Tri-campus survey aims to identify student struggles with housing, food costs
In a region as expensive as the Puget Sound, making ends meet affects college students, too. Rent, utilities and food can run into the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a month – and for students without the means, it’s a daunting and sometimes compromising challenge.
Urban@UW is trying to learn more about the situations facing students. From now through March 16, a survey is available for students ages 18 or older at all three University of Washington campuses. The voluntary survey is confidential. Organizers say the information is vital to learning more about how students confront housing and food insecurity.
“It’s a broad perception and assumption that students in post-secondary education don’t have an issue with meeting basic needs,” said Rachel Fyall, an assistant professor of public policy in the Evans School and faculty chair of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative. “In the Puget Sound region, we have experienced exponential increases in the cost of living, mostly associated with housing costs, but there’s been no systematic effort to understand how that affects students.”
Urban@UW is an interdisciplinary effort to tackle city issues through research, teaching and community collaboration. Last fall, faculty involved in the Homelessness Research Initiative debuted The Doorway Project, a quarterly café, with outreach services, targeted at homeless youth and the University District neighborhood as a whole. The most recent pop-up café, held Feb. 25, served more than 120 people in the parking lot of the University Heights Center. The next is scheduled April 22 in the same location.
Continue reading at UW News
Originally posted on UW News by Kim Eckart
Urban Scholar Highlight: Rachel Fyall
Rachel Fyall is an Assistant Professor in the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, and the Faculty Chair of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative. We sat down with her last quarter to discuss her work.
What you do at the UW and what led you to your current research interests?
The main thing I study and teach about is the role and interaction of nonprofits with government, both through advocacy and in public service delivery, primarily in the fields of low-income housing and homelessness. Before getting my Ph.D., I worked locally at the Housing Development Consortium of Seattle-King County. That’s where I first got involved in housing and homelessness issues.
How do your current research interests intersect with urban issues?
There are nonprofits in all communities, but there is a concentration of nonprofits in urban areas, due to concentrations of funding, and of people who are interested and want to make an impact. For homelessness as well as other social services, government has a long history of delivering public programs through nonprofits, so it is an interesting research context because we have a lot of public money going to nonprofits to deliver the actual programs.
How has your research in homelessness informed your teaching?
When I teach nonprofit management, I often use homelessness as the example of how the public and nonprofits are working together to try to tackle a very difficult issue. Also, innovation often comes from the nonprofit sector as they try new approaches to alleviate homelessness, and these ideas are sometimes adopted or integrated into broader policy. We saw that with the Housing First strategy, which was really pioneered by nonprofits then shown to be effective, and now it’s pretty standard that governments are supportive of and trying to help expand that strategy in their own programs. Also, I teach policy analysis, and homelessness is a very interesting case to think about what you can do to address problems within the constraints of policy. If you are a city government, there is only so much you can do: you only have so much money, you only have so much control, and yet you want to be able to make a difference. And homelessness is an example where you can find hundreds of meaningful programs that might make a difference, and as a policymaker you have to choose how you are going to use your limited resources and expertise.
How do you think about the use of data or evidence when making policy changes?
I think that statistics as well as qualitative data—getting at the mechanisms underlying programs—are very important to provide feedback to policymakers, nonprofits implementing the programs, and the program participants themselves, to evaluate if this is the right way forward. I absolutely think that data and evaluation are important, because these are public dollars and we want to be as smart as we can when using that money.
Based on your work, what do you believe is the most effective approach to address homelessness in Seattle?
I think we need a lot more housing. From my perspective, homelessness is fundamentally a problem of housing affordability, and while people experiencing homelessness experience a lot of other challenges aside from housing affordability, the lack of housing is the thing that defines them as homeless. And right now, Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities in this country and it’s very difficult to build housing at the same rate that people arrive. We need not just more housing, but also a mindful use of policy tools to help match the kind of housing that’s being built with what people need. For example, one-bedroom units won’t really have a meaningful impact on families who are trying to stay together or may otherwise be pushed out of Seattle. We need more housing across the spectrum to make sure that we are not creating a city that only includes certain types of people or households.
What do you see for the future of research and policy-making in homelessness?
We want to believe that we are learning from our experiences and not making the same mistakes over and over, and that we are finding more ways to be innovative and adapt to new challenges. I think we are getting smarter; I think that there has been some really good research recently done on a national scale that is influencing policy conversations. But, because of the quick pace that policy can be passed compared to the slow pace of research, sometimes we move forward with policies that have not been researched fully, and there isn’t really a way around that. I hope there is a dedication to following those policies to make sure we’re learning about them as they are being rolled out, even if we don’t know beforehand how they will work.
What role do partnerships play in adding value to your work?
A lot of the research that I have been involved in has been with the Downtown Emergency Service Center, which is one of the largest nonprofit service providers in the city. One of our projects also collaborates with Pathways to Housing, and another researcher from DePaul University, so a really collaborative effort. Another project that we’re working on, with Urban@UW, is a survey of student experiences with housing or food insecurity. For that project, which we are implementing next month, we are connecting with faculty and staff on all 3 UW campuses, looking to see what we can learn in a systematic way about the experiences about housing and food insecurity among our own student body.
If you were to recommend one book to an aspiring urban scholar, what would it be?
Well, if you want to know about housing policy then “Housing Policy in the United States” is the text book I have used in my class. It can be it is a very dense read but the field is extremely complex, and that book is a great introduction for anyone who wants to get in the weeds of housing policy while still understanding the scope. Everything from housing authorities to vouchers to nonprofit subsidized developments, to homelessness programs, to foreclosures, everything, so I have to recommend that book.
I am also excited to read Scott Allard’s book :“Places in Need: The Changing Geography of Poverty,” which explores the suburbanization of poverty, which is very interesting for people in housing and homelessness because of what we know about housing and the city.
Written by Shahd Al Baz, Urban@UW Communications Assistant
Three housing myths, debunked: poverty, property values, and gentrification
Flickr: Mark Moz: Labeled for reuse
Homeownership can come with a hefty supply of emotions, paperwork and financial planning. And as one grows more attached to a residence over the years, feelings often deepen as house becomes home and memories start to accumulate.
