Winter 2021
In this issue:
  • Sustainable City Year Program partner application period is open
  • Highlight: Passive Heating in Oregon? You Bet!
  • SCYP Partners with the City of Troutdale
  • SCYP winter/spring classes
  • Urbanism Next conference registration and COVID-19 update
  • Rethinking Streets During COVID19
  • Moving Forward with Transportation
  • Message from our director
The Sustainable City Year Program is now seeking proposals for partnerships.

Is the 2021-22 school year your city’s year? Take a look at the RFP, and get the conversation started about how University of Oregon students and faculty can help make your city’s priority projects become reality. For a great visual reference, check out this highly engaging overview of current SCYP-Troutdale projects.
 
Students Help Address Climate Change through Passive Heating Coursework

As more SCYP partners recognize the implications of climate change and seek tangible actions to address it, SCYP has drawn upon the expertise of University of Oregon Professor Alexandra Rempel. Her Passive Heating course has given students the unique opportunity to explore a variety of climate challenges, from the predominately overcast Oregon Coast, to the Willamette Valley, to the subarctic climate of central Oregon, which combines sunny, very cold, snowy winters with hot, dry summers.
 
The Passive Heating seminar designs building systems that take the greatest possible advantage of climate resources to provide space heating, replacing or supplementing active mechanical systems. Students work in small groups to identify opportunities and constraints for passive heating through site analyses, solar resource studies, conceptual designs, and performance simulations of passive heating systems. Students explore diverse projects, such as a future civic center building and site, community greenhouses, prototypes for multi-family housing balcony sunspaces, an emergency shelter that also functions as a community gathering area, a combined city hall and police station, city-owned public restrooms, and a senior center sunroom. Student-recommended concepts are helping SCYP partners embrace the potential of passive heated structures and buildings, and often form the basis for future funding requests to continue the work begun by students.

Welcome SCYP's 2020-21 Partner Troutdale
The Sustainable City Year Program and the City of Troutdale are currently in a partnership for the 2020-21 school year. This dynamic suburban community of nearly 17,000 residents is situated on the eastern edge of the Portland metropolitan region and the western edge of the Columbia River Gorge. Settled in the late 1800s and incorporated in in 1907, Troutdale is proud of its small town feel while having big opportunities for sustainable growth in a beautiful natural setting. 
 
SCYP’s expert faculty and student talent are exploring opportunities to capitalize on Troutdale’s vibrant community and prime Columbia Gorge location, including the revitalization of the Town Center area, while tackling challenges like affordable housing. The partnership is also helping Oregon’s future workforce develop professional skills and network as more than 250 students work with city staff and community organizations on a variety of topics including design and planning, community engagement, and economic development.  
 
This year, Troutdale staff and residents, as well as SCYP faculty and students have really shown their dedication toward positive community impact and risen to the challenges presented by COVID-19 and remote engagement, working together in new and creative ways and deliver valuable mutual benefit and insights. Here is an engaging, visual overview of the range of projects SCYP- Troutdale is working on together this year! And remember, we are looking for our 2021-22 partner now, so please visit our RFP page or contact us with questions or interests.
Winter/Spring SCYP Classes
Writers are writing fall term reports and here are the SCYP-Troutdale courses and projects happening this winter (W) and spring (S) terms:

  • Urban Transportation, PPPM 399, Anne Brown (W)

  • Transportation Policy PPPM 410/510, Anne Brown (W)

  • Public Relations Campaigns, J454, Dean Mundy (W)

  • Growth Management, PPPM 545, Rebecca Lewis (W)

  • PSU CEE Capstone, Evan Kristof (W-S)

  • Nonprofit Consultancy, PPPM 620, Dyana Mason (W-S)

  • Research Project; Design for Climate Action, Rachel Cohen (W), Yekang Ko (S*)

  • Strategic Planning Project Capstone, MGMT 609, Ryan Cabinte (W-S)

  • Land Use Law, LAW 668, Sarah Adams-Schoen (S)

  • Architecture Studio, ARCH 683, Jerolim Mladinov (S)

  • Advanced GIS, PPPM 408/508, Yizhao Yang (S)

  • Land Use Planning, PPPM 610, Yizhao Yang (S)

*Winter (W), Winter-Spring (W-S), and Spring (S) courses included; restricted by major

Registration details are available through the University of Oregon class schedule.
Register Now for the 2020 Urbanism Next Conference
Urbanism Next will be holding its next international virtual forum this March and registration is open now! Urbanism Next focuses on the impacts of technological, and now COVID19, disruption to the form and function of cities. Among the topics for this year’s virtual forum are autonomous vehicles and land use, e-commerce, building design, urban design, mobility as a service and more in a world of remote connectivity. Check out the Urbanism Next Conference webpage to learn more and register. Early bird registration prices end February 16 – students can now register for $25.
 
