Departmental Papers (City and Regional Planning) Copyright (c) 2013 University of Pennsylvania All rights reserved. http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers Recent documents in Departmental Papers (City and Regional Planning) en-us Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:37:00 PST 3600 Integrating Forest Carbon Sequestration into a Cap-and-Trade Program to Reduce Net Carbon Emissions http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/50 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/50 Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:18:23 PST Problem: Most research on planning to mitigate climate change has focused on reducing CO2 emissions from coal-fıred power plants or the transportation sector. The contribution of forests to lowering net CO2 emissions has largely been overlooked. U.S. forests already offset about one eighth of the nation's annual CO2 emissions and have the potential to offset more, all at a relatively low cost. It will not be easy to integrate forest carbon sequestration into a cap-and-trade program to reduce net CO2 emissions, however. Purpose: I explore what forest land use planning, forestry management practices, and land preservation strategies would be required to integrate forest carbon sequestration into a cap-and- trade program, and explain the role planning and planners can play in promoting forest carbon sequestration. Methods: The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a 10-state cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fıred power plants in the northeastern United States. It provides a case study of how forest carbon sequestration can be included in a cap-and-trade program. Meanwhile, California has devised certifiable carbon credits from forestland. I analyze both approaches and generalize from them. Results and conclusions: To promote forest carbon sequestration through a cap-and-trade program will require ensuring the permanence of CO2 reductions, minimizing leakage from forestland conversion, and obtaining prices for carbon offsets that are high enough to induce forestland owners to participate in the program and offer them for sale. The capital needed to purchase and monitor permanent forest conservation easements as well as to provide a stream of annual income for timberland owners may require a national system of carbon credits. Ideally, the easements would be set up in advance through investments by government or non-profıts, so that landowners will be ready to sell credits when they are demanded. Takeaway for practice: A cap-and-trade system could be a cost-effective way to lower net CO2 emissions if it included certifiable, trade-able credits from forestland preservation and management, and if the price of carbon credits were high enough to induce forest landowners to offer credits. To promote forest carbon sequestration, planners in rural areas should work with the local, state, and federal governments and non-profıt land trusts to zone forestland at low densities, to preserve forest land through acquiring conservation easements, and to fashion forest management plans that ensure long cycles of timber harvesting. Planners in metropolitan areas should promote tree planting and tree retention ordinances to protect, expand, and manage urban forests to absorb greenhouse gases.

]]> Thomas L. Daniels Planning WEB Du Bois and the "Negro Problem": Thoughts on Violence in Philadelphia http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/49 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/49 Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:01:01 PDT This sermon, delivered at First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, might also be called "Why a white girl from New Hampshire is studying The Philadelphia Negro." This essay/sermon connects Du Bois's 1896 survey of Philadelphia to the violence currently plaguing Philadelphia.

]]> Amy Hillier Working with ArcGIS 9.2 manual http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/48 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/48 Thu, 15 May 2008 13:46:07 PDT This manual is intended for undergraduate and graduate students learning to use ArcView 9 in a classroom setting. It is meant to be a complement, rather than substitute, for ArcView software manuals, ESRI training products, or the ArcView help options. It reflects the order and emphasis of topics that I have found most helpful while teaching introductory GIS classes. I expect that it will be particularly helpful to people new to GIS who may be intimidated by conventional software manuals. It may also be helpful as a resource to those who have completed a course in ArcView but don’t always remember how to perform particular tasks. This manual does not try to be comprehensive, focusing instead on the basic tools and functions that users new to GIS should know how to use. Those who master these basic functions should have the skills to learn about additional tools, using the ArcView help menus, or just exploring additional menu options, toolbars, and buttons.

