Classifying Opportunity Zones- A Model-Based Clustering Approach

Objective: Opportunity Zones (OZs) are the first major place-based economic development policy from the federal government in nearly two decades. To date, confusion persists among planners and policymakers in some places as to what features of OZ tracts matter for their inclusion, and, secondly, what features of OZ tracts make them attractive targets for potential investment. The authors developed a typology of OZ tracts in order to offer planners and policymakers alternative ways of organizing a highly variable set of tracts. Methods: This study employs model-based clustering, also known as latent class analysis, to develop a typology OZ tracts from the population of all eligible tracts in the United States. The authors use publicly available data from the US Census Bureau and Urban Institute in developing the typology. Descriptive statistics and graphics are presented on the clusters. Using Portland, Oregon as an example city, the authors present a cartographic exploration of the resulting typology. Results: OZs present with immense variation across clusters. Some clusters, specifically cluster 3 and 9, are less poor, have a greater number of jobs and higher development potential than other clusters. Additionally, these exceptional clusters have disproportionate rates of final OZ designation compared to other clusters. In Portland, these less distressed clusters make up the majority of ultimately designated OZ tracts in the city and are concentrated in the downtown area compared to the more deprived eastern part of the city. Conclusions: We find that OZ designation is disproportionately seen in particular clusters that are relatively less deprived than the larger population of eligible tracts. Cluster analysis as well as other forms of exploratory or inductive analyses can offer planners and policymakers a better understanding of their local development context as well as offering a more coherent understanding of a widely variant set of tracts

All For One and One For All: Regional Collaboration in Industrial Recruitment Strategies, A Comparative Case Study

The United States as a whole is still adjusting to the restructuring of the global economy that started in the 1960s, accelerated in the seventies and eighties, and runs, seemingly, uncontrolled today. This restructuring has lead to the fragmentation of once dominant, heavily vertically integrated firms and has made it close to impossible for the US to produce many goods as cheaply as those found in other areas of the world. Stagnating wages, a gutting of middle management positions, as well as rampant job loss in traditional manufacturing sectors characterize this restructuring. The gutting of these traditional manufacturing sectors not only decimated the cities of the Midwest and Rustbelt but it also severely affected many manufacturing economies in the south, including North Carolina. North Carolina saw thousands of textile and furniture jobs leave the state as manufacturers either failed or moved their factories overseas to cheaper production sites. This loss of work crippled many counties in the central and western parts of the state. Wilkes, Ashe, and Allegheny counties have taken this brutal experience to heart and have formed a regional strategy to make themselves more competitive and adaptive to the changing global marketplace. They do this by collaborating with each other on workforce development, education, recruitment, and retention. The eastern region of North Carolina, also decimated by losses due to global competition, responded in their own fashion. The region took a revolutionary and innovative step in the founding of the Global TransPark. The TransPark lies within the 13- county Eastern North Carolina Economic Development region. The TransPark is designed to be a comprehensive advanced manufacturing and transportation hub that takes advantage of the eastern region's proximity to major highway, rails, water, and air transport infrastructure. Both of these initiatives are novel and bold and speak to the rising necessity of regional planning and economic development in order for firms and regions to remain competitive and growing in this new globalized market place. That being said, there has been mixed success in these individual efforts in successfully recruiting new companies and maintaining the political will to keep these regional efforts. The TransPark, only recently successful in attracting some larger-sized firms, was initially deemed a disappointment in its ability to successfully attract new firms, as well as suffering from political infighting and a break down in the collaborative spirit. Whereas, in Wilkes, Ashe, and Allegheny counties there has been mixed success in attracting some firms to the region while simultaneously strengthening the bonds amongst the counties. This study will focus primarily on Wilkes, Ashe, and Allegheny counties and their Northwest North Carolina Advanced Materials Cluster comparing its structure and efforts with those of the early years of the Global Transpark.Master of City and Regional Plannin

