Landscape Architecture Theses and Dissertations

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Open Access
No Walk in the Park: Urban Green Space Planning for Health Equity and Environmental Justice
(University of Oregon, 2023-07-06) Elderbrock, Evan; Russel, Kory
Cities are complex socio-ecological systems where social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental factors influence health outcomes. With the global population growing increasingly urbanized, understanding how urban environmental conditions affect human health has become a topic of interest among researchers across multiple disciplines. Urban green space—which includes all vegetated land cover (e.g., trees, grass, shrubs, and woodlands), as well as any land uses with publicly available recreational amenities (e.g., parks, schoolyards, university campuses, and conservation areas) located within a city’s geographic boundary—provides multiple health and health-promoting benefits. As such, disparities in park access, park quality, and green cover exposure (i.e., tree canopy and all other vegetation) are considered environmental justice and health equity issues. A wealth of recent research has found that, in general, increased access to parks has been associated with greater likelihood that residents will participate in physical activities and meet physical activity guidelines, and increased exposure to vegetated land cover has corresponded with improved psychological well-being and reduced risk of some mental illnesses. Yet, urban green spaces, and the health benefits such spaces afford, are not distributed equitably, and disparities in urban green space access and exposure based on race, ethnicity, or income represent environmental justice and health equity concerns. In this dissertation, I build upon the existing body of knowledge to 1) investigate how issues of health have shaped urban landscapes in the United States and how the policies and decisions that have shaped urban landscapes have exacerbated health inequities, 2) build upon existing research at the nexus of health and urban green space to improve understanding of relationships between urban green space access/exposure, physical activity, and mental well-being, and 3) develop a method for identifying distributional justice concerns related to urban green space access/exposure to inform urban green space planning for health equity.
Embargo
Investigating Forest Elephant Crop Depredation to Guide Landscape Management for Villager-Elephant Coexistence
(University of Oregon, 2023-03-24) Memiaghe, Herve Roland; Johnson, Bart
Forest elephant destruction of villagers' crops in and around Gabon's national parks has persisted despite intensive efforts to control the problem by blocking elephant access to crops. I developed an alternative approach to craft spatially integrated landscape management strategies that simultaneously meet the needs of villagers and elephants, which I call a landscape framework for human-elephant coexistence. To craft the coexistence framework, I investigated factors influencing CDIs in two villages at Lopé National Park, Gabon. In chapter 2, I used content analysis of semi-structured interviews with 46 villagers and conservation professionals to explore how interacting landscape processes lead to CDIs. This generated a conceptual framework characterizing how six broadscale CDI drivers set in motion five landscape change dynamics, which in turn lead to five generalizable problem types that directly contribute to CDIs in village areas. In chapter 3, I combined the stakeholder interviews with a mapped census of native fruit tree distribution along elephant trails in the two villages and nearby forest, and long-term fruit phenology data to assess CDI distribution in relation to seasonal availability of native fruits and domestic crops. The results indicate that neither crop nor native fruit availability, nor the interaction between them, is a definitive factor controlling CDIs. Instead, they suggest that the spatial and temporal distribution of elephant resources and human activities within mosaics of natural and managed landscapes combine to influence elephant foraging behaviors, which in turn set the stage for CDIs. In chapter 4, I reframed each of the five problem types into a coexistence strategy, and identified a toolbox of 59 actions to form the core of the landscape coexistence framework, and used chapter three results to inform how strategies could be applied at local extents. Two of the five strategies were targeted to fulfilling elephant needs, two toward villager needs, and one toward reducing the spatial overlap of elephant foraging and villager cropping activities. The landscape coexistence framework serves as an overarching structure through which participatory planning could be conducted at the scale of individual villages or an entire national park like Lopé.