So when terms like gentrification, poverty and low-income housing are bandied about in your neighborhood, you may be somewhat wary. But not so fast. Common misconceptions surround these topics. Myths abound. University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance Professor and Urban@UW executive committee member Scott Allard addresses the falsehoods and truths behind them.
Continue reading at Tri-City Herald
Originally posted on Tri-City Herald by Chicago Tribune
Urban@UW compiles Faculty Highlights Report for research, teaching and engagement on homelessness
As part of its recently launched Homelessess Research Initiative, Urban@UW has collaborated with faculty and staff across all three UW campuses to compile a broad-ranging selection of powerful and robust projects addressing homelessness from a research lens. Check out the Faculty Highlights Report to learn more about these efforts and the people behind them.
The Faculty Highlights Report was developed by Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative.
UW researchers analyze effects of minimum wage on seattle food prices
CC A- SA 3.0 Photo Copyright © Jack Gavigan 2009 Wikimedia commons
Affiliates UW Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Health Services Jennifer Otten (lead author), UW Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance Jake Vigdor, and Evans School’s Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Public policy and Governance and Adjunct Professor of Economics Mark Long recently published a paper titled “The Impact of a City-Level Minimum-Wage Policy on Supermarket Food Prices in Seattle-King County” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Many states and localities throughout the U.S. have adopted higher minimum wages, and higher labor costs among low-wage food system workers could result in higher food prices. However, this study finds no evidence of change in supermarket food prices by market basket or increase in prices by food group in response to the implementation of Seattle’s minimum wage ordinance. This paper is part of a broader Minimum Wage Study at the University of Washington.
Continue reading at CSDE News and Events
Originally posted on Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology News and Events
Urban Scholar Highlight: Scott Allard
Scott W. Allard is a Professor of Public Affairs at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. Allard is also on the executive committee of the West Coast Poverty Center and Urban@UW, and an affiliate of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. We sat down with him to discuss his work at the UW and beyond.
How do your current research interests intersect with urban issues?
My work focuses on issues of poverty place and safety-net participation. Historically, poverty problems have been concentrated in the cities of the US; even today as the majority of poor people in our metro areas live in the suburbs, poverty rates remain much higher in cities. Problems of poverty are also much more persistent in cities, and often more racially segregated in cities than in suburban or other areas.
What led you to studying poverty?
When I was a college student, my dad lost his job. He didn’t have a college degree and he struggled to find work for a long time. Around this time I took a class in social policy and later started to do research with the professor. And I thought, if I did work that advanced our understanding of the safety net and how society could better provide help, we could help workers who have a hard time finding or keeping jobs. It seemed if I could do research around poverty and policy, it had the potential to help folks – like my Dad—who struggled sometimes to make ends meet.
How do you think research in poverty has changed over the years?
I think we have a better understanding today of the many factors that lead families to have income near or below the poverty line. We also have a better understanding of which programs best help families escape poverty or weather periods of hardship, and of what it takes to help workers without advanced education or training to find and keep good paying jobs. I also think we understand more of the racial and ethnic inequalities that underlie a lot of our poverty problems, although there remains much we need to know about inequality in the US.
What other fields of study do you regularly work with?
My work is very interdisciplinary. I draw on the work of sociologists, economists, political scientists, public health and social work, and sometimes urban planning and design. My interest in cross-disciplinary research also leads me to engage practitioners and policy-makers from a variety of different sectors whether that’s at the federal level, in state agencies or local government, or locally based non profit agencies. This outreach is something I’m working on these days, as I’m relatively new to Seattle and look forward to opportunities around issues of social service provision and poverty programming.
What would you say are the top challenges facing cities today? One of the biggest challenges today is the shifts in the labor market, where we’re creating many high-paying jobs that require a lot of education and training, and then we’re creating an abundance of low-paying jobs that don’t require a lot of advanced training. This leads to not only income inequality but also difficulties for people with less access to education and training to earn enough to provide the basics for their families.
Second, research clearly points to committing resources to early childhood education, and I think cities face significant challenges in dedicating resources to public education that supports kids from birth through college.
Last, many metro areas face both traffic gridlock problems but also limited access to and availability of public transit options. As cities become more dense and in many ways more vibrant places, solving those transportation problems is important for families across the income spectrum.
What do you see for the future of poverty research and policy-making? Right now we live in a politicized environment, which doesn’t take evidence seriously in policy debates. I worry that today’s ideological divides create a lot of challenges for researchers, policymakers, and for advocates who are interested in the value of evidence to improve programs and policies. Even though there may be limited interest in poverty policy at the federal level now, there is lots of opportunity with states and local governments to develop and study new tools or solutions, or to experiment with new programs.
So, gathering good data seems key to addressing poverty challenges.
When we don’t have good data about the nature of our poverty problems its hard for us to develop effective interventions. We risk pursuing policies or programs that either have no effect or unintended consequences. Low-income households don’t deserve just any program or policy; they deserve programs and policies that will work, and that will increase opportunity. We have an obligation to weigh objective evidence when we make policy that affects the most vulnerable families in our community.
What led you to UW?
One of the reasons I was attracted to UW and the Evans School—I moved here from the University of Chicago a few years ago—was of the large number of scholars in various departments interested in urban issues. I’m excited to see how the work of the university and the Urban@UW community continue to evolve together. I hope in the coming years we develop insights and solutions that will help the region tackle the many challenges it faces.
If you could give aspiring urban scholars a piece of advice, what would it be?
Spend time in communities engaging with local organizations. Spend time with families and case workers, program managers on the grounds.That kind of street-level perspective helps you not only identify important questions, it also helps makes sure that you’re answering those questions with integrity and with a grounding in real-world experience. Its easy for us to study urban problems far removed from the communities that are vulnerable. Rolling up our sleeves and spending time in neighborhoods and communities is critical to developing inclusive and culturally competent solutions.
Thank you!
