Urban Planning Blog

I used to love going to the Dogwood Festival in Piedmont PArk when I was living in Atlanta. The Brazos Valley Worldfest in Historic Downtown Bryan seems somewhat similar. This year’s event is scheduled for November 17, 2007 and has a variety of activities including performances, culture displays, vendors selling international goods, and best of all, international cuisine. I’m looking forward to attending it and just wish that my new DSLR would arrive in time.

The Census Bureau recently released a press release on household income and poverty rate. The official report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance in the United States: 2006 Report can be downloaded here [PDF]. Aside from the widely publicized reports that household income has rise between 2005 and 2006 in addition to a [slight] drop (12.6% to 12.3%) in the nation’s poverty rate, the little aside about the country’s poorest cities went largely unnoticed.

The nation’s poorest cities (250,000 or more) are Detroit; Buffalo, N.Y.; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Miami; and St. Louis and similarly among the smaller cities (65,000 to 249,999), the poorest are Brownsville, Texas; College Station, Texas; Camden, N.J.; and Edinburg, Texas. While most of the mentions are obvious, I was very surprised to see College Station, my current place of residence considered as the second-poorest city in the nation.

As you know, College Station is home to Texas A&M University and out of its population of 67,000-odd, nearly 45,000 are students. The poverty rate is calculated using the median household income of the residents and it is widely known that incomes of students is likely to fall under the poverty threshold at least in real dollars. But does that necessarily constitute poverty? You wouldn’t consider the students of a prestigious national university poor, right? Firstly, students especially undergraduate students and international students are supported financially by their parents or other guardians who do not reside in the city. So although the students may earn below-poverty wages, they aren’t necessarily poor in the traditional sense. Secondly, even if the students are not supported financially, they are incurring debt which is often cleared once they graduate and start earning. Depressed wages while in college is perfectly natural and lost earnings are considered more of an long-term investment than a short-term liability.

If you have ever visited or lived in College Station, you would be hard pressed to find poverty indicative of its ranking in the census list. Bryan, the twin city adjacent to College Station is more likely to be poor in the traditional sense. You might wonder why does College Station find a place in the list when there are other college towns like Athens (GA), Ann Arbor (MI), East Lansing (MI), Gainsville (FL), etc elsewhere in the nation. First, the other towns may have a population that falls short of the 65,000 mark that was used to demarcate cities in the list and second, some of the campus towns may be closer to larger metropolitan cities which absorb most college students as residents.

In light of this information, it would be helpful if the Census Bureau excluded predominantly college towns (50% or more student population) from its list of poor cities or at least indicate so in the rankings.

New Urbanism incorporates neighborhood walkability as one of the pivotal factors in improving quality of life as well as working toward conservancy. Considering that obesity is one of the rising health problems in the United States, walkability measures are also used to promote healthy living. Walkability measures in a neighborhood usually include calculating distances to amenities like schools, grocery stores, parks, libraries, etc. Considering the rise of online mapping services like Google Maps and cross referencing of various locations via innovative mashups, it was only a while before someone came up with a tool to measure the walkability of your neighborhood.

Walk Score is an extremely user-friendly website that lets you measure how walkable is your neighborhood (although the tag line mistakenly mentions how walkable is your house). The website even lists the various benefits of walking; all of which I agree with. All you do is plug in your home address and the website spits out a score between 0 and 100 to measure walkability of your neighborhood; with 0 being completely unfriendly and 100 being extremely friendly. So naturally I put in my home address and got the following result:

As you observe, the tool gave my neighborhood got a score of 54 which is not bad considering I live in a Texan town where everyone loves their cars especially if it is a pickup. Most of the amenities listed are within a mile [a one-mile walk is considered as a standard].

However, I must mention that I live in a relatively amenity-friendly neighborhood and the location was one of the primary factors in choosing this residence. At the same time, if you actually live in their neighborhood, walking to the grocery store isn’t as easy as it sounds even when the measured distance is 0.29 miles. Why? Lack of sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly crosswalks spanning major roads. If you have to go to HEB Grocery, the store mentioned on the map, you have to cross Texas Avenue which has been perennially under construction ever since I got to College Station. Moreover, due to the construction mess, you simply cannot dream of crossing over to the other side without your heart pounding in fear of being run over. This actually is quite a big deterrent to walking to nearby amenities even if you want to. Thus proximity isn’t the only factor in measuring walkability and urban features that actually promote such behavior are important as well.

Proximity to the Wolf Pen Creek park however has made the city of College Station build sidewalks on the way to the park but these are purely meant for exercise or recreational purposes. I would like the city to put in sidewalks not only for recreational purposes but also to facilitate walking to the stores. Like they say, build and they’ll come actually makes perfect sense in creating a walkable community. If you do not have sidewalks, how can you expect people to walk even if the distance is not much?