Open Access
Cultural Landscape Documentation and Repeat Photography: Linking Framework and Practice
(University of Oregon, 2023-03-24) Kerr, Noah; Melnick, Robert
Cultural landscape professionals commonly use an established, framework-based approach to assess distinctive site features. This framework serves to organize and inform the study, reconnaissance, and documentation of tangible features during fieldwork, in which the recording and compilation of photographic records plays a principal role. Successive photo-documentation surveys may build on existing records over time, yet do not necessarily align with the specific location or orientation of established viewsheds in a consistent way. Historical photographs, key primary sources in site research, are often used without benefit of robust spatial analysis. Therein lies an opportunity for practical innovation in applied photo-documentation methods, examined in the context of cultural landscape preservation.This study proposes and tests a functional interface for the cultural landscape framework with rephotographic techniques, through which practitioners may systematically analyze and reoccupy the camera station (vantage point) of a historical source photograph. Literature survey and previous experimentation informs the development of a method for extending the usefulness of cultural landscape characteristics through photographic source analysis. This method was implemented in a criteria-based selection of early 20th century photographs of the Elbridge W. Merrill Collection, preserved at Sitka National Historical Park, resulting in the rephotography of associated viewsheds located on Baranof Island, Alaska. This work presents theoretical context, source selection and analysis design, and case study examples, and it also considers selected instances of rephotographic work present in recent cultural landscape practice. The study concludes with field-based conceptual and practice guidance for current and future practitioners. Overall, this work voices a case for continued innovation in photographic approaches to cultural landscape documentation as those practices contend with change over time.
Open Access
Identifying Landtype Phases for Oregon White Oak Restoration in the Willamette National Forest, Oregon
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Kurtz, Lindsey; Johnson, Bart
Ecological classification systems are used to understand and restore complex heterogeneous landscapes. We explored an ecological classification methodology to determine fine-grained land units by combining field and remote sensing data. Regression trees were used to create these land units, which we term landtype phases. Oregon white oak was chosen as a test case for the methodology because of its conservation importance, the paucity of knowledge about how to sustain it in heterogeneous landscapes, and its wide range of growing conditions. We identified two landtype phases, the moist margins of harsh meadows and cooler locations away from the meadows. The fieldwork-based variables used to identify and classify these landtype phases were translated into remote-sensing variables using LiDAR, which allowed landtype phase mapping. Our results demonstrate how an integration of field-based and LiDAR-based approaches can provide useful guidance for restoration while highlighting the need for improved translation among the two data types.This thesis includes unpublished co-authored material.
Open Access
Spatial Patterns and Management Implications of Native Bunchgrass Recovery Following Oak-Pine Savanna Restoration in the Mid-Elevation Oregon Cascades
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Horton, Eyrie; Johnson, Bart
Restoring native grasslands by counteracting the forest succession which followed the loss of historical fire regimes is a vital component of landscape management in the Mediterranean moist climate of the western Pacific Northwest, USA. However, canopy cover reduction alone does not assure healthy grassland regeneration. Site-specific and species-level research is needed to identify effective restoration strategies. I examined two native bunchgrasses, Festuca roemeri and Festuca californica, in the Jim’s Creek Restoration Area (Jim’s Creek) to assess their relative success across varying microenvironmental and competitive gradients prior to and following restoration. To make these findings more accessible, I developed a handbook that employs a graphic language to make scientific research findings accessible to land managers and those who may not have a background reading statistics-based, ecological literature. This thesis includes unpublished co-authored material.
Open Access
Place-Based Social-Ecological Inquiry in Urban Green Stormwater Infrastructure Systems: A Comparison of Ecological and Social Outcomes in Three Portland Neighborhoods
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Stapleton, Elizabeth; Enright, Chris
With the anticipated escalation in extreme weather events due to climate change, urban areas are increasingly managing stormwater through the use of green infrastructure, designed facilities which share an emphasis on the use of soil and plants to store and infiltrate stormwater. In addition to its primary hydrologic functions, green infrastructure is recognized for its multifunctionality in providing numerous bioecological and sociocultural benefits. In this context, in addition to serving as functional hydrological amenities, green infrastructure networks can be interpreted as “social-ecological systems,” systems of integrated human-environment relationships which are both adaptive and complex. There is a growing recognition in both natural science and social science disciplines that the most pressing challenges of the 21st century involve both social and biophysical elements as well as their interactions. To address the intertwined challenges of creating socially and environmentally just and ecologically resilient contemporary cities, planners, policymakers, and designers must increasingly consider the ecological and social outcomes of their decisions as a complexly integrated whole. “Place-based” modes of inquiry have emerged across disciplines out of a recognition of the critical importance of understanding unique contextual factors in both knowledge acquisition and application. This integrated understanding of physical conditions, contextual variation, and human experience have made place-based approaches an appealing mode of inquiry in the study of human-environment relationships. This dissertation uses Portland, Oregon’s network of publicly managed streetside green infrastructure facilities (Green Streets) to demonstrate how social and ecological processes co-create urban ecosystems and to explore how policy and design shape these emergent social-ecological systems. I center three neighborhood communities in both ecological and social examinations, using the concept of place to inform both social and ecological study design. In employing a place-based approach to the study of urban green infrastructure landscapes, this dissertation both advocates for the critical role of place-based methods in landscape architecture research and asserts their particular utility for exploring the complexity of human-environment relationships in interdisciplinary landscape studies.