]]> Amy Hillier Reading rival union responses to the localization of technical work in the US telecommunications industry http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/47 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/47 Thu, 15 May 2008 08:43:28 PDT Between the early 1970s and the late 1990s, the market repercussions of state deregulation, combined with technological change, sparked profound changes for employees in the heretofore highly unionized US telecommunications sector. The wholesale restructuring of the AT&T Bell System and the growth of competitor firms' market share led to declines in union density, yawning wage disparities among people doing similar work, and increased casualization and insecurity for holders of both customer service and technical jobs in the industry. However, these trends have manifested themselves somewhat differently for customer service and technical workers. While employers have typically followed a strategy of consolidating and regionalizing customer service and clerical labor, a significant amount of technical work, specifically the installation and maintenance of telecommunications infrastructure on customers' premises, has grown more fragmented, structured by local labor market conditions and institutions (see Batt and Keefe 1999, Keefe and Batt 2002).

]]> Laura Wolf-Powers Planning Information Technology and Urban Labor Markets in the United States http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/46 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/46 Fri, 02 May 2008 07:58:11 PDT The technologies that now dominate the production of goods and services, especially in advanced industrialized countries, have irrevocably changed the dynamics of the demand for and return to labor. Employment in technology-intensive occupations such as computer programming and network technology has increased at double the rate of US non-farm employment overall since the mid-1990s (US Department of Commerce, 2000), and thousands of other jobs in offices, factories and retail establishments demand technological infrastructures unneeded ten years ago. The ability to manipulate information, and to service and maintain the delivery systems by which information travels among users, has become increasingly linked to earning power. This is particularly true in cities. According to Rondinelli et al., the basis of urban economic development is now 'a technology- and knowledge-based system of production and services' (1998: 83) and those without the skills to participate in this system are confined to secondary, futureless roles in urban economies.

]]> Laura Wolf-Powers Planning Up-Zoning New York City’s Mixed Use Neighborhoods : Property-Led Economic Development and the Anatomy of a Planning Dilemma http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/45 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/45 Fri, 02 May 2008 07:40:31 PDT This article examines land use policy and real estate market activity in the 1990s in two mixed use industrial neighborhoods on New York City's East River. Based on case studies of Greenpoint-Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Long Island City in Queens, it finds that a strong adherence on the part of public officials to the principle of highest and best use, together with an incremental approach to planning and land use regulation, has contributed to opportunistic development and industrial displacement in these areas. The question of whether this trajectory is in the interests of the public as a whole remains the subject of fierce debate in the city's planning community and beyond. The article contributes to the literature on property-led economic development in central cities by engaging with the complex task of planners charged with regulating areas that not only are logical sites for commercial and residential expansion but which also serve as niches for lower yielding uses such as light industry.

]]> Laura Wolf-Powers Planning Beyond the First Job: Career Ladder Initiatives in Information Technology Industries http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/44 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/44 Thu, 01 May 2008 07:07:22 PDT In the past two decades, major growth drivers in the U.S. economy have included computers and software, information "content" such as broadcast entertainment, and advanced services and manufacturing that rely on information technology. This is particularly true in leading metropolitan agglomerations, where synergies between the global reach of communications systems and the local intensity of face-to-face communication are crucial to getting the most out of talent, entrepreneurial creativity, and productivity (Graham and Marvin 1996; Hall 1999; Sassen 2001). The polarity between information haves and have-nots in the most dynamic urban centers is stark, however. The digital divide creates or reinforces cultural distance among people who are geographically within a few miles of one another (Mitchell 1999; Servon 2002). Significantly, since it has as much to do with earning power as with access to information, the divide also reinforces income disparities among urbanites (Schön 1999; Hall 1999; National Telecommunications and Information Administration 2000).