Written by Shahd Al Baz, Urban@UW Communications Assistant
How a rising minimum wage affects jobs in Seattle
Flickr, 1950sUnlimited, CC:BY:2.0
Three years ago, Seattle became one of the first jurisdictions in the nation to embrace a $15-an-hour minimum wage, to be phased in over several years. Over the past week, two studies have purported to demonstrate the effects of the first stages of that increase — but with diverging results.
Mark C. Long, professor in the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, shares his perspective on the issue.
Continue reading at the New York Times
Originally posted on the New York Times by Noam Scheiber
American poverty is moving to the suburbs
CCA:by:2.0 : Wikimedia commons
In his inaugural address, US president Donald Trump listed out the problems he saw in a declining America. At the top of his list: “Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities.” It was not the first time Trump had spoken of urban poverty. “Our inner cities are a disaster,” Trump said in the third presidential debate of 2016. “You get shot walking to the store. They have no education. They have no jobs.”In addition to their racist undertones, Trump’s statements promote a dangerous misrepresentation of the geography of poverty in the United States.
Over the last several decades, US poverty has increasingly spread to the suburbs. In 1990, the majority of poverty in the 100 largest US metro areas was found in urban areas. But recent research by the political scientist Scott Allard at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. shows that, in absolute numbers, this no longer holds true. The University of Washington professor estimates that there are 17 million people living in poverty in the suburbs of the US’s big cities—4 million more than in cities themselves.
Continue reading at Quartz
Honoring Women Collaborators at Urban@UW
credit: Jessica Hamilton
In honor of International Women’s Day, we are highlighting just some of UW’s brilliant female professors, scholars, and and change-makers with whom Urban@UW is proud to collaborate. Click on their names to explore their work.
Leadership:
Thaisa Way, Executive Director, Urban@UW; Department of Landscape Architecture
Executive Committee:
Margaret O’Mara, Department of History
Susan P. Kemp, School of Social Work
Steering Committee:
Marina Alberti, Department of Urban Design and Planning
Sally Clark, Director of Regional and Community Relations
Sara Curran, Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Kim England, Department of Geography
Alexes Harris, School of Sociology
Anne Taufen Wessells, Department of Urban Studies
UW Leadership:
Mary Lidstrom, Vice Provost of Research
Ana Mari Cauce, President
Staff and Student Assistants:
Shahd Al Baz, Jackson School of International Studies
Avanti Chande, the Information School
Jen Davison, Urban@UW
Jess Hamilton, Department of Landscape Architecture
Collaborators, Thought Partnerse and Co-Conspirators:
Rachel Berney, Department of Urban Design and Planning
Erin Blakeney, School of Nursing
Ann Bostrom, Evans School of Public Policy and Governance
Sara Breslow, Center for Creative Conservation
Heather Burpee, Department of Architecture
Anat Caspi, Computer Science and Engineering
Seema Clifasefi, School of Medicine
Susan E. Collins, School of Medicine
Kristie L. Ebi, Center for Health and the Global Environment
Kelly Edwards, Graduate School
Sarah Elwood, Department of Geography
Josephine Ensign, School of Nursing
Claudia Frere-Anderson, UW Sustainability
Rachel Fyall, Evans School of Public Policy and Governance
Lisa Graumlich, College of the Environment
Amy Hagopian, School of Public Health
Shannon Harper, West Coast Poverty Center
Judith A. Howard, School of Sociology
Janine Jones, College of Education
Lisa Kelly, School of Law
Victoria Lawson, Department of Geography
Hedwig E. Lee, School of Sociology
Lynne Manzo, Department of Landscape Architecture
Linda Nash, Department of History
Paula Nurius, School of Social Work
Jennifer Otten, School of Public Health
Michaela Parker, eScience Institute
Gundula Proksch, Department of Architecture
Jennifer Romich, West Coast Poverty Center
Aiko Schaefer, School of Social Work
Amy Snover, Climate Impacts Group
Sarah Stone, eScience Institute
LuAnne Thompson, School of Oceanography
Edwina Uehara, School of Social Work
Rachel Vaughn, Carlson Leadership and Public Service Center
Jan Whittington, Department of Urban Design and Planning
Working with community to tackle homelessness
Wikimedia Commons, Sage Ross, CC 4.0
Seattle’s rapid rise in homelessness, coinciding with increasing costs in housing and living, have brought significant challenges to economically vulnerable populations in the Puget Sound. In spite of a sense of urgency regionally and in many areas of the country, sufficient resources, effective systemic fixes and broad support still have not come together to end homelessness.
As a research and teaching institution, the University of Washington seeks to develop strategies to address the problems facing citizens experiencing homelessness. These efforts include developing rigorous research questions and projects, analyzing the barriers to housing, and working with practitioners and civic leaders to find sustainable solutions.
University of Washington faculty and students are now looking to how we might expand our capabilities and our connections with communities to collaboratively work to mitigate the effects of homelessness, improve access to and retention of housing, and contribute to ending homelessness.
As policymakers, communities, and practitioners consider changes in priorities and services to address the recently accelerated rise in homelessness, new research questions and needs arise requiring ethical monitoring and the implementation of productive and effective measures. This presents both an opportunity and challenge for the University of Washington.
One effort to build on the UW’s work includes Urban@UW working in collaboration with the West Coast Poverty Center and other key partners to catalogue existing homelessness-related projects and research across the University’s departments and centers, in order to gain insights into strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. A faculty retreat in fall 2016 brought together researchers and practitioners from across UW’s three campuses to share information and develop new projects.
Connecting researchers from various and occasionally disparate fields is essential to fostering new collaborations capable of advancing thinking at a rate commensurate with the challenge at hand. By building a network of current initiatives we aim to facilitate the development of new opportunities for those interested in participating; and foster research that improves data analytics, evaluates policies and strategies, and addresses the barriers to housing for the diverse populations experiencing homelessness.
As part of increasing research and data analytic approaches to homelessness, Urban@UW organized a workshop at the 8th International Conference on Social Informatics conference in downtown Bellevue, WA in November 2016. Local and national researchers presented their work on technological and data-driven solutions to improve services, understand population processes, and develop effective community interaction with persons experiencing homelessness.