Open Access
Codesign: A New Framework for Landscape Architecture in Informal Settlements
(University of Oregon, 2019-09-18) DeHeer, Adam; Russel, Kory
Rapid urbanization is occurring inequitably, resulting in the proliferation of informal settlements. Lack of access to adequate sanitation, clean water, and other elements of a healthy human habitat, such as green space, are among the most frequent public health issues in informal settlements. Codesign, a collaborative design approach, is particularly well suited for landscape architecture in informal settlements. However, codesign in landscape architecture lacks a guide for its process and activities. Drawing on the traditions of collaborative design in public planning and product design, this research presents a new codesign framework for landscape architecture. During development of the framework, a version was used in a green sanitation infrastructure project in an informal settlement in Lima, Peru. Lessons learned were used to improve the framework. This research is intended to make it easier for landscape architects to facilitate codesign and thus make it easier for them to work in informal settlements.
Open Access
Relationships Among Airborne Microbial Communities, Urban Land Uses and Vegetation Cover: Implications for Urban Planning and Human Health
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06) Mhuireach, Gwynne A.; Johnson, Bart
Variation in exposure to environmental microbial communities has been implicated in the etiology of allergies, asthma and other chronic and immune disorders. In particular, preliminary research suggests that exposure to a high diversity of microbes during early life, for example through living in highly vegetated environments like farms or forests, may have specific health benefits, including immune system development and stimulation. In the face of rapidly growing cities and potential reductions in urban greenspace, it is vital to clarify our understanding of the relationship between vegetation and microbial communities so that we can better design cities that support human health. To explore whether and how urban airborne bacterial communities vary with the amount and structural diversity of nearby vegetation, I used passive air sampling and culture-independent microbial DNA sequencing combined with more traditional landscape architecture tools, including geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing data. The results indicated that locations with little vegetation (i.e., paved parking lots) were marked by significantly different bacterial composition from areas that were heavily vegetated (parks and forests). These differences were largely driven by taxonomic groups and indicator species that were enriched at certain sites. My work also shows that regional agricultural activities during the summer may have a substantial effect on airborne bacterial communities in the Eugene-Springfield metropolitan area (Oregon), specifically through elevated abundance of Sphingomonas faeni, a taxon previously isolated from hay dust. The second part of my work focused on building a conceptual bridge between scientific findings and potential design principles that can be tested in practical application. I performed a narrative review of vegetation-health, vegetation-microbe, and microbe-health relationships, which formed the foundation of a framework to translate scientific findings into design-relevant concepts. Strengthening this linkage between science and design will help ensure that research questions are relevant to design practice and that new scientific knowledge is accessible to designers. This dissertation includes previously published and unpublished co-authored material.
Open Access
Landscape Genealogy: A Site Analysis Framework for Landscape Architects
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06) Telomen, Christopher; Eischeid, Mark
Landscape architects and researchers often try to understand power by relying on allegory or symbology to interpret expressions of authority and ideology in space. This research proposes an interdisciplinary perspective and method based on Michel Foucault’s theories of power relations to empirically analyze the discursive and material power relations in built designs. This new method of daylighting power relations is called landscape genealogy, and is applied to Director Park in Portland, Oregon. Landscape genealogy demonstrates that by charting the shifting objects, subjects, concepts, and strategies of archival discourse and connecting them to the shifting material conditions of a site, landscape researchers can daylight the societal power relations and conditions of possibility that produced a design. The results of this research indicate that landscape genealogy as a method is well-suited to producing defensible analyses of power relations in landscape designs with well-documented discursive and spatial archives.
