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Research Theme: Policy & Law

Research aimed at influencing or assisting policymakers, as well as scholarship on laws and policy related to the built environment

The impact of penalties, incentives, and monitoring costs on the stakeholders’ decision-making behaviors in non-compliance drone operations

Wang, X., Yang, Y., Darko, A., Chan, A. P. C., & Chi, H.-L. (2024). The impact of penalties, incentives, and monitoring costs on the stakeholders’ decision-making behaviors in non-compliance drone operations. Technology in Society, 77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2024.102589

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Abstract

As an automated assistive tool, drones have revolutionized industrial activities and brought numerous potential benefits to society. However, irresponsible drone users often disregard compliance with regulations, leading to new challenges in drone usage. Although governments have implemented punishment and incentive mechanisms to prevent non-compliant drone operations, the extent to which they can effectively deter such activities remains unclear. To address this gap, the study employed evolutionary game theory to assess the impacts of penalties for non-compliance, incentives for public monitoring, and monitoring costs for the government on the multiple stakeholders' decision-making behaviors (SDBs). The study also used the Chinese construction market data to simulate how penalties, incentives, and monitoring costs influence SDBs. The numerical simulations reveal that penalties and incentives could reduce drone users' non-compliant operations, but this effect is useful only if the penalties and incentives exceed a certain value. In China, drone users' non-compliant operations can be controlled when penalties for drone users exceed 12,000 yuan, and incentives for the public's monitoring exceed 170 yuan/day. The current Chinese government's penalties that were administered for non-compliant drone operations have not achieved a deterrent effect, but the incentive is feasible. These findings provide a fresh insight into the decision-making behaviors of stakeholders in non-compliant drone operations. Additionally, the tripartite evolutionary game model developed in this study can assist other countries in determining optimal values for penalties, incentives, and monitoring costs to mitigate non-compliant drone operations effectively.

Pacific Coast Collaborative: Embodied Carbon Policy Case Studie

Kalsman, M., Lewis, M., Simonen, K. (2023). Pacific Coast Collaborative: Embodied Carbon Policy Case Studies. Carbon Leadership Forum, University of Washington. Seattle, WA. https://hdl.handle.net/1773/49771.

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Abstract

The PCC Low Carbon Construction Task Force, launched at COP26 in November 2021, is a regional initiative between California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, and Vancouver to advance low-carbon materials and methods in building and construction projects. The Task Force aims to create a shared regional strategy with the goal of accelerating innovation, investment, and market development for low carbon materials by leveraging the scale of the Pacific Coast regional economy. The CLF began supporting the taskforce as a technical resource in 2022.

These case studies showcase the region’s policy leadership on low-carbon construction and provide insights to inform other jurisdictions pursuing legislation and other policies within the Pacific Coast region and beyond.

Hoseok Sa

Research Interests: Regional econ. development (tech innovation, human capital, regional industry), Transportation planning/policy (travel behavior, mobility, sustainable transportation), intersection between planning (or transportation), population/public health, and climate change, and urban form

Jordan Palmeri

Jordan Palmeri is a Senior Researcher on the policy team at Carbon Leadership Forum. He’s an interdisciplinary scientist and policy advisor focused on reducing the lifecycle impacts of building materials. He is an experienced leader and facilitator with demonstrated success at multiple project scales, and a systems thinker with practical implementation strategies for private and public sector initiatives. Prior to joining the CLF, Jordan was an Environmental Scientist and Policy Analyst for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Helen Pineo

Helen Pineo is an urban planner and Research Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on how development, regeneration and urban policy can support health and sustainability. She contributes to the evidence base about why and how to do healthy urbanism by using transdisciplinary approaches and amplifying the needs of under-represented communities and the planet.

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Helen is currently leading Change Stories, a research project that uses ethnographic methods to learn from the cultures, narratives and contexts that have supported shifts to equitable and sustainable development. She is co-investigator on a study investigating the health and health equality impacts of housing converted from non-residential buildings in England, funded by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research. Her past research has used participatory, systems thinking and other methods, to study: overcrowding and COVID, integration of health objectives in new property development, conceptualization of multi-scalar health impacts of urban environments (see Healthy Urbanism, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), evidence use in government policy and decision-making, and urban health indicators and their use by planners.

Helen’s teaching and postgraduate supervision covers a broad range of healthy and sustainable urban environment topics. Her outreach activities include collaboration and advisory work with international organizations including the World Health Organization, the NHS England Healthy New Towns Programme, the Dubai Land Department, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society and the Obesity Health Alliance, among others.