Additionally, on January 17 and 18, the MetroLab Network, a national city-university network hosted by the City of Seattle and the University of Washington, met in Seattle City Hall for a Big Data and Human Services Workshop. Keynote speakers and breakout discussions explored ways to direct research and technology to improve services while addressing income inequality, health, mobility, and homelessness. The School of Social Work will be Urban@UW’s partner in addition to others as we move forward in this arena.
Many UW faculty staff and students work, and many have worked for decades, in different ways to end or ameliorate the effects of homelessness. Urban@UW takes the challenge of how to propel this work forward and, though smarter collaboration, increase effectiveness. As UW and Urban@UW build a collective homelessness initiative, we look forward to more opportunities for community stakeholders to participate. Keep an eye out for updates from Urban@UW and the University of Washington regarding these issues. If would like more targeted communication about homelessness, please consider joining our mailing list, or our listserv for urban-related information and events. Any questions may be sent to urbanuw@uw.edu.
Written by the staff of Urban@UW.
Reflections on Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change
Photo by: David de la Cruz
On November 7th and 8th Urban@UW, in collaboration with the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group (CIG), hosted a symposium to begin transdisciplinary conversation on the multifaceted dynamics and consequences of Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change (UEJ). Below are some reflections from this event, and a sample of the resources we’ll be sharing from our time together.
Urban environmental justice has been impacting cities for centuries, if not millennia, where unequal power distribution creates disparate living conditions that typically fall along racial, ethnic, and class lines. Climate change is expected to accelerate already existing injustices in vulnerable communities. Flooding islands and coastlines, drought conditions, erosion, aridity, and soil loss are already impacting multitudes of marginalized as well as traditionally subsistence and agricultural communities.
Jacqui Patterson, Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, argued during her Walker-Ames lecture that these communities are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, but that impacts will not be isolated to such communities. Rather, given time and continued inaction, people of all races and classes will invariably experience the hardships wrought by the adverse conditions of climate change.
Given the scale of impacts of these challenges, a major goal of the UEJ symposium was to gather community leaders, academics, and the public to begin learning from each other on the topic of urban environmental justice: what are you studying, what are you finding, what’s working and what’s not, what partnerships could be made? Perhaps most critically, how does academia engage with communities and institutions in a way that is not only respectful, but collaborative and community-driven?
While academics have been working on environmental justice issues for decades, this work too often tends to operate within the confines of the academy and overlooks stakeholder input. Speakers at the UEJ symposium, experts in this field, explained that this tendency leads to insulated input from those most affected, and further confines data and analysis to traditional quantitative information such as geospatial data, census results, and other forms of ‘hard data.’ This pattern thus restricts the inclusion of “non-traditional” forms of data, notably those understandings drawn from the lived experiences of those most affected. Therefore the goal is not simply to include more types of information, but to combine quantitative and qualitative data through collaboration between researchers and communities in order to more robustly and comprehensively document injustices in a way that allows legibility, participation, and engagement of a greater diversity of people, scholars, and community members.
A further challenge comes in addressing the deep structural issues of racism, sexism, and classism that pervade the behavior of some communities as well as larger social and political institutions. Tom Goldtooth, director of Indigenous Environmental Network, spoke to us via live audio feed from Standing Rock and made clear to the audience that although the scale of this particular protest may be significant, this is just an example of the repeatedly lived experiences for disenfranchised peoples wherein the needs and actions of state actors and/or corporations are able to avoid repercussions of land seizure, pollution, or treaty infringements.
Furthermore, the scope of injustices is not simply urban. While cities have increasingly been the focus of a trove of writing on the topic, a more accurate perspective must recognize that urban does not simply mean “city” – but should better refer to the regions that urban, peri-urban, and rural communities all participate in. While cities may have denser populations, environmental justice persists across the entire spectrum of environments. Julie Sze, professor and Chair of American Studies at UC-Davis, explained the demarcations of neighborhood, town, or city all fail to account for the scale of consequences of climate change effects and environmental injustices, and argued for the necessity of deep, inclusive collaboration and communication.
Many visiting scholars and panelists, including Mia White, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Kim Powe, and Jill Mangaliman, indicated that environmental injustices are not rooted in isolated moments of conflict, but rather are the result of a sustained conflict where market forces and structural disenfranchisement may repeatedly infringe upon sovereignty, food systems, human health and well-being, and environmental integrity. Discovering points of action in these complex issues will require that academics and others collapse the usual barriers of collaboration and information access.
Looking forward, the conversation among scholars, activists and other attendees argued that a failure to reach across usual lines—of discipline, sector, class, race, gender, and other differences—will effect the continued, critical loss of skills and experiences for both students and scholars, that may be compounded by a collective loss for the academy and their communities to know and learn from each other. Scientists, policymakers, community members and others can make it so their work is not only collaborative, but inclusive and broadly informed.
Below is a selection of readings from the speakers who joined us for this event. More resources, including video from the event, will be published soon.
- Tom Goldtooth, Why REDD/REDD+ Is Not a Solution, No REDD Papers Volume 1, edited by Hallie Boas,13-25, Indigenous Environmental Network and Carbon Trade Watch, 2011.
- Rachel Morello-Frosch, The Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Health of Everyone: The Relationship Between Social Inequality and Environmental Quality
- Jacqueline Patterson, Climate Change is a Civil Rights Issue. The Root, 2010.
- Julie Sze, “Exploratory Concepts, Case Studies and Keywords for Teaching Environmental Justice and Climate Change from the Humanities”,Teaching Climate Change in Literary and Cultural Studies, edited by Stephanie LeMenager, Stephen Siperstein and Shane Hall, 184-190. Routledge, 2017.
- Mia White, “Gender, Race, and Place Attachment: The Recovery of a Historic Neighborhood in Coastal Mississippi.” In The Women of Katrina, 157-68. Vanderbilt University Press, 2012.
Urban@UW hosted the Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change Symposium together with the Climate Impacts Group, and was a sponsor for the Graduate School’s Walker Ames lecture featuring Jacqui Patterson.
