Read published research on what makes housing accessible to everyday destinations in Southern California?

Publication:

Kane, Kevin, John R. Hipp, and Jae Hong Kim. (2017). “Analyzing accessibility using parcel data: Is there still an access-space trade-off in Long Beach, California? The Professional Geographer 69:3, 486-503.

Abstract:

This article analyzes the impact of changing housing and neighborhood characteristics on the accessibility of neighborhood businesses using Long Beach, California, as a case study. Although advocates of smart growth and New Urbanism encourage land use mixing, aggregate-level analysis can be too coarse to pick up on fine-grained aspects of urban streetscapes. This study uses assessor parcel records and a point-based business establishment data set to analyze city-wide patterns of accessibility from individual dwelling units to thirty-one types of neighborhood businesses, including grocery stores, service shops, drug stores, doctor’s offices, and banks. Regression results compare parcel-level and neighborhood-level drivers of accessibility between 2006 and 2015 to gauge the aggregated effect of recent economic, demographic, and built environment changes on this aspect of urban spatial structure. Larger homes in older, multiunit buildings and higher income neighborhoods show substantial increases in accessibility to most establishment types, suggesting a trend toward both greater accessibility and larger dwelling units—despite the traditional trade-off between access and space. Although gradual increases in home and business density increased overall accessibility over this period, weaker neighborhood-level results indicate that this trend is less pronounced in high-poverty and non-white areas.

Read published research on Detecting Job Density Over Time

Publication:

Kane, Kevin, John R. Hipp, and Jae Hong Kim. (2016). “Los Angeles employment concentration in the 21st century.” Urban Studies.

Abstract:

This paper is an empirical analysis of employment centres in the Los Angeles region from 1997 to 2014. Most extant work on employment centres focuses on identification methodology or their dynamics during a period of industrial restructuring from 1980 to 2000. We analyse employment centres using point-based, rather than census tract-based employment data and a non-parametric identification method with a single concept of proximity. We focus on changes across five key industries: knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), retail, creative, industrial and high-tech, emphasising changes in centre composition as well as their boundaries. Results show far greater change across centres than previous longitudinal studies. Only 43% of the land area that is in an employment centre is part of one in both 1997 and 2014. Using a persistence score, centres range from stable to highly fluctuating, but emerging, persisting and dying centres are found in core and fringe areas alike. KIBS are most associated with stable centres, while high tech employment is attracted toward emerging areas and retail exists throughout. Emerging centres are more likely to have greater accessibility, while industrial employment becomes far more concentrated in centres by 2014.

Research Reports and Policy Briefs

 

  • Land Use and Vehicle Miles of Travel in the Climate Change Debate: Getting Smarter than Your Average Bear. 
    by Marlon G. Boarnet, Douglas Houston, Gavin Ferguson, and Steven Spears
  • Affordable Housing in Transportation Corridors – Built Environment, Accessibility, and Air Pollution Implications of Near-Roadway Residential Locations.  Principal Investigator: Douglas Houston, UCI Policy, Planning and Design; Co- Principal Investigator: Jun Wu, UCI Epidemiology & Program in Public Health.   Abstract is here.

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Peer-reviewed Research

  • Hipp, John R. and Amrita Singh. (2014). “Changing Neighborhood Determinants of Housing Price Trends in Southern California, 1960-2009.” City & Community. 13(3): 254-274. [This project studies whether the relationship between certain characteristics of neighborhoods and home values have changed over a 50 year period in Southern California.  An important finding is that the negative relationship with racial/ethnic minorities has decreased substantially in recent decades.]

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Regional Dialogues in Governance

 

  • Regional Leadership in Air Quality Program – Marlon Boarnet (Professor of Planning, Policy, and Design) and Lindell Marsh (attorney and lecturer in Planning, Policy, and Design) convened a series of meetings with leaders of key regional agencies and stakeholders in 2009 that produced a common understanding of the region’s land use – air quality – transportation – energy infrastructure challenges.  This effort is supported by SCAG, leading planning firms, UC Irvine, and Cal State University San Bernardino.
  • Community Scholars Program – Supports the capacity building and organizational development of non-profits through applied “place-based” research. Recent Community Scholar projects include the development of a “foreclosure counseling” program for the Neighborhood Housing Services of Orange County and the evaluation of a community building initiative by the Office of Orange County Human Relations (OCHR). The latter resulted in OCHR securing a $225,000 continuation grant from the St. Joseph Health System.

Problem-Solving/Capacity Building Student Research

Professional Reports: A professional report is an analysis of a “real-world” planning problem or a detailed simulation of a planning project by students in UCI’s Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning Program. Students diagnose a planning problem, select appropriate analytical methods to assess the problem, and identify, evaluate, and recommend strategies to address the problem. Examples of past reports include:

“City and School Partnerships: Strengthening the Community of Moreno Valley with a Joint Use Agreement”
Client: Moreno Valley Unified School District

“Creating, Administering and Overseeing Owner-Occupied Affordable Housing in Orange County”
Client: Neighborhood Housing Services of Orange County

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