With homelessness continuing to rise over the past two decades, disenfranchised unhoused people have sparked a national movement to build for themselves democratically governed communities of affordable housing. Dignity Village, in Portland Oregon, is one of the longest running and most organized self-help housing communities in the nation. This paper presents a theoretical systems-based model of a developmental pathway out of homelessness in the U.S. that has as one of its key steps membership and participation in humane and dignified "self-help micro-housing"; communities such as Dignity Village. This research involved working collaboratively with Dignity Village on a participatory action research (PAR) project aimed at understanding and facilitating processes for mobilizing community and socio-political engagement. The research process involved a team of up to 24 co-researchers (nine attended meetings regularly) working once weekly over 15 months, with consultation from the broader Village community throughout. The research followed a systems approach to creating five action tools as multiple points of leverage to create long-term positive change within the community. One point of leverage utilized participatory video methodology to co-create a video action tool as an orientation video for newcomers, intended to build cooperative relationships and facilitate empowerment within the community. The impact of the research process was documented on multiple levels in the community using multiple data sources. Data were analyzed using an inductive approach to identify key themes and processes that influenced participation and empowerment in the community. The predominant themes suggested three paradoxical tensions that were creating barriers to change in the community. This PAR process attempted to create movement beyond these barriers. Findings suggested that four main changes occurred in the community during and after the research: a) an increase in collaborative participation, b) enhanced engagement and sense of community, c) an emergence of critical consciousness, and d) changes in the organizational leadership/power structure. These findings are critically examined and discussed with respect to the effectiveness of utilizing this PAR process to facilitate community empowerment. A portion of this dissertation (Results section) was created in video format to enhance report accessibility for community partners and other non-academic audiences.

This study explores the Portland music scene as a context in which local identity is constructed and communicated in a globalized world. Specifically, neo-localism is utilized as a theoretical lens through which the impacts of globalization were explored. Portland bands (n=8) were interviewed concerning their experiences in the local music scene. The results showed that participants conceptualized local identity as being 1) based in community, 2) culturally saturated and 3) connected to musical production. Further, results showed that participants were increasingly aware of this local identity, were aware of a global perception of this local identity and were aware of other local identities. Overall the results from this study support neo-localism as a useful conceptual lens for understanding local identity for Portland bands.

This study investigates the relationship between channel complexity and nutrient spiraling along 31 reaches of an urbanized watershed in Portland, Oregon. Much research shows that urbanization has an effect on watershed hydrology and nutrient loading at the watershed scale for various sized catchments. However, the flux of nutrients over short reaches within a stream channel has been less studied because of the effort and costs associated with fieldwork and subsequent laboratory analysis of the surface water samples. In this study I measure channel complexity and uptake velocity of nitrate to determine if this relationship is indicative of a healthy, functioning stream. I take field measurements and samples to determine the complexity and uptake velocity of each reach. Using ion-selective electrodes, the fluxes of nitrate were measured within each reach; when combined with channel geometry and velocity measurements these measurements allow for the transformation of nitrate fluxes into spiraling metrics. Results show that 18 of the 31 reaches had uptake velocity. Discharge and sinuosity were positively correlated with nitrate uptake velocity. Complexity and nitrate concentration were negatively correlated with nitrate uptake velocity. Grass landcover was positively correlated with nitrate uptake velocity and negatively correlated with nitrate concentration. These results indicate that land use and channel complexity both are related to the in-stream processing of nitrate. The implication of this study is that channel complexity is an important driver of nutrient flux in an urban watershed, and that this technique can be applied in future studies to better characterize water quality of stream channels over short reaches to entire catchments.