First Livable City Year projects underway; kickoff event Oct. 6
Jen Davison, Urban@UW, University of Washington
Not even a week has passed since the start of the quarter, and already a group of University of Washington public health students is deep into discovering the cultural flavor and identity of each neighborhood in a nearby city.
The project is a sizeable challenge: Students will pour over census and public health data, interview residents, photograph neighborhoods and summarize their findings in a report. The end result will help officials in Auburn, Washington, know how to best engage and communicate with the culturally diverse populations in the city.
The neighborhoods endeavor is one of 10 initial projects in the UW’s inaugural Livable City Year program, which pairs university professors and students with Auburn staff to advance the city’s goals for livability and sustainability. The idea is to give students real-world experiences while addressing current needs identified by city leaders.
The program will formally celebrate the start of its first year at 10 a.m. Oct. 6 at wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House on the UW’s campus in a kickoff event open to all. Professors leading Livable City Year courses this fall will talk about their projects, followed by a time for Q&A.
“My students are really excited to be part of a larger initiative,” said India Ornelas, a UW assistant professor of health services who is teaching the class that will profile each Auburn neighborhood.
“They get to do something they really know will be valued and practice their professional skills to engage with each community.”
The new program is a cross-university collaboration led by faculty directors Branden Born with the Department of Urban Design and Planning and Jennifer Otten with the School of Public Health, in collaboration with UW Sustainability and Urban@UW, and with foundational support from the College of Built Environments and Undergraduate Academic Affairs. The program is also working with the nonprofit organization Association of Washington Cities.
The projects in Auburn this fall include addressing homelessness issues, building awareness of city values, understanding wastewater discharge, managing pet waste and evaluating the success of a buy-local program. UW undergraduate and graduate students in six different courses spanning environmental and public health, sociology, and urban design and planning will deliver reports and recommendations to city leadership at the end of the quarter.
Sociology professor Kyle Crowder is tackling three separate projects on homelessness in Auburn with his upper-level undergraduate course on cities and neighborhood dynamics. One will assess and prioritize Auburn’s plans for addressing homelessness, and another will develop innovative strategies for understanding the size, change and distribution of the city’s homeless population.
A third project will focus on finding incentives to maintain the city’s relatively affordable older homes in the midst of expensive residential expansion.
“These are neat projects in that they allow students to work on things that are practically important, but there’s also, in a way, a ‘dream big’ element,” Crowder said. “There are great tools and resources at this university, so the more we can bring those to the community, the better off everyone will be.”
Several projects from this quarter will continue with Auburn for the rest of the academic year, and a half dozen new ones will begin winter and spring quarters. Other cities around Washington can apply to work with the UW through the Livable City Year program in future years.
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For more information, contact Livable City Year program manager Jennifer Davison at jnfrdvsn@uw.edu or 206-240-6903.
(Originally published by UW News & Michelle Ma)
Midsummer in Full Swing, A July Recap
A collage of July’s news banners.
While we are in the midst of a beautiful summer, things at the University of Washington and at Urban@UW are moving right along. We’ve seen some original writing, research, and even a podcast come out of community covering topics from marine noise pollution to data science and minimum wage to police reforms.
- The eScience Institute hosts Data Science for Social Good program looking at how data can be leveraged pressing urban topics.
- The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation contributed to a study of the healthiest cities.
- UW researchers are compiling health data on gunshot victims to better understand American gun violence.
- Technology, whose origins began at CoMotion, is helping to dampen the noise from marine pile driving.
- Urban@UW published a story about alleyways and looked at some work the Green Futures Lab has done on the topic in Seattle.
- A UW study looked at the connections between perceived threats from police officers and black men as predictors for supporting police reform.
- Jeff Shulman, associate professor at the Foster School, launched his podcast focusing on Seattle’s recent surge in growth.
- The Evans School, School of Social Work, and School of Public Health are continuing to examine the the economic impacts of Seattle’s $15/hour minimum wage.
Urban@UW compiles monthly recaps highlighting the urban research happening across the University of Washington.
Minimum Wage Study: Effects of Seattle wage hike modest, may be overshadowed by strong economy
Flickr & Jonathan Miske
The lot of Seattle’s lowest-paid workers improved following the city’s minimum wage increase to $11 in 2015, but that was more due to the robust regional economy than the wage hike itself, according to a research team at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance.
Although the ordinance appears to have boosted wages for the city’s lowest-paid workers, the benefits of the increase may have been partly offset by fewer hours worked per person and slightly less overall employment, the Seattle Minimum Wage Study research team found. Estimated income gains for the average worker were modest – on the order of a few dollars a week – and sensitive to methodological choices.
The City of Seattle passed its $15 minimum wage ordinance in June of 2014, and that December commissioned the UW team to conduct a five-year study of the law’s impacts. The ongoing research is led by professors Jacob Vigdor and Mark Long with Jennifer Romich, associate professor in the UW School of Social Work, and other co-authors from the Evans School, the School of Public Health and the Washington Employment Security Department.
The team presented its findings in an update to the council this morning (July 25).
The ordinance took effect April 1, 2015, raising the minimum hourly wage from $9.47 to $11. Under the law, businesses with fewer than 500 employees are scheduled to reach the $15 an hour wage in 2021. Employers with 500 or more employees, either in Seattle or nationally, will reach that level in three years, or 2017.
The challenge of this report, Vigdor said, was to isolate the effects of the wage increase ordinance from all other concurrent economic factors, chiefly the surging regional economy. This enables the researchers to compare Seattle to what it might look like today had the minimum wage ordinance never happened — knowing, too, that the strong economy was slowly pushing wages up regardless of the ordinance.
For their research, the team used employment, hours and earnings records from the Washington Employment Security Division going back to 2005 to create a model of how the local labor market works. They also viewed data on other nearby regions that did not increase their minimum wage, to better understand how rising property values, expanding tech employment and even the weather might have influenced what the team observed in the city itself.