In addition to the upcoming conference, Urbanism Next has been creating and organizing key resources dedicated to COVID-19 is it impacts impacts on transit, transportation network companies, micromobility, urban design, e-commerce and retail, building design, goods delivery, land use and real estate, and more. Three recent Urbanism Next free, downloadable products include:
  • A Framework for Shaping the Deployment of Autonomous Vehicles and Advancing Equity Outcomes;
  • COVID-19 – Impacts on Cities and Suburbs: Key Takeaways Across Multiple Sectors; and
  • Perfecting Policy with Pilots - All Pilots Spreadsheet.
 
As the world continues to address the changing conditions surrounding COVID-19, please visit UrbanismNext's dedicated website or join the mailing list to receive the newest information.
Rethinking Streets During COVID19
We are excited to announce the availability of Rethinking Streets During COVID19, a free case-study book that shows how cities are reclaiming space from the automobile to open up public streets for walking, biking, dining and playing.

Each case study presents information for various community stakeholders to understand how the street can flex quickly and thereby envision change within their own community. The book contains information that speaks equally to elected officials, transportation planners, engineers, urban designers, and to general community residents who want to see their public streets do more than simply be a conduit or storage facility for private automobiles. Rethinking Streets During COVID-19 was created with the help of a wonderful team of students and external support from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC).
Some Exciting Transportation-Related News
We are also exciting to share the following great news:

  • University of Oregon's Professors Anne Brown and Marc Schlossberg have separately been awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) grants to research sustainable transport, community systems, and equity.

  • The 2021 University of Oregon summer study abroad program Redesigning Cities for People on Bike, led Professor Rebecca Lewis, is moving ahead for this summer (with the usual COVID19 caveats). This year's class will take place in Denmark and the Netherlands, space is very limited, and admissions are open now. Any U.S. undergraduate or graduate student is eligible for this program.

  • University of Oregon graduate students in city and regional planning, Claire Haley and Aliza Whalen, both received prestigious Eisenhower Transportation Fellowships this past fall. Congrats!
Letter from our Co-Director
Welcome to 2021. As I'm sure most people would agree, 2020 was a trying year for many reasons. For those of us who think about the form and function of cities and their role in addressing big challenges like climate change, structural inequality, pandemics, affordability, and general happiness, this past year has been an illuminating one as well. COVID's demand for more space for us to function, at a distance, combined with broad-based demands to finally address structural inequality, and the on-going existential threat of climate change opens up new opportunities to see how changes to policy and practice within our cities may be able to address each of these massive challenges simultaneously. And they open up new obligations for those of us teaching at the university level as we help prepare the next generation workforce, thinkers, and community members.

As the book Rethinking Streets During COVID19 shows, cities can actually partially address climate change, equity, affordability, and health all at once by bringing public space to their residents simply by opening up their existing public streets to new uses and they can do this right now. Yet, there are many open questions that are occupying our SCI brains at this point: will these street retrofits remain or be undone as communities vaccinate and things 'get back to normal'? When will the public return to transit or ridehailing en masse and what does that mean for cities in either case? How will the increased usage of e-commerce change retail and real estate patterns? How might increased comfort and skill with remote work change household mobility? Will the doubling of bicycle sales this past year lead to an acceleration of higher quality bicycle infrastructure in cites? How will micromobility services emerge and will cities finally prioritize low carbon, space efficient transport in new ways? Will cities that briefly met their climate goals when almost all transport ceased in the early days of the pandemic learn those lessons of what it actually takes to implement meaningful climate plans?

There are many more questions, but these are the types of things that continuously run through our heads as we seek to offer solutions-based research, education, and policy guidance to help communities proactively address their pressing environmental, equity, and economic goals. As 2021 gets going, we are particularly hopeful that this work can advance faster and with greater positive impact given a new U.S. administration that seems to have a real interest in seriously addressing climate change, justice, health, affordability, and happiness. We are passionate that getting our cities right can address many, if not all, of these real, pressing, urgent, and often overlapping challenges. We suspect you are, too, and let's all get to work to make real progress on these issues in 2021!

  • Marc Schlossberg, PhD