Open Access
Prescription for Public Open Space: Locating New Public Open Space to Combat Obesity in New Orleans
(2017-07-09) Hanson, Wade
Literature suggests that many of the current approaches to developing new public open space focus on individual parcels of land and the ease of their acquisition rather than their location and value within a larger system. One concern of these approaches is that they result in neglecting communities or populations at risk of many health issues. This oversight results in greater societal costs, including increased strain on the health care system. This project focuses on addressing the communities at risk of obesity and their access and proximity to public open space. The estimated cost of obesity on our society was $218 billion in 2007 alone. Much research exists that correlates proximity to public open space with decreased risks for obesity. Despite this research and the development of rating systems like SITES and LEED ND, a gap still exists where designing open space networks to address obesity has not been integrated into city open space planning processes in the United States. This project develops both an evaluative tool derived from five case studies of open space networks and a prioritization process that utilizes spatial analysis to prioritize sites for expansion of New Orleans’ open space network. After the sites for expansion were designed, the entire network was evaluated using the case study criteria to reveal system changes as a result of the design. The resulting design shows that communities in New Orleans that are most at-risk for obesity are also the communities that have the most vacant or available land for development as public open space. This project identifies sites where New Orleans’ open space network could be increased by 14.83 acres or 0.5% of the total open space to allow 10,600 citizens (31% obesity rate of census tracts with priority sites) access to an open space within 1/4 mile of their home. This approach can be adapted to local priorities and utilized in other cities.
Open Access
Water Urbanism: Building More Coherent Cities
(University of Oregon, 2015-08-18) Rising, Hope; Ribe, Robert
A more water-coherent approach is postulated as a primary pathway through which biophilic urbanism contributes to livability and climate change adaptation. Previous studies have shown that upstream water retention is more cost-effective than downstream for mitigating flood risks downstream. This dissertation proposes a research design for generating an iconography of water urbanism to make upstream cities more coherent. I tested a hypothesis of aquaphilic urbanism as a water-based sense of place that evokes water-based place attachment to help adapt cities and individuals to water-coherent urbanism. Cognitive mapping, photovoice, and emotional recall protocols were conducted during semi‐structured interviews with 60 residents and visitors sampled from eight water-centric cities in the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. The participants provided 55 sketch maps. I performed content analyses, regression analyses, path analyses, and mediation analyses to study the relationships of 1) pictorial aquaphilia (intrinsic attachment to safe and clean water scenes) and waterscape imageability, 2) waterscape imageability and the coherence of city image, 3) egocentric aquaphilia (attachment to water-based spatial anchors) and allocentric aquaphilia (attachment to water-centric cities), and 4) the coherence of city image, allocentric aquaphilia, and openness towards water-coherent urbanism. Content analyses show that waterscape imageability and pictorial aquaphilia were the two most common reasons why participants mentioned the five waterscape types, including water landmarks, canals, lakes, rivers, and harbors, during the three recall protocols. Regression analyses indicate that water is a sixth element of imageability and that the imageable structure of canals and rivers and the identifiability of water landmarks significantly influenced the aesthetic coherence of city image. Path analyses suggest that allocentric aquaphilia can be attributed to water-based familiarity, water-based place identity (or identifiability), water-based comfort, and water-based place dependence (or orientation) evoked by water-based spatial anchors. Mediation analyses reveal that water-based goal affordance (as a construct of water-based comfort and water-based place dependence) aided environmental adaptation, while water-based imageability (as a construct of water-based familiarity and water-based place identity) helped adapt cities and individuals to water-coherent urbanism. Canal mappability mediated the effects of gender and of visitor versus resident on the coherence of city image to facilitate environmental adaptation.
Open Access
Protecting Stream Ecosystem Health in the Face of Rapid Urbanization and Climate Change
(University of Oregon, 2015-01-14) Wu, Hong; Johnson, Bart
The ability to anticipate and evaluate the combined impacts of urbanization and climate change on streamflow regimes is critical to developing proactive strategies that protect aquatic ecosystems. I developed an interdisciplinary modeling framework to compare and contrast the effectiveness of integrated stormwater management, or its absence, with two regional growth patterns for maintaining streamflow regimes in the context of climate change. In three adjacent urbanizing watersheds in Oregon's Willamette Valley, I conducted a three-step sequence to: 1) simulate land use change under four future development scenarios with the agent-based model Envision; 2) model resultant hydrological change under the recent past and two future climate regimes using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool; and 3) assess scenario impacts on streamflow regimes using 10 ecologically significant flow metrics. I evaluated each scenario in each basin using a flow metric typology based on the magnitude of change in each metric and the degree to which such changes could be mitigated, i.e., insensitive, sensitive and manageable, and sensitive and resistant. My results demonstrated distinct signatures of urbanization and climate change on flow regimes. Urbanization and climate change in isolation led to significant flow alterations in all three basins. Urbanization consistently led to increases in flow regime flashiness and severity of extreme flow events, whereas climate change primarily caused a drying trend. Climate change tended to exacerbate the impacts of urbanization but also mitigated urban impacts on several metrics. The combined impacts of urbanization and climate change caused substantial changes to metric sensitivities, which further differed by basin and climate regime, highlighting the uncertainties of streamflow regime responses to development and the value of spatially explicit modeling that can reveal complex interactions between natural and human systems. Scenario comparisons demonstrated the importance of integrated stormwater management and, secondarily, compact regional growth. My findings reveal the need for regional flow-ecology research that substantiates the ecological significance of each flow metric, develops specific targets for manageable ones, and explores potential remedies for resistant ones. The interdisciplinary modeling framework shows promise as a transferable tool for local watershed management. This dissertation includes previously unpublished co-authored material.