The research sought to answer two questions: What has happened to Seattle’s labor market since passage of the minimum wage ordinance? And more crucially, what has been the effect of that ordinance on the labor market?
The first question involves simple comparisons of yesterday with today. But, Vigor said, “To imagine what a higher minimum wage might accomplish in a region not enjoying a significant economic boom, or what might happen in Seattle next year if the boom should wear off, the second question is the only one that matters.”
The researchers found that:
- Seattle’s lowest-paid workers saw larger-than-usual paychecks in late 2015, but at most, only 25 percent of the observed income gains — a few dollars a week — can be attributed to the higher wage.
- Businesses relying heavily on low-wage staff showed signs of cutting back, though they too benefited from the strong economy. They added jobs at about the same rate as businesses outside the city, but employees’ working hours in the city lagged by an average of about one hour per employee per week.
- Even amid a relative boom, Seattle’s lowest-wage earners show signs of “lagging behind” a control group drawn from other parts of the state. The employment rate was down about 1 percentage point for workers who earned less than $11 an hour in mid-2014; their average hours declined, and the proportion switching from jobs in the city to elsewhere ticked upward by 2 to 3 percent.
“Our report indicates that Seattle’s track record after increasing the minimum wage is neither as negative as some had feared nor as positive as some had hoped,” Vigdor said. “While the vibrant local economy is boosting employment and incomes up and down the economic ladder, the positive effects of a higher minimum wage are being at least partly offset by cutbacks in hours.”
The researchers cautioned, however, that their findings are statistical averages that could mask distinctions among different types of workers. The findings address only the short-run impact of Seattle’s wage hike to $11 an hour and don’t reflect the full range of experiences for thousands of individual workers in the Seattle economy.
Next, the research team plans to incorporate more detailed information about workers by linking employment records to other state databases. This will provide the capacity to determine, for instance, whether the workers benefiting most from higher minimum wages are more likely to be living in poverty.
Other coming work will include:
- Extending the analysis to Seattle’s second wage increase, in April 2016, when the ordinance began distinguishing between businesses of different sizes
- Collecting additional survey information from Seattle businesses and conducting more interviews with a sample of workers tracked since early 2015.
The team expects to make its next report to the city in September; that report will focus on how the minimum wage hike has impacted Seattle nonprofit organizations.
UW co-investigators on the ongoing study are Jennifer Otten of the UW’s School of Public Health and Heather Hill, Scott Allard and Robert Plotnick of the Evans School. Other co-investigators are Scott Bailey and Anneliese Vance-Sherman of the state employment security department.
The research was funded in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant to the UW’s Center for Demography and Ecology. Funding also was provided by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation and the City of Seattle.
For more information, contact the research team at mwage@uw.edu or J. Paul Blake, Evans School director of media and external relations, at 206-543-3958 or jpblake@uw.edu.
(Originally published by UW Today & Peter Kelley.)
Jeff Shulman and the Seattle Growth Podcast: An Office Hours Visit
Jeff Shulman
Jeff Shulman moved to Seattle a decade ago to begin his career at the University of Washington. In that short time, he’s watched Seattle’s dramatic and ongoing growth transform the city. This former South Lake Union resident has put together a thirteen-episode, in-depth look at how Seattle’s changes have affected real people. With nearly 100 interviews done to create the series, Shulman is looking forward to the July 26th launch of the Seattle Growth Podcast. We sat down with Jeff to see what it was like to make this podcast, and what we might take away from it.
Jeff Shulman is an associate professor and the Marion B. Ingersoll Professor in Marketing at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.
(This piece is part of an ongoing series of interviews Urban@UW is doing with urban researchers, designers, and thinkers.)
Urban: With so many platforms available, what motivated you to do a podcast? Is this your first one?
JS: It actually is my first. I figured there’s a growing number of people listening to podcasts, and I think it’s a media platform that will continue to grow. As we bounce back from the limitations of Twitter and changes in journalism generally, I think people are increasingly looking for quality, long-form presentations of ideas. Given the polarization around growth, I felt it was the right way to do this. You know, we all tend to share conversations with similarly minded people and as soon as someone really opposes your view, you tend to tune out. So, I wanted to tell a story without a slanted angle, a way to explore what these changes meant to people of all walks of life in Seattle.
Urban: You came to the city around 2006. Given the topics you’re covering, what have you observed since your move here? Did those observations catalyze the podcast?
JS: I moved here in 2006 and lived in South Lake Union. I moved out in 2012. The SLU I lived in is unrecognizable. When I go there now, almost every building near my old complex is new and that helped me realize I had only a ten-year history here to compare to. I was really curious how these changes were perceived by long-term residents—whether they were city officials or homeless people, how different this was from previous times of change and, really, I wanted to know how they felt about it.
Urban: As you pointed out there is some divisiveness on the topic of growth. How did you navigate this and what roadblocks came up?
JS: Very few, actually. People were eager to talk to me—I was welcomed into a number of homeless communities, city hall, Seattle Municipal Tower, and in artist communities. I think that by presenting the opportunity to be listened to, to be heard, really resonated with people. And more importantly I found that people were curious too; they wanted to know what other people were thinking and feeling.
Urban: Having met with so many different people, were there any commonalities that surprised you?
JS: There were a lot of little things along the way. A hot dog vendor and white-collar worker were excited about Seattle becoming a 24-hour city. A homeless person and tech worker both amazed at the number of opportunities they now had. There were some unique commonalities where you just wouldn’t expect people to share the same perceptions. But the biggest one that kept coming up was community. It didn’t really matter who I talked to, community came up a lot and the question was often whether growth was a problem or solution for the further development of community. People were really concerned and excited about what this might mean for their community and the city’s community at large.
Urban: Can you give an example?
JS: When I was talking to Tent City 7 residents, some were really anti-growth and two men told me about how they have money but when they walk around and look at stores or restaurants they can’t afford to buy anything. Growth just keeps putting things out of reach. When I told them that many in the tech community are excited about the growth they became really curious: they wanted to know what others were thinking and feeling. And this trans-group curiosity happened a lot. That was what really struck me. People in all communities, of all kinds, knew what was impacting them but they were all curious what it was like for other people. So while this is a divisive issue, the fact that community is the near-universal concern was really something to me. I think we share a lot, and while we all lead different lives, the fact is that Seattle’s culture understands community as being unilaterally important. I am excited to bring the diverse voices of the community together with hopes of finding common ground in addressing the key issues facing everyone in a growing city.