]]> Laura Wolf-Powers Planning Remaking New York City: Can Prosperity Be Shared and Sustainable? http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/43 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/43 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:36:17 PDT Changes in the organization of global economic activity – in particular, the ascendance of services over manufacturing in global cities – have had a profound impact on labor, consumer, and real estate markets in New York City. New growth in service sectors has generated spectacular new wealth, and the city has firmly re-established itself as a capital of commerce and culture, after being ravaged by disinvestment and fiscal crisis in the 1960s and 70s. New York City's contemporary economy is a vibrant one in many ways, but it is also a highly unequal one – one in which residents who are not part of the professional class (disproportionately immigrants and people of color) face increasing challenges.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration has wholeheartedly embraced the shift from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, launching ground-level redevelopment strategies in over 20 neighborhoods (many tied to the proposal for the 2012 Olympics), which add up to a transformation of the physical city. These plans seek to open the city up for new commercial office and luxury housing development – through a mix of rezonings, subsidies, and infrastructure investments in public transportation, open space, culture, and spectacle. The public sector resources on which these plans lay claim are substantial – an estimated $20 billion in capital spending. The development that would result from these plans offers many benefits for the city's future, including new jobs, a higher capture rate of high-end commercial and residential users, increased tax revenues, and enhanced public transportation and open space.

The Bloomberg vision for New York City's future is compelling in many respects: its focus on livability and public space, its high design standards, its acknowledgement that adaptation to a largely post-industrial economy is needed in land use planning, workforce development and economic development policy. But the vision also implies several assumptions with which we disagree. First, it equates real estate development with economic development. Second, it posits a future city that exists primarily for its most privileged residents, with too few real benefits of growth reaching the less-wealthy 80% of the population.

The plans emanating from the current administration's bold vision for New York are likely to amplify the inequalities embedded in the service-intensive economy and further drive up real estate values. As a result, they will displace additional low-income housing (thus increasing segregation) and additional viable manufacturing (thus reducing blue-collar job opportunities). Few corresponding gains (e.g. affordable housing, living wage jobs) are being offered for low- or moderate-income families. In addition, the environmental burdens of growth in an increasingly polarized city will continue to be borne disproportionately by low-income communities of color.

Fortunately, the choice is not between inequitable growth and no growth. There are innovative strategies for utilizing planning and redevelopment tools – without abandoning most of the current plans – not only to generate prosperity, but to share it more equitably and to produce it more sustainably. Housing advocates, community organizations, labor unions, business groups, environmental/environmental justice groups, and advocacy/smart growth planners around the country are experimenting with new tools. Smartly applied, in combination, many of these tools could reshape proposed redevelopment plans to create more shared and sustainable prosperity in New York City.

]]> Brad Lander et al. Planning Building in Good Jobs: Linking Workforce Development with Real Estate-Led Economic Development http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/42 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/42 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:24:56 PDT Municipal governments in the U.S. are increasingly devoting public resources to the redevelopment of abandoned, contaminated or underutilized land. Private sector appetite for new development opportunities and public sector creativity have combined to create "building booms" in a number of central cities that only a few decades ago were in seemingly irreversible decline. In the midst of this government-supported revitalization, however, both working poverty and chronic unemployment in central cities remain disturbingly high. Without explicit efforts to link property redevelopment with efforts to put un- or underemployed people to work at family-supporting wages, the negative impacts of growth (displacement, housing cost appreciation) often affect the historically disadvantaged far more profoundly than its positive impacts do.

]]> Laura Wolf-Powers et al. Planning Men, Women, Job Sprawl and Journey to Work in the Philadelphia Region http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/41 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/41 Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:06:37 PST The observation that increasing dispersion of employment opportunities leads to decreased travel times is reflective of a short-rem/phenomenon. Census-reported journey-to-work travel time is examined for the greater Philadelphia region, showing that more people are commuting by automobile, a mode usually associated with shorter journey times, but are reporting longer trip times. The finding is counterintuitive as it coincides with a period when new jobs were established in outlying areas and the region experienced a net loss in jobs. The study concludes that as job opportunities disperse into lower density areas, Philadelphia's existing high-capacity systems are underutilized, and transportation systems throughout the region that were designed for relatively low demand are becoming overwhelmed in time. The net effect is a breakdown of both the urban mass transit systems and the suburban and rural highway networks, the latter because of overuse and the former because of underuse.