Prior to joining UW in 2023, Helen lived and worked in London for 16 years. Most recently, she was an Associate Professor at University College London. Previously, she worked as an urban planner for over a decade on new developments and planning policy in the UK and internationally. She has worked at the Building Research Establishment, Local Government Association and in national and local government in the areas of sustainable urbanisation, health, climate change and low carbon energy. Helen holds degrees in Community and Environmental Planning and English Literature (B.A. 2003, UW), Linguistics (M.A., 2006, UCL) and Healthy and Sustainable Built Environments (Ph.D., 2019, UCL). She is a chartered member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Urban Design & Planning student selected for 2023 applied research fellow cohort

The Population Health Initiative announced the summer 2023 cohort of applied research fellows. Among the group of 5 students (3 graduate and 2 undergraduate) is Pamela Lim from the College of Built Environments Urban Design & Planning department. These students will spend 10 weeks over the summer working collaboratively with King County’s demographer and Public Health – Seattle & King County’s Assessment, Policy Development and Evaluation Unit with the support of the Population Health Applied Research Fellowship. The team will…

Time-Varying Food Retail and Incident Disease in the Cardiovascular Health Study

Lovasi, G. S., Boise, S., Jogi, S., Hurvitz, P. M., Rundle, A. G., Diez, J., Hirsch, J. A., Fitzpatrick, A., Biggs, M. L., & Siscovick, D. S. (2023). Time-Varying Food Retail and Incident Disease in the Cardiovascular Health Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 64(6), 877–887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2023.02.001

Seattle’s CHOP Guerrilla Garden as a “Thick” Space of Civil Resistance

Hou, J. (2023). Seattle’s CHOP Guerrilla Garden as a “Thick” Space of Civil Resistance. Local Environment, 28(2), 189–202.

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Abstract

More than just everyday acts of appropriation, guerrilla gardens have appeared in a growing number of civic protests. During Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) in 2020, a guerrilla garden was featured prominently within the six-block area taken over by protesters following a standoff with the Seattle Police. Through informal and semi-structured interviews with the garden leaders, volunteers, protesters, and neighbours who lived near the site, this study examines the garden's role and significance during the month-long protest. Findings suggested that the CHOP garden provided opportunities for social interactions among protesters as well as non-protesters. Through expanded engagement, the garden brought a wider range of individuals to the protest site. With its ability to engage broader participation, the garden helped mobilise additional human and material resources for the movement. Furthermore, the garden functioned as a place of learning that deepened the meanings and narrative of the movement. It also served as a place of refuge and relief during the tense occupation. Lastly, the social networks and relationships that emerged from the garden serve as a vehicle for sustaining the movement beyond the protest. As a place that facilitated these multilayered processes, these findings suggest that the CHOP Garden functioned as a “thick” space of civil resistance. The notion of thick space highlights the importance of specific spatial practices that can contribute significantly to the transformative outcomes of social movements.

Keywords

Guerrilla garden; protest; civil resistance; thick space; CHOP

Street Environments and Crime around Low-income and Minority Schools: Adopting an Environmental Audit Tool to Assess Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

Lee, Sungmin, Lee, Chanam, Won Nam, Ji, Vernez Moudon, Anne, & Mendoza, Jason A. (2023). Street Environments and Crime around Low-income and Minority Schools: Adopting an Environmental Audit Tool to Assess Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). Landscape and Urban Planning, 232.

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Abstract

• CPTED principles have been applied in school neighborhood safety. • Multiple crime types had significant associations with CPTED principles. • The cleanliness of streets and visual quality of buildings can reduce crime. • Being adjacent to multi-family housing and bus stops can increase crime. • The findings add to the evidence supporting the effectiveness of CPTED initiatives. Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) suggests an association between micro-scale environmental conditions and crime, but little empirical research exists on the detailed street-level environmental features associated with crime near low-income and minority schools. This study focuses on the neighborhoods around 14 elementary schools serving lower income populations in Seattle, WA to assess if the distribution of crime incidences (2013–2017) is linked with the street-level environmental features that reflect CPTED principles. We used a total of 40 audit variables that were included in the four domains derived from the broken windows theory and CPTED principles: natural surveillance (e.g., number of windows, balconies, and a sense of surveillance), territoriality (e.g., crime watch signs, trees), image/maintenance (e.g., graffiti and a sense of maintenance/cleanness), and geographical juxtaposition (e.g., bus stops, presence of arterial). We found that multiple crime types had significant associations with CPTED components at the street level. Among the CPTED domains, two image/maintenance features (i.e., maintenance of streets and visual quality of buildings) and two geographical juxtaposition features (i.e., being adjacent to multi-family housing and bus stops) were consistently associated with both violent and property crime. The findings suggest that local efforts to improve maintenance of streets and visual quality of buildings and broader planning efforts to control specific land uses near schools are important to improve safety in marginalized neighborhoods near schools that tend to be more vulnerable to crime. Our research on micro-scale environmental determinants of crime can also serve as promising targets for CPTED research and initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords

CPTED; Crime; Environmental audit; Micro-scale environment of Crime; Street environments