You can subscribe to and follow Jeff Shulman’s podcast on iTunes or the podcast website starting July 26, 2016.
Written by Andrew Prindle, Urban@UW Communications Coordinator
Looking ahead to July, Recapping June
Jeffrey Beal (Wikimedia), Public Domain, Impact Hub, USDA Images,
Looking forward into July - Unlikely Allies is coming to Seattle right after July 4th weekend.
Impact Hub Seattle is hosting the Unlikely Allies: Future of Cities Festival in partnership with the Impact Hub Company - the organization that coordinates the network’s 89 locations worldwide. More than 200 delegates from 70 cities will be joining us for this exciting event!
Unlikely Allies is a two-day festival that takes place in one new city each year, bringing together global and local thought leaders, change-makers, inspired citizens and their unlikely allies: the hackers, artists, policy makers, activists, corporate innovators and designers needed to make real change happen on key issues of our world today.
The full program agenda is available online and includes keynotes by Majora Carter (Startup Box), Carol Coletta (Kresge Foundation), Shayna Englen (Change.org), Jason McLennan (Living Futures Institute) - and master classes, think tanks and learning expeditions around the city focused on homelessness, arts + creativity, climate change and civic engagement.
You can register here.
Looking back to June we successfully wound down the end of the academic year with:
- The Cannabis Law Policy Project examined Washington’s evolving marijuana industry.
- UW’s Peter Kahn released research regarding the poor health effects of disconnection from nature in urban areas.
- The City of Seattle enlisted the UW School of Public Health to analyze current food waste prevention and recovery efforts and help develop local strategies.
Urban@UW compiles monthly recaps highlighting the urban research happening across the University of Washington.
Quick Recap: Here’s What Happened in May!
UW Today, Integrated Design Lab, Flickr, Wikimedia
May saw a lot of wonderful events, visitors, and research coming out of the University of Washington community. Here’s a quick recap:
- The CBE PhD Program looked at the future of cities
- Patricia Romero Lankao visited to talk about the human dimension of climate change
- Seattle’s “diverse neighborhoods” are actually surprisingly segregated
- New lighting research and design initiatives are underway for the UW campus
- Alexes Harris showed the severe handicap of post-jail fees can create
- We published our second Office Hours interview with Britton Shephard
- The Seattle Times initiated their Seismic Neglect series with interviews from UW researchers
- A 10 year, $30 million dollar research project across six cities and 6,000 people pinpointed connections between air pollution and heart health
Seismic Neglect: Buildings and Earthquakes
Kevin Galvin, FEMA News Photo Library
Seismic Neglect | In the first part of a continuing series, The Seattle Times examined officials’ neglect of the most vulnerable kind of building: old, brick structures called unreinforced masonry. Here are answers to some common questions about those buildings.
The Northwest is threatened by earthquakes far more destructive than anything Washington state has experienced in modern times, a danger lawmakers have largely disregarded. In the first part of a continuing series, The Seattle Times examined officials’ neglect of the most vulnerable kind of building: old, brick structures called unreinforced masonry.
Here are answers to some common questions about unreinforced-masonry buildings.
How do I know if my building is unreinforced masonry?
If you live in Seattle, search our map of unreinforced-masonry buildings identified by the city.
It’s not always possible to tell just by looking. Sometimes brick walls have been plastered over, and sometimes what appears to be solid brick is actually veneer. There’s a good chance a building is unreinforced if it was built during the 1940s or earlier. Another telltale sign: bricks that look shorter than others, about every sixth row, that are actually turned on end.
Some California cities require warning signs on unretrofitted, unreinforced-masonry buildings, but there’s no such requirement in the Northwest.
Continue reading at The Seattle Times.
(Originally written by Sandi Doughton & Daniel Gilbert of The Seattle Times.)
Reading List for Patricia Romero Lankao Visit 5/11
Courtesy of Flickr User Ali Almazawi
In anticipation of Patricia Romero Lankao’s visit we thought you might enjoy these pieces to get a feel for her research and thinking.
- Water in Mexico City: What Will Climate Change Bring to Its History of Water-Related Hazards and Vulnerabilities?—This research paper delves into the history and evolution of water related risks and crises in Mexico City in order to gain insight to socio-environmental challenges as a result of climate change. http://eau.sagepub.com/content/22/1/157.full.pdf+html
- Are We Missing the Point? Particularities of Urbanization, Sustainability and Carbon Emission in Latin American Cities —Models for change and the discourse of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is predominately influenced by the perceptions and disposition of high-income nations, particularly those in the Global North. This paper examines how these ways of thinking apply (or misapply) to the situation of Latin American cities. http://eau.sagepub.com/content/19/1/159.full.pdf+html
- Urban Ecosystems and the North American Carbon Cycle—Modeling energy use, land use, and traffic emissions are already common practice, but how might including data about urban carbon sources and sinks expand our knowledge of how cities operate? Romero Lankao et al explore this question in order to understand urban areas as whole ecosystems with regard to carbon balance. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2006.01242.x/full
Dr. Patricia Romero Lankao studies the interactions between urban development and global environmental change. She is a social scientist at the Research Applications Laboratory and Institute for the Study of Society and the Environment at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Dr. Romero Lankao is active in both the international and US human dimensions community, and views urbanization as both a social and environmental phenomenon, and one of the most influential irreversible and evident anthropogenic forces in the Earth system.
This presentation is part of the speaker Series on “Urban Environmental Justice in an Era of Climate Change,” hosted by Urban@UW in partnership with the West Coast Poverty Center, the Climate Impacts Group, the College of the Environment, the School of Social Work, and the Graduate School.
Quick Recap: A Busy April!
