Mixed‐Income and Dispersal Strategies Mean for the Poorest Public Housing Tenants?” Housing Policy Debate 11 (4): 911–42. doi:10.1080/10511482.2000.9521392.
Joseph, Mark L., Robert J. Chaskin, and Henry S. Webber. 2007. “The Theoretical Basis for Addressing Poverty Through Mixed-Income Development.” Urban Affairs Review 42 (3): 369–409. doi:10.1177/1078087406294043.
Burton, Elizabeth. 2003. “Housing for an Urban Renaissance: Implications for Social Equity.” Housing Studies 18 (4): 537–62. doi:10.1080/02673030304249.

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Approaching New York’s Gentrification Contradiction through Anti-Displacement Zoning

Question: How effective is anti-displacement zoning at promoting city growth and development without displacing low-income populations in New York City?

Background: Gentrification is a controversial topic, not because many people disagree that it is undesirable to displace low-income residents, but because it is typically coincident with new business development, the increasing value of assets in a neighborhood, and a growing tax base. This is the central contradiction of Urban Renewal: the process of improving the economic conditions and standard of living in an area leads to displacing the residents that are already there. This creates a seemingly-paradoxical interest for city planners, developers, and politicians—how to capture the desirability of economic development, without the undesirability of resident displacement.

The process appears to have occurred throughout history, although it was not formally described as a common process of gentrification until recently. The term was coined in 1964, but it did not enter popular use until the 80s, and did not become widespread until the early 2000s. In recent years, politicians have taken up the rhetoric of gentrification in order to gain support from voters who strongly oppose the displacement of longtime residents of changing neighborhoods. These politicians face the task of creating a platform that unifies economic progress with residential livelihood.

In New York City, Anti-Displacement Zoning has been proposed as a potential solution to gentrification. This policy limits development in areas where the risk of displacement is deemed particularly severe. This plan is controversial, however, as it must strike a difficult balance between economic development and limiting population displacement. It is unclear whether this constitutes success in limiting the negative effects of gentrification.

The aim of this project, therefore, is first to define what constitutes success for this policy. There are both benefits and costs to any approach to gentrification, and it is only possible to evaluate them against one another if there are criteria for success. Once this exists, it will be possible to determine what conditions have made this policy more or less successful. From there, it may be possible to create a general-form plan for promoting growth while limiting displacement going forward.

Methodology:

  • Examine communities where anti-displacement zoning has been implemented, and what effects it has had.
  • Identify other factors in these communities that have contributed to the relative success of anti-displacement zoning.
  • Compare anti-displacement zoning to other policies targeted at preventing displacement. What are the relative strengths of each?

References:

Smith, Neil. 1987. “Gentrification and the Rent Gap.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 (3): 462–65. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1987.tb00171.x.

Google Ngram Viewer, “Gentrification.” https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gentrification&year_start=1960&year_end=2007&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cgentrification%3B%2Cc0

Oakland Elects, 2014. [Mayoral] Candidate Question #13. http://oaklandelects.com/om201413schaaf.html

Marcuse, Peter. 1984. “To Control Gentrification: Anti-Displacement Zoning and Planning for Stable Residential Districts.” New York University Review of Law & Social Change 13: 931.

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Expanding Urban Growth Boundaries: Case Studies in Eugene and Tirana

 

Portland is frequently viewed as as world leader (or world experiment, depending on your perspective) in planning restrictions on urban growth in an effort to combat sprawl. But Portland is far from the only city to have experimented with some form of Urban Growth Boundary. Many cities have followed Portland’s lead in creating limits to growth, as well as other cities whose restrictions on urban expansion exist for entirely different reasons. Here, I examine one city from each category: the nearby municipality of Eugene, Oregon, and the far-flung city of Tirana, Albania.

Established in 1982, Eugene (the second-largest city in Oregon) was relatively quick to follow Portland in establishing an Urban Growth Boundary to regulate expansion. In the first months of 2015, however, proposals have arisen to expand Eugene’s Urban Growth Boundary, despite protest from fervent anti-sprawl advocates. Policy surrounding Eugene’s boundary allows for modest expansions of the UGB for three land use purposes: employment, parks, and schools. The current plan for expansion encompasses all three. Drafted by a as part of a 20-year plan by an effort called Envision Eugene, the plan to expand the boundary by 924 acres to the northwest of the city and 35 acres in the Santa Clara area is slated to break new ground for “big business development,” although the plan also allocates land for future Bethel School District development, as well as a 222-acre park. Specifically, Eugene officials state that the new expansion will not be used for heavy industry.

