Planning theorists often espouse the value of citizen participation and the sharing of ideas and opinions in planning processes, and encourage collaborative discussions between professionals and the public. On the issue of sustainability planning, there can be many differing beliefs and opinions within society. In order to construct meaningful dialogue around sustainability goals, it is important for planners to understand the diverse opinions of the public. This thesis examines the belief systems of people who support the idea of building a "third crossing" of Vancouver's Burrard Inlet, looking to draw conclusions that could be useful in planning for similar transportation infrastructure projects. I interviewed nine third crossing supporters using two theories from psychology and social psychology, Leon Festinger's notion of cognitive dissonance and Daniel Yankelovich's definitions of mass opinion and public judgment, to identify conflict within beliefs and evaluate the quality of opinion. I discovered that cognitive dissonance, or conflict between an individual's beliefs, was not reflected significantly in the views of crossing supporters. They also exhibited high quality opinion, as defined by Yankelovich using his criteria of responsibility, stability and consistency. Further, in comparing the interview responses to transportation policies contained in the Greater Vancouver Regional District's Livable Region Strategic Plan, I determined that two conflicting visions, which I refer to as the mobility vision and the sustainability/livability vision, lie at the heart of this transportation debate and likely others with similar foundations. With the knowledge that crossing advocates have a well-developed and logically constructed vision, planners must think about ways to establish constructive dialogue and address the fundamental values and assumptions upon which the two visions are based in order to foster social learning on the issue of sustainability-oriented transportation. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This study compares the May, 1974 and May, 1975 editions of suburban daily newspapers in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The purposes of the study were to determine how, when, and why suburban daily newspapers in the metroplex altered their editorial content and to evaluate the effects of the changes on circulation. The thesis is organized into four chapters. Chapter I introduces the study. Chapter II gives a historical overview. Chapter III analyzes the data. Chapter IV contains some conclusions. Some conclusions that emerged from this study include: 1. Suburban newspapers have small editorial staf fs. 2. Eight of the newspapers altered their content. 3. The changes helped them maintain or increase their circulation. 4. All of the editors responding to the questionnaire said that local news and sports are their primary goals.

Past research shows that Japanese Americans have been successful occupationally, financially and educationally. This thesis examines factors leading to this success. It is generally argued that the greater the congruence between minority and majority value systems, the less likely conflict would be generated in the minority group's acculturation. There appear to be two opposed aspects in the acculturation of the Japanese Americans, relinquishment or retention of traditional Japanese values. Also important is the degree to which Japanese Americans identify themselves as American, or Japanese, or some mixture. This thesis focuses on the following questions: What types of values have been relinquished or retained? If some are retained and others relinquished, are those that are retained congruent with the American value system and those relinquished incongruent? What intergenerational and intragenerational differences are observable in the pattern of retention/relinquishment of traditional Japanese values? To what extent does ethnic identity affect success?

This study addresses job satisfaction of public school teachers in seven districts of the Portland Metropolitan Area (N = 2,133; validated response = 1,444; ratio of 67.698 percent). The three research questions are: (1) How satisfied are teachers in the PMA with their jobs? (2) What are the primary differing factors affecting teacher satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and do these factors and their relationship to satisfaction conform with Herzberg and Lortie theories? (3) How does satisfaction and dissatisfaction vary as a function of the following "demographic" factors: age, sex, grade level, years of service, highest degree earned? Findings from the three research questions are: (1) Teachers in the PMA are very satisfied with their jobs. (2) Motivators (or intrinsic factors) contribute to satisfaction more than they contribute to dissatisfaction, and this finding tends to conform with part of Herzberg's dual-factor theory; hygienes (or extrinsic factors) are seen to contribute to satisfaction more than to dissatisfaction (opposite to the prediction), and this finding does not conform with part of the dual-factor theory. Factors that contribute most frequently to satisfaction of teachers in the PMA are: interpersonal relations with students and fellow teachers, sense of achievement, teaching as a kind of work, and opportunities to help others. Factors contributing most frequently to dissatisfaction are: salary, time spent preparing for teaching or on school-related activities outside of teaching or preparation for teaching, status, and policies and practices of the school district. The finding that interpersonal relations with students is the factor that contributes most frequently to teacher satisfaction does tend to conform with Lortie's theory. (3) Age, sex, and grade levels of assignment are seen to be significantly related to job satisfaction. Older teachers tend to be more satisfied than younger teachers; women tend to be more satisfied than men are with teaching; teachers of primary grades (through 4-6) tend to be more satisfied than teachers of higher grades (6-8, 7-9, 9-12). Years of service and highest degree earned are not seen to be significantly related to job satisfaction. Comparative data from 1981 and 1984 indicate that: the age of teachers, the percentage of women, and the average number of years of service are increasing for teachers in the PMA.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Self-Help Information Service (SIS) and to obtain information necessary for the improvement of the service. The study also described the development and operation of SIS and assessed the use and effect of the service. The evaluation of SIS was based on initial global utilization data and the results of participant satisfaction surveys targeted at four distinct groups: (1) Self-Help Project staff, (2) Tri-County Information and Referral Service staff, (3) self-help groups, and (4) callers of the service (potential members of self-help groups). The Self-Help Project and Tri-County I & R staffs represent staff samples; the self-help groups and potential members represent consumer samples.