Various epidemiological studies have linked exposure to Ultrafine Particles (UFP; diameter< 100 nm) to adverse health impacts. Roadway traffic is one of the major sources of UFPs and heavily influences UFP concentrations in the nearby vicinity of major roadways. Modeling efforts to predict UFPs have been limited due to the scarcity of reliable information on emissions, lack of monitoring data and limited understanding of complex processes affecting UFP concentrations near sources. In this study continuous measurement of ultrafine particle number concentrations (PNC) and mass concentrations of nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and PM2.5 was conducted near an arterial road and freeway at different seasons and meteorological conditions and integrated with traffic count data. PNC showed high correlation with NO (r=0.64 for arterial; 0.61 for freeway), NO2 (r=0.57 for arterial; 0.53 for freeway) and NOx (NOx=NO+NO2; r=0.63 for arterial; 0.59 for freeway) and moderate to low correlation with traffic volume (r=0.33 for arterial; 0.32 for freeway) and PM2.5 (r=0.28 for arterial; 0.23 for freeway); respectively; for both sites at 15 minute averages. The PNC-NOx relationship prevailed on a shorter term (15 min), hourly, and throughout the day basis. Both PNC and NOx showed comparatively higher correlation with traffic during the morning period but became lower during evening which can be attributed to the higher boundary layer and wind speeds. The variable meteorology in the evening affects both PNC and NOx concentrations in the same way and the correlation between NOx and PNC is maintained high both during morning (r=0.74 for arterial; 0.69 for freeway), and evening (r=0.62 for arterial; 0.59 for freeway) periods. Thus nitrogen oxides can be used as a proxy for traffic-related UFP number concentration reflecting the effect of both traffic intensity and meteorological dilution. The PNC-NOx relation was explored for various meteorological parameters i.e. wind speed and temperature. It is found that NOx emission is temperature independent and can be used to reflect the effect of traffic intensity and meteorological dilution. Once the effect of traffic intensity and dilution is removed, the effect of temperature on PNC-NOx ratio becomes important which can be attributed to the variation in PNC emission factors with temperature. The high morning PNC-NOx ratio found at the arterial road is a result of new particle formation due to lower temperature and low concentration of exhaust gases in the morning air favoring nucleation over condensation. This finding has important implication when calculating emission factors for UFP number concentrations. Thus it can be concluded that roadside concentration of ultrafine particles not only depends on traffic intensity but also on meteorological parameters affecting dilution or new particle formation. High concentrations of ultrafine particle number concentration close to a roadway is expected due to higher traffic intensity , as well as during low wind speed causing low dilution and low temperature conditions favoring new particle formation. Finally a simplified approach of calculating particle number emission factor was developed using existing and easily available emission inventory for traffic related tracer gases. Using NOx emission factors from MOVES emission model, the emission ratio of PNC to NOx was converted to develop particle number emission factors. NOx was selected as the traffic related tracer gas since the number concentration of particles is closely correlated to NOx, NOx and particles are diluted in the same way and NOx emission factors are available for a variety of traffic situations. To ensure contribution of fresh traffic exhaust, the average of the difference of pollutant concentrations at high traffic condition and background condition was used to calculate PNC-NOX ratio. Using nitrogen oxides to define background and high-traffic conditions and MOVES emission factor for NOX to convert corresponding PNC-NOX ratio, an average emission factor of (1.82 ± 0.17) E+ 14 particle/ vehicle-km was obtained, suitable for summertime. When compared to existing particle number emission factors derived from dynamometer tests, it was found that there exits reasonable agreement between the calculated real world particle number emission factors and emission factors from dynamometer tests. The calculated emission factor and R-Line dispersion model was tested in predicting near-road particle number concentrations. Although only 23% of the variability in PNC was explained by the dispersion model, 84.33% of the measurements fell within the factor of two envelope. This suggests that there is potential to effectively use these models and thus warrants more in-depth analysis. Finally, a simple map of PNC gradients from major roads of Portland was developed. The results of this study helped identify proxy-indicators to provide reference values for estimating UFP concentrations and emissions that can be used for simple evaluation of particle concentration near major roadways for environmental and urban planning purposes and to assess expected impact of UFP pollution on population living near roadways exposed to elevated concentrations.

