City of Hitchcock Comprehensive Plan 2020-2040

Hitchcock is a small town located in Galveston County (Figure 1.1), nestled up on the Texas Gulf Coast. It lies about 40 miles south-east of Houston. The boundaries of the city encloses an area of land of 60.46 sq. miles, an area of water of 31.64 sq. miles at an elevation just 16 feet above sea level. Hitchcock has more undeveloped land (~90% of total area) than the county combined. Its strategic location gives it a driving force of opportunities in the Houston-Galveston Region.The guiding principles for this planning process were Hitchcock’s vision statement and its corresponding goals, which were crafted by the task force. The goals focus on factors of growth and development including public participation, development considerations, transportation, community facilities, economic development, parks, and housing and social vulnerabilityTexas Target Communitie

Inequity of access across America: A spatial, temporal, and modal disparity analysis

The overarching goal of this dissertation is to examine the spatial, temporal, and modal disparity of access across America. This is achieved by posing three research objectives. The first objective determines the spatial and temporal disparity of transit and automobile access gap, its impact on transit use, and its socioeconomic and built environment correlates. The second objective examines the spatial and temporal disparity of slightly and extremely risky bike infrastructure and measures the social inequity of access to bike infrastructure. The third objective indicates spatial transit access mismatch between high- and low-wage employment across metropolitans. Three findings are discerned. First, the access gap between transit and automobile has a disproportionate effect on African Americans, low-income households, millennials, and car-free households. Second, socially vulnerable communities residing African Americans, Hispanics, and car-free households have the least access to slightly risky bike infrastructure and yet the least prioritized in urban planning and bike infrastructure investments. Third, transit acts as a catalyst to widen spatial mismatch and discriminate socially vulnerable population particularly African Americans and car-free household

Equity of bike infrastructure access in the United States: a risky commute for socially vulnerable populations

This study examines the bike access risk gap (BARG) for commuting in the 50 most populated metropolitan areas in the United States and equips bike advocates with the knowledge and tools necessary to identify the priority areas that need bike infrastructure improvements and the well-connected low-stress bike infrastructure. The analysis (i) examines the average BARGs of metropolitan areas for twelve travel time thresholds, (ii) considers the temporal and spatial disparities of slightly and extremely risky bike infrastructure, and (iii) reveals the disproportionate exposure of socially vulnerable populations to extremely risky bike infrastructure for a journey to work. The results indicate that (i) few metropolitan areas are associated with slightly risky bike infrastructure, (ii) the exposure to extremely risky bike infrastructure becomes more likely as commute travel time increases, and (iii) African Americans, Hispanics, low-income, and carless households are disproportionally exposed to extremely risky bike infrastructure and yet are the least prioritized in urban planning and bike infrastructure investments. The findings offer insights for identifying areas in which constructing low-stress bike infrastructure on or near high-stress bike infrastructure narrows the BARG

Spatial equity of modal access gap to multiple destination types across Chicago

This study examines the Modal Access Gap (MAG) between transit and automobile to employment, groceries, hospitals, and schools in 15-min, 30-min, 45-min, and 60-min travel-time thresholds in the City of Chicago. We use automobile and transit access data from the Metropolitan Chicago Accessibility Explorer and augment it with data from the American Community Survey and the Smart Location Database. We employ a Spatial Lag Model to explore sociodemographic and built-environment correlates of MAG and the bivariate local indicator of spatial association to create cluster maps to offer a way to assess the spatial equity of MAG as it relates to carless households. The findings indicate that: (1) regardless of the travel-time threshold, the automobile has an advantage over transit in providing access to opportunities, (2) block groups with low MAG are concentrated and clustered in the Central Business District, (3) Millennials and car-free households are more likely to reside in areas with lower accessibility gap to employment, groceries, hospitals, and schools for 30-min and 60-min travel-time thresholds, and (4) areas with high access gap and a high proportion of carless households have a higher percentage of African Americans and low-income households. We recommend using the bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis to classify areas according to the gap in accessibility and proportion of households without vehicles. This classification is then used to prioritize different planning actions for high-high, high-low, low-high, and low-low combinations of MAG and the proportion of carless households. We also show that this spatial identification, at least in the case of Chicago, captures racial and economic differences in the underlying population and can help address inequities in accessibility, particularly in high access gap, high carless areas

Health system gaps in cardiovascular disease prevention and management in Nepal

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of deaths and disability in Nepal. Health systems can improve CVD health outcomes even in resource-limited settings by directing efforts to meet critical system gaps. This study aimed to identify Nepal's health systems gaps to prevent and manage CVDs. METHODS: We formed a task force composed of the government and non-government representatives and assessed health system performance across six building blocks: governance, service delivery, human resources, medical products, information system, and financing in terms of equity, access, coverage, efficiency, quality, safety and sustainability. We reviewed 125 national health policies, plans, strategies, guidelines, reports and websites and conducted 52 key informant interviews. We grouped notes from desk review and transcripts' codes into equity, access, coverage, efficiency, quality, safety and sustainability of the health system. RESULTS: National health insurance covers less than 10% of the population; and more than 50% of the health spending is out of pocket. The efficiency of CVDs prevention and management programs in Nepal is affected by the shortage of human resources, weak monitoring and supervision, and inadequate engagement of stakeholders. There are policies and strategies in place to ensure quality of care, however their implementation and supervision is weak. The total budget on health has been increasing over the past five years. However, the funding on CVDs is negligible. CONCLUSION: Governments at the federal, provincial and local levels should prioritize CVDs care and partner with non-government organizations to improve preventive and curative CVDs services.</p

City of Hitchcock Comprehensive Plan 2020-2040

Hitchcock is a small town located in Galveston County (Figure 1.1), nestled up on the Texas Gulf Coast. It lies about 40 miles south-east of Houston. The boundaries of the city encloses an area of land of 60.46 sq. miles, an area of water of 31.64 sq. miles at an elevation just 16 feet above sea level. Hitchcock has more undeveloped land (~90% of total area) than the county combined. Its strategic location gives it a driving force of opportunities in the Houston-Galveston Region.The guiding principles for this planning process were Hitchcock’s vision statement and its corresponding goals, which were crafted by the task force. The goals focus on factors of growth and development including public participation, development considerations, transportation, community facilities, economic development, parks, and housing and social vulnerabilityTexas Target Communitie