Michigan Urban Planning Workfolio

Grengs, Levine and Others Awarded FHWA Grant to Develop New Indicators

The Federal Highway Administration has awarded a $118,569 grant to fund a 36 month research project led by U-M Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Joe Grengs and his co-investigators Professor and Chair of Urban Planning Jonathan Levine; Susan Zielinski, managing director of sustainable mobility and accessibility research and transformation at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research; Carl Simon, director of the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan; and Professor Qing Shen of the University of Maryland.

Titled "A National Comparison of Metropolitan Accessibility: Performance Indicators for Transportation Planning Reform" the research will "support a shift from mobility to accessibility in transportation policy by developing and estimating—for the first time—measures of accessibility that will enable a meaningful comparison between multiple metropolitan areas of the United States. An outcome of the research will be a new method—in the form of indicators that can be analyzed both within and between regions—by which to gauge the progress of policy on infrastructure and the built environment toward accessibility, which this project argues is central to sustainability in transportation and land-use policy."

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June Manning Thomas, the first Centennial Professor in Urban + Regional Planning, begins teaching at TCAUP in September 2007. Her primary area of interest is social justice, particularly as it relates to race and ethnicity. For Professor Thomas, social justice in urban planning is an article of faith as well as a lifelong goal.

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What makes a downtown district appealing? Why do people go out of their way to walk down one side of the street and not the other? These are some of the questions that recent MUP graduate Kirk Westphal tackles with his 19-minute documentary film, Insights into a Lively Downtown: An Ann Arbor, Michigan Case Study. In this audio-visual exploration of successful city streets, Insights weaves together pedestrian interviews with footage of streetscapes and sidewalk behavior to show what Ann Arbor's healthy blocks have in common.

By Kirk O. Westphal, M.U.P.'06 [kirkow(at)umich.edu]
19 minutes

In Michigan and elsewhere, common misperceptions persist, claiming that green buildings cost more than traditional ones and that there is no market for them. Some people think that green buildings will not “work” in Michigan.

This Michigan-specific handbook dispels these misperceptions and demonstrates that the cost premium for green buildings is minimal. Many green buildings cost less in the long-term and help create healthier social and natural environments. Green development has thrived in Michigan for over a decade now, as is evident from the case studies included in this handbook.

By Zeb Acuff, M.U.P. '05, Aaron Harris MBA/MS '06, Larissa Larsen, assistant professor of urban planning, Bryan Magnus, MBA/MS '05, Allyson Pumphrey, MLArch '05

108 pages

Jackson, Michigan was designated a “Cool City” in June 2004, a status that provided it priority access to state grants, loans, and other resources to assist revitalization efforts. U-M’s team competed with students from Michigan State University, Harvard, MIT, Wayne State, Arizona State, CalTech, and Cleveland State for a $25,000 prize based on the best proposal for the revitalization of an eight acre site in the city’s downtown.

Cool Cities Team

• Meg Bailey, M.U.P.
• Austin Dingwall, M.Arch./M.U.P.
• Kim Dresdner, M.U.P.
• Nayana Nayak, M.U.P.
• Raju Mann, M.U.P.
• Marisa McNee, M.P.P./M.U.P.
• Erin Rhodes, M.U.P.
• Lindsay Smith, M.S./M.U.P.
• Kirk Westphal, M.U.P.
• Peter Winch, M.U.P.
• JY Yoon, M.B.A.
• Liz Jellema, M.U.P. team leader

Faculty Advisors

• Wendy Rampson-Gage, lecturer in urban planning
• Sujata Shetty, lecturer in urban planning

52 pages

This booklet summarizes many of the projects that students and faculty undertook in the eleventh year of the Detroit Community Partnership Center’s existence and the second year of the Genesee County Initiative’s programs.