Open Access
Open Space as an Armature for Urban Expansion: A Future Scenarios Study to Assess the Effects of Spatial Concepts on Wildlife Populations
(University of Oregon, 2014-06-17) Penteado, Homero; Hulse, David
Urbanization is one of the biggest threats to biodiversity. To address this problem, landscape planners have increasingly adopted landscape ecology as a theoretical basis for planning. They use spatial concepts that express principles of landscape ecology in diagrammatic form to create frameworks for planning. This dissertation presents a quantitative approach to evaluate the application of spatial concepts developed to create an armature of open space in areas subject to urbanization. It focuses on the predicted urban expansion of Damascus, Oregon, as a case study. An alternative futures study was used to test three open space spatial concepts for patches, corridors and networks in combination with compact and dispersed urban development patterns. The resulting eight scenarios of land use and land cover were then modeled for the year 2060 to evaluate their effects on habitat quantity, quality and configuration and to identify tradeoffs between urban development and conservation for three focal wildlife species: Red-legged frog, Western meadowlark, and Douglas squirrel. Open space spatial concepts strongly influenced habitat quantity and quality differences among future scenarios. Development patterns showed less influence on those variables. Scenarios with no landscape ecological spatial concept provided the most land for urban development but reduced habitat quantity and quality. Greenway scenarios showed habitat increases but failed to provide sufficient habitat for Western meadowlark. Park system scenarios showed habitat increases, but high-quality habitats for Western meadowlark and Red-legged frog decreased. Network scenarios presented the best overall amount of habitats and high-quality habitats for the three species but constrained urban development options. Next, I used an individual-based wildlife model, HexSim, to simulate the effects of habitat configuration and to compare and contrast resulting wildlife population sizes among the eight future scenarios with the ca. 2010 baseline landscape. Network scenarios supported the largest number of Red-legged frog breeders. Park scenarios performed best for meadowlarks, while greenway scenarios showed the largest populations of squirrels. Four of the eight scenarios sustained viable populations of Western meadowlarks. Compact development scenarios performed best for most indicators, but dispersed development scenarios performed better for Western meadowlarks. This dissertation includes both previously published and unpublished material.
Open Access
A Landscape Approach to Ecosystem Services in Oregon's Southern Willamette Valley Agricultural Landscape
(University of Oregon, 2013-07-11) Enright, Christianne; Hulse, David
Over the past decade, ecosystem services has become a familiar term. Definitions vary but the central idea is that society depends on and is enhanced by earth's resources. Concerns about natural resource depletion and degradation have motivated researchers to move from concept to operation and real-world change. Since the late 1990s, attention has been directed at characterizing the monetary value of ecosystem services to influence decision-making processes. This research has been dominated by the disciplines of ecology and economics with the underlying assumption that the integration of these disciplinary approaches will provide the necessary operational pathways forward. The perspectives of ecology and economics are crucial but the unique qualities of ecosystem services suggest the need to consider other approaches and a willingness to look beyond existing models and disciplinary boundaries. I propose a landscape approach to ecosystem services in which they play a role in the intentional coevolution of social/ ecological systems. I apply this approach to explore the potential for floodplain agricultural landscapes to provide ecosystem services in a 65,000 acre study area located in Oregon's agriculturally-dominated southern Willamette Valley. The landscape's biophysical processes are represented by three ecosystem services: non-structural flood storage, carbon sequestration and floodplain forest. These are quantitatively evaluated using a geographic information system. One aspect of the landscape's sociocultural processes is explored through qualitative interviews with farmers and profiles of the crops they commonly grow. The biophysical and sociocultural research components are integrated through an alternative futures framework to compare the ca. 2000 landscape with a 2050 future landscape in which agricultural production includes ecosystem services. In the 2050 landscape, the synthesis results show where all three ecosystem services are simultaneously provided on 2,981 acres, and where increases in carbon sequestration and floodplain forest are simultaneously provided on an additional 4,841 acres. For the identified acres, the annual income from present-day conventional crop production is provided as a first approximation of the monetary income that farmers would consider for producing ecosystem services.