]]> Rachel Weinberger Planning Imagining Land Use Futures: Applying the California Futures Model http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/40 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/40 Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:27:46 PST The California Urban Futures Model (or CUF Model) is the first of a new generation of metropolitan planning models designed to help planners, elected officials, and citizen groups create and compare alternative land-use policies. This article explains how the CUF Model works and then demonstrates its use in simulating realistic alternatives for regional and subregional growth policy/planning. Part One explains the design principles and logic of the CUF Model. Part Two presents CUF Model simulation results of three alternatives for growth policy/ land-use planning alternatives for the San Franciso Bay and Sacramento areas. Part Three demonstrates the use of the CUF Model for evaluating alternative agricultural protection and zoning policies at the county, or sub-regional, level.

]]> John D. Landis Planning The Future of Infill Housing in California: Opportunities, Potential, and Feasibility http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/39 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/39 Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:12:40 PST This article presents a methodology for using county tax assessor records and other geographic information system and secondary source data to develop realistic estimates of community, county, and statewide infill housing potential in California. We first identify the number, acreage, average size, and spatial distribution of vacant and potentially redevelopable parcels within three types of infill counting areas. We then develop a schema for determining appropriate infill housing densities based on transit service availability, local land use mix and character, and initial neighborhood densities.

We use this schema to generate local, county, and statewide estimates of infill housing potential. These are then carefully evaluated in terms of their parcel size and financial feasibility, the likelihood that construction will displace existing low-income renters, and the contribution to cumulative overdevelopment. We conclude with a brief discussion of state-level policy changes that would reduce barriers to market-led infill housing construction.

]]> John D. Landis et al. Public Development New Economy Housing Markets: Fast and Furious - But Different? http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/38 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/38 Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:56:50 PST This article explores the effects of metropolitan industrial structure on housing market outcomes. Housing prices in new economy metropolitan areas are found to be higher, peakier, and more volatile than in old economy markets. Homeownership rates are found to be lower in new economy metropolitan areas, while crowding is higher. Although the distribution of housing values, costs, and rents was more equal in new economy markets, the cause would seem to be differences in area income levels, with poorer metropolitan statistical areas having greater inequalities.

Regression analysis is used to identify the contribution of traditional supply and demand factors, such as job growth, income, and residential construction, as well as new economy indicators, to housing market outcomes. Rather than being fundamentally different, new economy housing markets are found to be faster and more extreme versions of traditional housing markets.

]]> John D. Landis et al. Affordable Housing Bioconstructivisms http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/37 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/37 Wed, 14 Nov 2007 08:46:08 PST On meeting the German structural engineer Frei Otto in 1998, Lars Spuybroek was struck by the extent to which Otto's approach to the design of light structures resonated with his own interest in the generation of complex and dynamic curvatures. Having designed the Freshwater Pavilion (1994-97) using geometric and topological procedures, which were then materialized through the exigency of a steel structure and flexible metal sheeting, Spuybroek found in Otto a reservoir of experiments in developing curved surfaces of even greater complexity by means of a process that was already material- that was, in fact. simultaneously material, structural and geometric. Moreover. Otto's concem with flexible surfaces not only blurred the classic distinctions between surface and support, vault and beam (suggesting a non-elemental conception of structural functions) but also made construction and structure a function of movement or, more precisely, a function of the rigidification of soft, dynamic entities into calcified structures such as bones and shells. Philosophically inclined towards a dynamic conception of the universe - a Bergsonian and Deleuzian ontology of movement, time and duration - Spuybroek embarked on an intensive study of Otto's work and took up his analogical design method. A materialist of the first order, Spuybroek now developed his own experiments following those of Otto with soap bubbles, chain nets and other materials as a way to discover how complex structural behaviours find forms of their own accord, which can then be reiterated on a larger scale using tensile, cable or shell constructions.