Designed by Urban@UW, images courtesy of UW, Wikimedia, Flickr, African Centre for Cities
April saw a lot of wonderful developments here at the University of Washington, here’s a quick recap:
- Our first Office Hours interview with John Vidale (more coming of these soon!)
- UW researchers continued to explore the effects of a $15/hr minimum wage.
- PBS premiered their 10 Parks that Changed America program featuring our own Thaisa Way and Iain Robertson of UW
- Edgar Pieterse delivered a fantastic talk about African urbanism!
- Joe Lott launched the University’s new Brotherhood Initiative! Congrats Joe!
Stayed tuned here, on Facebook, and on Twitter!
Urban@UW compiles monthly recaps highlighting the urban research happening across the University of Washington.
Early Analysis of Seattle’s $15 Wage Law: Effect on Prices Minimal One Year After Implementation
Tom Sparks / Flickr
Most Seattle employers surveyed in a University of Washington-led study said in 2015 that they expected to raise prices on goods and services to compensate for the city’s move to a $15 per hour minimum wage.
But a year after the law’s April 2015 implementation, the study indicates such increases don’t seem to be happening.
The interdisciplinary Seattle Minimum Wage Study team, centered in the Evans School for Public Policy & Governance surveyed employers and workers and scanned area commodity and service prices. The team’s report found “little or no evidence” of price increases in Seattle relative to other areas, its report states.
The City of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage ordinance was adopted in June of 2014, and began taking effect on April 1, 2015. Under the law, businesses with fewer than 500 employees will reach the $15 an hour wage in seven years, or 2021. Employers with 500 or more employees (either in Seattle or nationally) will reach that level in three years.
When approving the ordinance, the Seattle City Council also commissioned a thorough study of the law’s impacts, and sealed a contract with the UW in December 2014. The study is led by Evans School professors Jacob Vigdor and Mark Long with Jennifer Romich, associate professor in the UW School of Social Work, and other co-authors from the Evans School and the School of Public Health. Two economists from the Washington Employment Security Department are also on the team.
The researchers released the first in an anticipated series of reports April 18 in a presentation to the Seattle City Council.
The study, conducted between January and May 2015, surveyed 567 randomly selected Seattle employers as well as 55 workers, asking their awareness of and feelings about its expected and actual effects, to establish a baseline for that information.
Responses indicate that nearly all employers knew about the new law, though many were uncertain about its implementation. Many employers expressed hope the higher wages will improve both worker morale and boost job applications, though they also doubt it will improve individual employee productivity among minimum wage workers.
Sixty-two percent of employers said they expected to raise prices of goods and services to accommodate the higher wages brought by the law. Ten percent of the employers believed incorrectly that the ordinance would force their business to move to a $15 wage immediately upon implementation.
But in an analysis of area prices over time, done through a combination of “web scraping” and in-person visits to grocery stores, restaurants and other retail locations, such price increases were not in evidence.
“Our preliminary analysis of grocery, retail and rent prices has found little or no evidence of price increases in Seattle relative to the surrounding area,” the team concluded.
Workers, for their part — many of whom reported struggling to make ends meet despite community and government assistance — responded to the survey wondering doubtfully if the wage increases would truly improve their financial situation. Most knew about the law but many were uncertain of details, the study found.
“Today’s report documents both the hopes and fears that workers and business managers expressed as Seattle began its initiative to raise the minimum wage,” said Vigdor. “Business owners are hopeful that small changes to their operation — such as small price increases — will keep them in the black.
“Workers are hopeful about the promise of greater income, but harbor few illusions about the potential for price increases, or reductions in government benefits, to eat away at these gains.”
The team’s subsequent study on the Seattle minimum wage law will include:
A second round of worker interviews this spring to learn more about its effects on work and family life, and more in spring of 2017 if funding allows.
Analysis this spring of employment security data on employment, hours, and earnings for a report to be released this summer
Another full survey of employers and workers in 2017.
A brief follow-up survey of employers this summer to depict changes over time.
Continued study of prices, expanding to the areas outside Seattle.
A study this fall on the impact of the ordinance on Seattle nonprofits, through surveys and interviews.
“From its inception, this study has sought to do more than track employment figures,” Vigdor said. “Our team hopes to develop a full understanding of how businesses and nonprofits change their practices to accommodate higher wages, and of whether a higher minimum wage meaningfully transforms lives. Today’s report showcases that broader approach.”
Vigdor and Long’s co-investigators on the Seattle Minimum Wage Study are Jennifer Otten of the UW’s School of Public Health and Heather Hill, Scott Allard and Robert Plotnick of the Evans School. Other co-investigators are Scott Bailey and Anneliese Vance-Sherman of the state employment security department.
The research was funded in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant to the UW’s Center for Demography and Ecology. Funding also was provided by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation and the City of Seattle.
Originally published by UW News, Peter Kelley
One Year On, Seattle Explores Impact Of $15 Minimum Wage Law
Wikimedia Commons
NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with University of Washington Professor Jacob Vigdor about the state of the minimum wage in Seattle, as California and New York move to lift their minimum wages to $15.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now, let’s dig deeper into what has happened in Seattle, one of the first big cities to pass that $15 minimum wage law. That happened in 2014. Joining us now is Jacob Vigdor, a University of Washington professor who’s running a city-funded study on the minimum wage law. Welcome to the show.
JACOB VIGDOR: Thanks for having me, Ari. It’s a pleasure to be here.
SHAPIRO: And so Seattle is phasing in the minimum wage law over time. It’s going to hit $15 an hour in a few years. So far, what have you seen with the wage hike?
VIGDOR: So far, as of January 1 of this year, the large employers in Seattle are now paying $13 an hour, and the smaller businesses get to pay a little bit less. So far, the impacts seem to be not too great here. We’ve seen some impacts on prices, but in terms of employment or other sorts of things, not too much.
SHAPIRO: So things are not costing a lot more. Employment is not dramatically dropping. It doesn’t look like people are getting laid off because of the wage hike. What about people who were making the minimum wage who are now making more money? Has it had much impact on them?
Continue reading here.
Above text courtesy npr.org