Open Access
Park-above-Parking Downtown: A Spatial-Based Investigation
(University of Oregon, 2013-07-11) Ren, Lanbin; Gillem, Mark
Parking and parks are both crucial to downtown economic development. Many studies have shown that downtown parks significantly contribute to increasing surrounding property values and attract residents, businesses and investment. Meanwhile, sufficient available parking promotes accessibility to downtown that also contributes to increasing tax revenue for local government. However, both downtown parks and parking raise problems. Many downtown parks have become places for drug dealing, shooting and vandalism since the decline of downtowns in the 1960s. At the same time, residents and visitors alike oftentimes complain about the lack of parking while in fact parking spaces occupy a large amount of land in downtown. Parks and parking also compete for space in downtown where land value is higher than the rest of the city. To address these issues, several cities have begun to address the relationship between parking and parks by placing them in one place: park on the ground level and parking underneath. This typology is defined as a park-above-parking project in this research. However, this phenomenon has received little scholarly attention. To justify the existing situation of park-above-parking and to contemplate future projects, this research provides a spatial-based investigation to discuss the empirical relationships between social cultural and political-economic impacts, design quality, and related policy-making processes based on four cases. A longitudinal study that traces the direct and indirect impacts of park-above-parking projects was conducted for each case through both qualitative and quantitative methods. This research provides a set of methods for the measurement of contributions of park-above-parking downtown, connections between park quality, social use and adjacent economic growth, recommendations for land use planning policy-making and guidelines for the design of park-above-parking projects.
Open Access
Park-above-Parking Downtown: A Spatial-Based Impact Investigation
(University of Oregon, 2012-12) Ren, Lanbin
Parking and parks are both crucial to downtown economic development. Many studies have shown that downtown parks significantly contribute to increasing surrounding property values and attract residents, businesses and investment. Meanwhile, sufficient available parking promotes accessibility to downtown that also contributes to increasing tax revenue for local government. However, both downtown parks and parking raise problems. Many downtown parks have become places for drug dealing, shooting and vandalism since the decline of downtowns in the 1960s. At the same time, residents and visitors alike oftentimes complain about the lack of parking while in fact parking spaces occupy a large amount of land in downtown. Parks and parking also compete for space in downtown where land value is higher than the rest of the city. To address these issues, several cities have begun to address the relationship between parking and parks by placing them in one place: park on the ground level and parking underneath. This typology is defined as a park-above-parking project in this research. However, this phenomenon has received little scholarly attention. To justify the existing situation of park-above-parking and to contemplate future projects, this research provides a spatialbased investigation to discuss the empirical relationships between social cultural and political-economic impacts, design quality, and related policy-making processes based on four cases. A longitudinal study that traces the direct and indirect impacts of park-aboveparking projects was conducted for each case through both qualitative and quantitative methods. This research provides a set of methods for the measurement of contributions of park-above-parking downtown, connections between park quality, social use and adjacent economic growth, recommendations for land use planning policy-making and guidelines for the design of park-above-parking projects.
Open Access
Equal Access: Providing Urban Agricultural Benefits to Under-Served Communities
(University of Oregon, 2012) Wilkinson, Renee; Wilkinson, Renee; Ribe, Robert
This study examines the potential contribution market research could make to planning urban farm locations. Substantial research identifies access to healthy foods as a significant barrier for under-served communities. Under-served communities are those struggling with food insecurity, poor nutrition and poor community cohesion. Urban farm locations could be more strategically planned to connect healthy food access and other secondary benefits to these vulnerable communities. This market research based methodology is applied to Portland, Oregon, using GIS data to map where future urban farms should be placed. The final product of this study is a prioritized list of potentially suitable sites in Portland, Oregon, for a future urban farm. This methodology could be applied in other urban areas to increase access to healthy foods among under-served communities.

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