I live in a college town so probably can identify with the lure of one. UConn is taking that seriously as it sets out to build a college town from scratch.

Technorati Tags: college town, university, housing, city center, UConn

The best thing about Google Maps is the mashups you can do with different customizable services. MyApartmentMap was only waiting to be implemented. Fall is upon us and thousands of students will be apartment hunting not to mention working professionals who keep moving around. Looking for an apartment can be crazy although Craigslist has made things little easier. In fact, this site works in conjuction with Craigslist and use that listing to plot the locations using Google Maps. But this new tool makes it visually more pleasing as it combines apartment listings with Google Maps for easier comparison.

I managed to find one listing for College Station, the town that I currently live in. But the major cities are listed extensively and the more choices will be available as the site becomes more popular. You can sort by price, number of bedrooms, date the ad was posted, and of course, the locality. Pretty cool, eh?

Housing Maps is another related site with maps and housing ads.

Technorati Tags: apartment, for rent, College Station, Google maps, map, location, classifieds, search

We finally heard back from the EPA’s P3 [People, Prosperity, and Planet] Request for Proposals and sadly, they rejected our grant application. The reason - too ambitious and infeasible for the allocated grant money. Well, they are right. We had submitted a proposal suggesting developing a sustainable model to rebuild Southern Louisiana by seeking to analyze risk perceptions and economic necessities of residents that force them to make unsustainable choices.

On the flip side, it is not entirely lost. We can always choose to divide up our proposal and resubmit to other funding organizations or just modify this and send it off to a larger funding organization. In lieu of Katrina hurricane, we found our proposal quite timely and had managed to keep the scope of the project broad enough to warrant adequate examination of the research issues involved. Restricting ourselves to a particular region of Louisiana or just to media-popular New Orleans would have led us to ignore correlational factors that influence every move in the southern state.

Climate change data has shown how everything is interrelated and a little bit of tweaking elsewhere can have larger implications often unintended elsewhere. Developing a sustainable model for Louisiana (and New Orleans) cannot be a piecemeal project but has to encapsulate the larger region. This may not have been possible within the parameters of the P3 Project but hopefully, the EPA takes this issue seriously enough to allot more funds for such a study.

As I am continuously finding out, the wonderful thing about studying urban planning is to see the issues we study about simultaneously playing around in our community. We have been studying effect of zoning ordinances in our Housing and Community class and were handed a live case study to analyze. The fact that I could be affected by it (I almost was) is an added incentive to devote careful attention to the issue at hand. Bryan (College Station’s twin city) City Council is debating a change on its renter policies. The council is currently examining a proposal that would reduce the number of unrelated resident that can share a home from four to two. The proponents of the move cite cases of loud parties, increased traffic and trash that result from college students sharing rented houses. Now, just to give a little background, College Station is a student community; 45,000 students among the city’s 67,000-odd residents. Bryan, being almost next door also houses many students. If this proposal passes, students could face great inconveniences as they would have to rethink their housing options.

Normally, in order to reduce expenses, several students shack up in a house or an apartment; especially so if they happen to be Desi. Desis are known to live like sardines – 4 students in a two-bedroom house doesn’t raise any eyebrows (I have even seen and stayed more than 4 in an apartment). Americans prefer their own space and generally do not share a bedroom, which is often akin to your own personal space. After living in a typical Desi apartment for the past five years, I have begun to understand the conveniences of your own bedroom albeit at a higher cost.

Although the proposal under question is expected to impact only duplexes and single-family homes (apartments and fourplexes are exempted), the number of units that would be affected is still high at almost 8000 units. The student body, which by the way has a strong voice in these parts, is vehemently opposed to this move although the landlords have good reason to complain. Personally, I have been (rather my apartment) cited for causing loud noises and I can understand the inconvenience that this can cause. But on the other hand, loud noises and increased traffic during the weekend is expected in a student community. The proposal also would create a false illusion of housing shortages since a four-bedroom house cannot be leased to more than two unrelated people and two bedrooms would permanently remain vacant. This would skew the market and prices would rise, making it extremely unaffordable for students to rent housing in Bryan. Of course, College Station would benefit by providing more housing without the encumbrances of such a zoning ordinance.

Also, as one councilman who opposes the proposal says, “it is not fair to the kids that are good and maintain their yards and don’t have loud parties”. The City Council is thus generalizing student behavior and attempting to create a zoning ordinance that would affect even those that have generally been well-behaved. I propose that the decision should be left to individual landlords who if need be, can incorporate certain restrictions in their leases. For e.g. two police citations and they would have to evict. The hand of the law is pretty strong here and fines are stiff too. After our citation of almost $370 per resident, parties have literally come to a standstill and our house wears a deserted look even on weekends. Generalizing a regulation for all almost never works and people tend to find legal loopholes; instead financial disincentives in terms of fines and citations work better.