28 pages

The Task Force to End Chronic Homelessness in Southwest Detroit and the Springwells Village Council aim to find lasting solutions for problems facing homeless people who reside in Southwest Detroit and to create healthy, vibrant urban neighborhoods. The plan provides an overview of the current situation in the area and details strategies to achieve the goals through enhancing public understanding of homelessness and building problem-solving capacity, managing conflicts within neighborhoods and business districts, preventing homelessness, and improving housing options.

Students: Darci Dore, Katie Gottschall, Vanessa Haight, Kourtney Rice, Alfonso Rizo, Miranda Schell, Xerses Sidhwa

Faculty: Margaret Dewar, professor of urban planning

Community Partners: Task Force to End Chronic Homelessness in Southwest Detroit, Springwells Village Council

149 pages

This plan presents a strategy for reuse of blighted, contaminated, and functionally obsolete sites—“brownfields”—in Flint and the surrounding area. The plan aims to rejuvenate formerly thriving neighborhoods, increase the number of tax-generating properties, and reduce threats to public health. The plan provides an inventory of probable brownfields, a prioritization model for selecting high priority sites, recommendations for reuse for specific high priority areas, and possible roles for the BRA to assume in leading redevelopment.

Students: N. Beck, A. Chan, B. Kalra, R. Malloy, H. McPhail, R. Schneider, D. Somers, S. Traxler, X. Wang

Faculty: Margaret Dewar, professor of urban planning; Eric Dueweke, lecturer in urban planning

Community Partner: Genesee County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority

159 pages

If current trends provide an accurate glimpse into the future, the Great Lakes MegaRegion will increase in population by almost 25% by 2050. The Regional Plan Association’s (RPA) national campaign entitled “America 2050: A National Strategy for Global Competitiveness” is an attempt to create a national strategy for increasing America’s competitiveness in the global economy and accommodating this level of growth in a planned fashion. This plan is one part of that effort.

Students: Elizabeth Delgado, David Epstein, Yoohyung Joo, Raju Mann, Sarah Moon, Cheryl Raleigh, Erin Rhodes, Daniel Rutzick

Faculty: Margaret Dewar, professor of urban planning

53 pages

This guide provides information on techniques useful for defining and analyzing MegaRegions. Documenting and sharing these methods has many benefits, including:

1. Making comparisons possible across MegaRegions;
2. Reducing startup time for new teams beginning MegaRegion planning projects;
3. Helping to increase professional rigor behind the MegaRegion concept in the United States, which may lend credibility to policy recommendations;
4. Retaining knowledge too technical or detailed for the plans themselves, including the rationale behind decisions and the evolution of ideas;
5. Facilitating communication between current students and future students who work on MegaRegion plans by providing another written record;
6. Allowing an outlet for constructive critique—including self-critique—that is helpful for advancing MegaRegion planning but not possible within the confines of a final plan that must be clear and concise;
7. Providing the basis for eventually standardizing some indicators across MegaRegions.

Students: Elizabeth Delgado, David Epstein, Yoohyung Joo, Raju Mann, Sarah Moon, Cheryl Raleigh, Erin Rhodes, Daniel Rutzick

Faculty: Margaret Dewar, professor of urban planning

75 pages

The Grand Traverse District Neighborhood Association (GTDNA) is seeking a plan for actions to stabilize and revitalize their neighborhood. The association wants to expand on their past projects to improve the neighborhood, which have included trash clean-ups, flower plantings, and neighborhood festivals. This plan is a strategy for the association members to broaden participation and take on larger projects. The plan describes the current conditions of the neighborhood, defines the association’s vision for the future, and details actions that the association can take to pursue that vision.

Students: Christopher Bryant, Jonathan Ippel, Richard Murphy, Ja-Jin Wu, Adam Zettel, Jason Zimmer, Brandon Zwagerman, Amy Zwas

Faculty: Margaret Dewar, professor of urban planning; Eric Dueweke, lecturer in urban planning

Community Partner: Grand Traverse District Neighborhood Association

82 pages