Manufacturing in Place: Industrial Preservation in the US

In the face of growing economic inequality and population growth, several large cities in the US have started to proactively protect vital industrial lands from conversion to non-industrial uses. These new policies signal a potentially dramatic shift in both land-use and economic development practices. In the first essay of this dissertation I present a typology of existing industrial land protective policies after reviewing the comprehensive plans and zoning codes of the United States\u27 fifty largest cities. I identify 11 cities with protective policies and highlight the variance of these policies by offering a simple two part typology based upon a city\u27s use of increased usage restrictions or greater process requirements for conversion of protected parcels. The second essay presents results of a survey I administered to planners exploring the varied ways that planners understand the pressures facing industrial land in their cities and the political contexts they operate within regarding industrial land policy in their respective cities. I find that planners are generally supportive of industrial land protective policies but are ambivalent about the long term viability of industrial labor in cities and face political pressure to convert industrial land to non-industrial uses. The final essay presents an evaluation of protective land policies. I estimate a propensity score model measuring the change in manufacturing and broader industrial employment a the census tract level between 2009 and 2015 using LEHD LODES workplace association data. I estimate the propensity score model using a gradient boosted model and ultimately find a null effect of protective policies on manufacturing and industrial job growth

Portland’s Food Economy: Trends and Contributions

The primary goal of this report is to document the scope, growth, and contribution of the food economy to the city of Portland and the region. Specifically, this report addresses the following research questions: What is the food economy, and how is it defined? What is the size of Portland’s food economy, and how has it changed in recent years? How is the food economy distributed spatially within the city and the region? How is this changing? What kind of employment opportunities does Portland’s food economy offer? How do they compare to the broader economy? Who works in Portland’s food economy? How has Portland’s food economy performed relative to national trends? What is the broader impact and contribution of the Portland food economy to the overall regional economy, and to state and local government finances

In Support of “Difficult Data”

Jamaal Green is a doctoral candidate in the Urban Studies and Planning Department at PSU. He is an economic development planners, and a sometimes economic geographer, interested in the intersections of land-use and labor market outcomes. Specifically, his dissertation will be studying the conversion of industrial land to non-industrial uses in the country’s fifty largest cities and the politics therein. He cares passionately about the potential for planning to be a progressive force in the development of our cities. He uses GIS as a way to explore questions about the socio-spatial and socio-economic relations of city-regions from the locations of payday loan establishments to mapping the changing geography of manufacturing labor

Zoning for Jobs- Industrial Land Preservation in the Nation's Largest Cities

Major US cities are faced with a dilemma- how to accommodate a growing population and support urban industrial users. One response that some cities are taking is explicitly protecting swatches of industrial land as they realize the strategic value of plentiful industrial land. This piece reviewed industrial land use policies of the fifty largest US cities in 2012 and provides descriptions for 12 city industrial land preservation policies

Zoning for Jobs- Industrial Land Preservation in the Nation's Largest Cities

Major US cities are faced with a dilemma- how to accommodate a growing population and support urban industrial users. One response that some cities are taking is explicitly protecting swatches of industrial land as they realize the strategic value of plentiful industrial land. This piece reviewed industrial land use policies of the fifty largest US cities in 2012 and provides descriptions for 12 city industrial land preservation policies

Uneven Development of the Sustainable City: Shifting Capital in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon is renowned as a paradigmatic sustainable city . Yet, despite popular conceptions of the city as a progressive ecotopia and the accolades of planners seeking to emulate its innovations, Portland’s sustainability successes are inequitably distributed. Drawing on census data, popular media, newspaper archives, city planning documents, and secondary-source histories, we attempt to elucidate the structural origins of Portland’s uneven development , exploring how and why the urban core of this paragon of sustainability has become more White and affluent while its outer eastside has become more diverse and poor. We explain how a sustainability fix – in this case, green investment in the city’s core – ultimately contributed to the demarcation of racialized poverty along 82nd Avenue, a major north-south arterial marking the boundary of East Portland. Our account of structural processes taking place at multiple scales contributes to a growing body of literature on eco-gentrification and displacement and inner-ring suburban change while empirically demonstrating how Portland’s advances in sustainability have come at the cost of East Portland’s devaluation. Our 30,000 foot perspective reveals systemic patterns that might then guide more fine-grained analyses of particular political-socio-cultural processes, while providing cautionary insights into current efforts to extend the city’s sustainability initiatives using the same green development model