Ibrahim, Amir; El-Anwar, Omar; Marzouk, Mohamed. (2018). Socioeconomic Impact Assessment of Highly Dense-Urban Construction Projects. Automation In Construction, 92, 230 – 241.
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Abstract
Dense-urban construction is reported to affect the social and economic welfare of surrounding residents and local businesses in various ways. However, research studies and practical methodologies aimed at assessing to what extent the choice of a construction plan that reduces such effect are very limited. The objective of this paper is to present the development of an automated assessment methodology to fill this research gap. To this end, two formulations are presented; one based on multi-attributed utility functions and the other based on monetary compensations for disruptions caused by construction operations. Both formulations assess the impacts of construction plans on (1) increased travel distance; (2) residents' relocation; (3) business loss; (4) business closure; and (5) noise inconvenience. The proposed automated methodology is implemented in five sequential phases and utilizes Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Visual Basic Application (VBA). Using the proposed implementation, the two alternative formulations are applied to an infrastructure upgrading project in Cairo, Egypt that had five possible construction scenarios. While the two formulations resulted in the same preference order for the five scenarios, they exhibited different performance in terms of their (1) assessment relative values; (2) required input data and robustness; (3) ease of results interpretation; and (4) comprehensiveness and scalability. The developed framework shows promising results in terms of identifying and sorting the major root causes of the socioeconomic disruptions caused by dense urban construction. Results show that using the proposed methodology informs decision-making and planning at the early stages of a project, which in turn helps to reduce cost overruns and schedule delays.
Keywords
Construction Projects; Socioeconomics; Social Services; Construction Project Management; Building Design & Construction; Geographic Information Systems; Infrastructure (economics); Dense-urban Construction; Gis; Socioeconomic Assessment; Decision Making; Economics; Plant Shutdowns; Tourism Industry; Automated Assessment; Construction Operations; Construction Plan; Socio-economic Assessments; Socio-economic Impact Assessment; Urban Construction; Utility Functions; Visual Basic Application; Pavement Construction; Road; Sustainability; Behavior; Industry; Highway; Models; Choice
Walter, Rebecca J.; Caine, Ian. (2019). The Geographic And Sociodemographic Transformation Of Multifamily Rental Housing In The Texas Triangle. Housing Studies, 34(5), 804 – 826.
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Abstract
This study catalogues the location, clustering and sociodemographic distribution of the development of multifamily rental housing over the last five decades in the Texas Triangle, one of the fastest growing megaregions in the United States. The research reveals prior to the 1970s, apartments clustered in downtown areas; throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the development of apartments expanded to the suburbs and along major interstates; and in the 2000s, apartment growth continued in the peripheral areas while returning downtown. During this time period, apartments were developed most often in majority white, high-income and low-poverty neighbourhoods. These geographic and sociodemographic characteristics challenge widespread conceptions that equate multifamily rental housing with central city locations and low-income populations. The findings suggest that multifamily rental housing offers a powerful tool to increase residential density in downtown and suburban locations, while also accommodating a sociodemographically diverse population.
Keywords
Sociodemographic Factors; Rental Housing; Neighborhoods; Home Ownership; Housing Development; Apartments; Locational Patterns; Multifamily Rental Housing; Sociodemographics; Suburban Infill; Texas Triangle; City Centres; Central Business Districts; Housing; Poverty; Suburban Areas; Residential Density; Suburbs; Transformation; Catalogues; Density; Clustering; Income; Multiple Dwellings; Low Income Groups; Rentals; Catalogs; Texas; United States--us
Costa, Ana; Sass, Victoria; Kennedy, Ian; Roy, Roshni; Walter, Rebecca J.; Acolin, Arthur; Crowder, Kyle; Hess, Chris; Ramiller, Alex; Chasins, Sarah. (2021). Toward a Cross-Platform Framework: Assessing the Comprehensiveness of Online Rental Listings. Cityscape, 23(2), 327 – 339.