]]> Detlef Mertins The High Cost of Free Highways http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/36 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/36 Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:41:16 PST It is widely but not universally held that more roads mean more traffic. In spite of this evidence we are continually seduced by the notion that we can zone for low density to preclude traffic from occurring, that we can move far away from traffic that we can avoid it, and/or that we can build our way out of traffic. This low density race to the edge results in the ill-defined but expensive condition of sprawl. In a counter vein, New Urbanists, Advocates of Transit Oriented Development (TOD), and smart growth advocates have embraced the notion that traffic has always been with us and is here to stay, but we can make the most of our activity spaces by concentrating development, arresting the creation of new roads, and investing wisely in high capacity transportation systems.

]]> Rachel Weinberger Planning Planning in a World City: New York and its Communities http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/35 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/35 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:43:02 PDT Planning in New York, a world city, is complicated, fragmented, layered, and project-oriented. The imperatives of a metropolis often dash with the goals of neighborhoods. The planning commission, working within a highly structured and legalistic environment, promotes compromise, balances the needs of different groups, and mediates conflicts, while ensuring that major projects get built. Case studies of Donald Trump's Riverside South, the United States Tennis Association's National Tennis Center and others illustrate the nature of large city planning. They also give rise to a set of governing principles.

]]> Eugenie L. Birch Planning Having a Longer View on Downtown Living http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/34 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/34 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:28:10 PDT Many American cities are experiencing a rise in the number of residents in their downtowns. This phenomenon has deep roots but is extremely fragile. Six approaches to developing downtown housing dominate the arrangements. The public and private sectors have cooperated in many ways to attract this type of investment. Downtown housing, however, is only part of the larger puzzle of urban revitalization and metropolitan growth. Many questions regarding the nature of downtown land uses, including the relationship between housing and employment, remain. This article presents statistical evidence regarding downtown housing for 45 cities and outlines the approaches many have employed to capture these housing units. It also demonstrates the difficulty of defining a city's downtown.

]]> Eugenie L. Birch Planning The Planner and the Preservationist http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/33 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/33 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:55:06 PDT In many ways the planning and historic preservation movements have had similar but separate patterns of institutional development. Although the planning profession is older and more refined than the preservation effort, their shared concern for the quality of the built environment has made them natural allies in promoting conservation practices in American metropolitan areas. At times, differing objectives have marred their mutual cooperative endeavors; but on the whole, they have developed an important symbiotic relationship that has served to strengthen both professions.

]]> Eugenie L. Birch et al. Planning Chester Rapkin: Planner, Teacher, Scholar http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/32 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/32 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:45:32 PDT "The seminal thinkers of the profession are now largely historical figures, few 'heroes' have emerged to replace them," Michael P. Brooks recently wrote (Brooks, 1988). Brooks is unduly alarmist. Significant figures like Daniel Burnham and Rexford Tugwell have their counterparts today. But these contemporary planners are different. They do not espouse exaggerated visions nor call brashly for revolutionary changes. American life also is different. Big cities are no longer novel nor is the economy emerging from a major depression. The country now is dealing with seemingly intransigent issues like the underclass and runaway metropolitan growth and adjusting to major industrial restructuring.

]]> Eugenie L. Birch Planning Radburn and the American Planning Movement http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/31 http://repository.upenn.edu/cplan_papers/31 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:28:00 PDT Many intellectual streams have contributed to the ideology of the American planning movement. Radburn, a partially built, planned, New Jersey settlement, represents the influence of English garden city theories. Radburn's plan was so well designed and rationally organized that it has become a permanent resource for planners who in every generation examine and sometimes adapt it to solve contemporary problems. As a result, it has survived as testimony to the planners' vision of suburban growth. It also represents, however, a neglected promise unfulfilled because of larger currents in American culture.

]]> Eugenie L. Birch Planning