Eugene currently has a low population density—3,570 people per square mile, compared to Portland’s 4,375. This makes Eugene’s endorsement of urban expansion stand in stark contrast to Portland’s clear preference for meeting increased demand for industry and housing by re-developing existing area within the boundary, or “infilling,” as it is known in the planning discipline. Much of the criticism for expansion, though, is based on the fact that the proposed expansion would come at the expense of existing prime farmland. The Willamette Valley is known for it’s fertile soils, and opponents of expansion cite the notion of local food security as reason to reconsider this plan.

Across the atlantic, Albania’s capital and largest city of Tirana established its urban controls under the political transition from communism to a representative democratic republic. Under communism, Tirana was a compact city of 225,000, with two-thirds of it’s 3.2 million citizens living in rural areas. At this time, most property was owned by the state. When the communist state collapsed, however, citizens immediately began to migrate to urban areas. Private property laws passed in 1991, creating a construction boom and massive expansion of private enterprise. In addition, households began to import automobiles at high rates, increasing mobility and creating massive congestion. By 1999, just eight years later, Tirana’s population had nearly tripled, and the land area of the city had increased by five times.

Under these pressures, the new government of Tirana established a “Yellow Line” system, which marked the official boundary of the city. This system was meant, like most UGBs, to restrict outward expansion and prevent sprawl. However, the system was poorly delineated and even more poorly enforced. Add to this the fact that infrastructure and housing development had not kept pace with the city’s industrial expansion, and squatter settlements developed surrounding the city. Over time, given innovations in transportation and construction technology, many of these settlements developed into suburbs with stores, warehouses, and repair yards. Although city administration had not intended to, the situation that was created with a poorly-structured UGB is analogous to the situation where the UGB is allowed to expand in a near-unrestricted manner.

A common criticism of UGB policy asks what use an Urban Growth Boundary is if it can be expanded at will. Is a boundary that can be expanded even a boundary to begin with? From an economic perspective, however, such a mutable boundary may be better than a rigid one. The economic logic is as follows: If the presence of a UGB creates an additional barrier to development outside of the boundary, the cost of development is higher outside the boundary than it is inside, holding all other factors constant. Because the cost is higher, it will only be worthwhile to pursue development outside the boundary if the benefit of this development is sufficiently high. This goes two ways— the benefit to the developer must be high enough for them to go through with the process of seeking exemption from the UGB, and the benefit to the city must be high enough for policymakers to allow it. For this theoretical model to actually be the case, however, it is necessary that Urban Growth Boundary policy (and associated enforcement) be sufficiently stringent that it acts as a real barrier. It becomes exceedingly important, then, to ask whether any given UGB policy accomplishes this.

Sources:

1. “Council Endorses Expansion”, The Register Guard. http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/32701205-75/eugene-council-endorses-northwest-expansion.html.csp

2. “UGB Expansion Analysis”, City of Eugene. https://www.eugene-or.gov/index.aspx?NID=774

3. “City of Eugene May Expand Urban Growth Boundary”, http://www.eugeneweekly.com/20150108/news-briefs/city-eugene-may-expand-urban-growth-boundary

4. Felstehausen, Herman. 1999. “Urban Growth and Land Use Changes in Tirana, Albania: With Cases Describing Urban Land Claims.” http://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/21921/28_wp31.pdf.

 

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Land Use and Cover Change Analysis in Willapa Bay

Here is a brief analysis I conducted using ArcGIS of the forest cover over a sampled area adjacent to Willapa Bay. I used two orthoimages—arial photography adjusted for lens distortion and perspective effects—of the bay and surrounding area, taken in 2009 and 2011. The un-distorted quality of orthoimages makes them idea for analyzing land cover, as the areas of the photo should be accurate relative to each other all the way out to the edges of the photo. The hills surrounding Willapa Bay have a history of logging, and by drawing polygons over areas that appeared forested and areas that appeared to be recently cut, I was able to compare percentages of different types of land cover between the two years.

The analysis showed that the amount of cut area in the bay has increased (in fact, it has doubled as a percentage of the sampled area) from 2009 to 2011. This means that forest is being cut faster than it is regrowing. However, the total logged area is still small relative to the total forested area, so this does not immediately present a threat to the area’s forests, as long as the trend of increasing logging does not continue.

In addition, there may be bias in my selection of this area, considering that the sample was taken in order to perform an analysis of cover change. In this respect, the analysis could be improved by expanding the sampled area to the entirety of the terrestrial portion of the orthoimages.

It would also be useful, given a higher-resolution image, to be able to conduct this analysis with a greater level of detail concerning the age of the forest. With the current resolution, it is difficult to tell old trees from young trees, but having a measure of how recently the forest was logged would improve the specificity of the analysis. This would be especially useful if the comprise could be carried out over more than two time periods.

Overall, though, this was an excellent exercise in using GIS polygons to categorize and analyze areas of different land use, and I am a better analyst for it.