Abstract
Research on rental housing markets in the United States has traditionally relied on national or local housing surveys. Those sources lack temporal and spatial specificity, limiting their use for tracking short-term changes in local markets. As rental housing ads have transitioned to digital spaces, a growing body of literature has utilized web scraping to analyze listing practices and variations in rental market dynamics. Those studies have primarily relied on one platform, Craigslist, as a source of data. Despite Craigslist's popularity, the authors contend that rental listings from various websites, rather than from individual ones, provide a more comprehensive picture. Using a mixed-methods approach to study listings across various platforms in five metropolitan areas, this article demonstrates considerable variation in both the types of rental units advertised and the features provided across those platforms. The article begins with an account of the birth and consolidation of online rental platforms and emergent characteristics of several selected websites, including the criteria for posting, search parameters, search results priority, and first-page search results. Visualizations are used to compare features such as the 40th percentile of rent, rent distribution, and bedroom size based on scraped data from six online platforms (Padmapper, Forrent.com , Trulia, Zillow, Craigslist, and GoSection8), 2020 Fair Market Rents, and 2019 American Community Survey data. The analyses indicate that online listing platforms target different audiences and offer distinct information on units within those market segments, resulting in markedly different estimates of local rental costs and unit size distribution depending on the platform.
Though Transit Equity Day is just one day, the issue of equity on Seattle’s public transit is an ongoing and important conversation to Seattle and King County residents. Neighborhoods across the county have unequal access to transit lines; bus stops are often located in inconvenient or dangerous places due to oncoming traffic and lack of sidewalks; and bus schedules are irregular or sparse, with long wait times. These are just a few of the challenges folks might experience before getting…
Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Real Estate and CSDE Affiliate Arthur Acolin for being awarded a $10,000 Tier 2 seed grant for his project, “Accessory Dwelling Units as Potential Source of Affordable Housing Across Generations”. This grant is part of CSDE’s quarterly call for seed grant applications and is intended to help faculty initiate new research endeavors that have high relevance to population science and a strong chance of building towards extramural funding. Acolin will be conducting a joint project…
College is a time of exploration and discovery for all students. It is a time that often shapes how we view the world. Going through this transition during a moment of turbulence in the world can shape that experience significantly, which is exactly what happened for Assistant Professor of Real Estate, Arthur Acolin. As an undergraduate, international student in the US in 2008, the housing bubble and subsequent recession shaped Acolin’s future as a researcher and professor. “The subprime crisis…
The Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans) announced in January 2021 the project proposals selected for funding. Qing Shen, Professor of Urban Design and Planning and Chair of the Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Urban Design and Planning is among those selected for project funding. Shen is working alongside Co-Principal Investigator Catherine (Casey) Gifford–Innovative Mobility Senior Planner–on the applied research project titled “Supplementing fixed-route transit with dynamic shared mobility services: a marginal cost comparison approach”. The project goal is to address a…
Climate change, smart cities, urban economics and the interaction between human behavior and built environment
Research interests: Infrastructure Economics and Planning, Energy Infrastructure, and Urban Economics
The Urban Design & Planning Interdisciplinary Ph.D. at the University of Washington is one of 39 Ph.D. programs in urban and regional planning in North America, and one of the oldest, founded in 1967.
This program brings together faculty from disciplines ranging from Architecture to Sociology to focus on the interdisciplinary study of urban problems and interventions. Covering scales from neighborhoods to metropolitan areas, the program addresses interrelationships between the physical environment, the built environment, and the social, economic, and political institutions and processes that shape urban areas. The breadth of this program permits students to pursue doctoral studies in the various aspects of urban design and planning as well as in a number of related social science, natural resource, and engineering areas.
The Program seeks to prepare scholars who can advance the state of research, practice, and education related to the built environment and its relationship to society and nature in metropolitan regions throughout the world. The program provides a strong interdisciplinary educational experience that draws on the resources of the entire University, and on the laboratory provided by the Seattle metropolitan region and the Pacific Northwest. The program emphasizes the educational values of interdisciplinarity, intellectual leadership and integrity, and the social values of equity, democracy and sustainability. It seeks to promote deeper understanding of the ways in which public decisions shape and are shaped by the urban physical, social, economic, and natural environment. The program envisions its graduates becoming leaders in the international community of researchers, practitioners and educators who focus on improving the quality of life and environment in metropolitan regions.