Urgent Care Centers (UCCs) are a recent innovation in the American system of health care delivery. The number of UCCs has increased significantly in recent years. Many researchers point out that the rapid growth of UCCs is expected to escalate during the next few decades. This growth will create more competition among providers of these facilities in the health care market, and the competition could lead to an uneven distribution of UCCs within cities. While health officials and planners are interested in attracting more patients by expanding UCC services, they are often unfamiliar with the factors that go into site selection decisions. Understanding the factors influencing UCC location is crucial to explaining why UCCs cluster in certain urban areas, while other areas are under-served. It is also important for providers who want to enhance accessibility of special population segments to UCC locations. This study uses the Portland metropolitan area as a case study. Due to the lack of access to providers' propriety data, the specific problem targeted here uses publicly available data as a proxy for providers' data to determine the factors influencing UCC location. The essence of this research is to show how these factors explain and predict existing locations of UCCs and to find out how well this publicly available data explains UCC providers' locational behavior. Most of the data for this study is provided by Metro of Portland. Other data are collected utilizing surveys and data from different public agencies and published reports. Logit analysis is used to find out which factors explain existing UCC location. The empirical findings of this research substantiate the existence of a strong relationship between the location of UCCs and land use factors. This study highlights the complexity and importance of understanding the factors influencing the location of UCCs. It rejects prior arguments that UCC location is influenced by some demographic and socioeconomic factors, while it introduces land use factors as the major determinants of UCC location. However, this study concluded that land use factors influence considered a rare phenomena that should be carried out for future research and that demographic factors may still have an indirect effect on UCC location.

Within the past decade the emphasis in school finance research has been toward formulating financing models to solve the inequities in educational opportunity. School finance research has concentrated, generally, on structuring school finance alternatives based on school district fiscal behavior. However, these studies did not analyze in detail the school finance alternatives' impacts on the individual taxpayers. The problem remains that, while various school finance alternatives may attain equal educational opportunity by equalizing the level of expenditures among school districts, they could expand the tax burden distribution inequities. Policy analysis allows one to develop a rational policy procedure on empirical evaluation of policy alternatives designed to achieve a set of objectives. The analytical methods employed by policy analysis procedures are the foundation of this research's conceptual framework. This research is oriented toward decision-making and intends to be a guide to policy action. Policy suggestions for reform concentrate on three crucial areas: (1) to change the content and the elements of the equalization formulas; (2) to increase the level of state support; (3) to adopt a full state assumption of public education finance. These policy suggestions focus on the revenue formation and revenue distribution functions. This dissertation analyzes the operating school finance system from a school district fiscal profile perspective. It also constructs an analytical model and tests the school finance alternatives' impacts on the individual taxpayer-voter from a tax burden redistribution perspective. The fifteen unified school districts in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon were chosen as the test ground for this research. The procedures for this policy research study are as follows: (1) the social objectives, equal opportunity and equity in tax burden distribution are defined as the basis by which the school finance policy alternatives are analyzed; (2) alternative school finance policies are identified and selected according to a criterion of political feasibility; (3) the necessary data is collected and simulated according to the specifications of the policy alternatives; (4) the resultant tax burden redistribution of policy alternatives are identified; (5) results are analyzed to determine the comparative advantages of alternative school finance policies. Analysis of the school district fiscal profiles under the 1975-1976 school finance system indicates considerable differences in school district fiscal capacities. Moreover, state aid distribution based on the property wealth of school districts is not sufficient to equalize these differences. It is evident that the state of Oregon's share in financing public schools is insufficient to override the horizontal and vertical burden distribution inequities. This research indicates that, changing the state aid distribution formulas without increasing the level of state support, may reduce disparities in fiscal capacities among school districts. However, it is evident that such reform alternatives are not effective measures to reduce the existing tax burden distribution inequities among individual taxpayers. This study concludes that centralization of revenue formation functions, by, increasing the level of state support to public schools, will reduce the existing inequalities in tax burden distribution.

This study is concerned with Japan’s National Capital Region Development Plan. How to modify the capital plan and some of the correlative land policies of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to more fully protect regional air and water quality is the problem dealt with in the study.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Matthew Lee White. / M.C.P.

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