Over the past half-century, environmental problems have become increasingly serious and seemingly intractable, and a careless, clueless, or contemptuous consumer is often portrayed as the root cause of this environmental decline. This study takes a different approach to evaluating the demand for resources by households, assessing possible pro-environmental paths forward through a study of highly ecologically-conscious households. By modeling "green" households as producers of sustainability rather than consumers of environmental products, the sustainability work that takes place in households is brought into focus. An investigation of household sustainability production makes possible the evaluation of the trade-offs inherent in these pro-environmental activities. Ethnographic interviews with 23 sustainability-oriented households with young children living in and near Portland, Oregon, provide data on how households balance priorities and get things done in day-to-day life by employing the available resources, limited by constraining factors. An orienting perspective combining neoclassical and radical political economic theories of household production frames the analysis of how households make choices between alternatives. Sociological theories of consumption and theories of social practice aid in the analysis of how these choices have evolved over time, and how household members view the social meanings of these choices. Particular attention is paid to areas of day-to-day life neglected in previous research--household waste, comfort, and cleanliness. The results indicate that there is not one "sustainability" with varying degrees across a "green" spectrum, but rather varying priorities in the sustainability realm--personal health, nature, waste avoidance, technology, and community. This analysis reveals some of the negative consequences of shifting the responsibility for environmental protection to households. Ecologically-conscious households devote substantial time and money to these sustainability efforts, but their efforts frequently stimulate conflicts, and the end results are rarely perfect. Constrained resources and limited information mean household members must make trade-offs between competing priorities, often under duress. The results suggest that policies promoting household-level sustainability efforts may be misguided, as this transfer of institutional responsibility for environmental protection to individuals and groups results in even greater burdens on households, whose time and money are already stretched to their limits.

Geographic Information System (GIS) address-matching combined with other GIS processing offers new analytical opportunities in the area of transportation planning and analysis. Address-matching, an automated method for generating geographically-referenced (geocoded) point locations on a map from common tabular databases, can facilitate transportation analysis by providing a planning tool based on individual rather than aggregated spatial distributions more common to transportation issues.

The Counselor Education Program at Portland State University currently uses five admission criteria to determine the acceptance or rejection of applicants. These criteria include letters of reference, a panel interview, a writing sample, the applicant's undergraduate GPA (UGPA), and the applicant's score on either the MAT or the GRE. Scores on these measures are adjusted and combined to create a single total score upon which admission decisions are based. The present study attempts to evaluate the validity of these admission criteria in predicting success in the Counselor Education Program at Portland State University. For the purpose of this study, student success was defined in terms of both the GPA upon graduation from the program and ratings of student clinical counseling skills by program faculty. The subjects were graduates of the program who had been admitted between the years 1988 and 1991. Information collected for analysis included scores on the admission criteria and GPA upon graduation, age at admission, counseling specialization, and gender. A questionnaire was then developed which asked the program faculty to rate the students' clinical counseling skills. An analysis of the correlation between scores on the admission criteria and scores on the outcome criteria (graduate GPA and clinical skills score) was performed using the SPSS Statistical Package. Regression analysis showed that among the admission criteria only the MAT score significantly determined success on the outcome criteria. Gender was inversely predictive of graduate GPA (i.e., being female correlated with higher graduate GPA). Further research, using alternative measures of counseling skill, is indicated. These results suggest the need for such research, and for further evaluation of the current admission criteria.

Since the beginning of the 21st Century, the world has seen the rapid development of the so-called "sharing economy" or collaborative consumption (Botsman, 2010). One of the first areas affected by the shared economy is vehicle ownership. With the emergence of several new providers of mobility services, such as Uber and car2go, there has been the promise of changes to the traditional way of owning and using a vehicle (Wong, Hensher, & Mulley, 2017). One potential consequence of shared mobility services is the reduction in vehicle ownership. At the same time, cities are trying to anticipate these changes by reducing the amount of space dedicated to parking, including parking requirements for residential developments. This thesis aims to assess the extent to which new shared mobility services (specifically, carsharing, bikesharing, and ridehailing) and travel demand management strategies (especially parking requirements and transit pass availability) relate to vehicle ownership among residents of multifamily dwellings. To do this, we use a web-based survey targeted to residents of multifamily apartments from Portland, Oregon. With these data, we built a multinomial logistic of the number of the vehicles owned as a function of socio-demographics, built environment, parking supply, transit passes, and three forms of shared mobility services. Results suggest that there is a strong association between shared mobility use and car ownership. However, it is not as significant as the effects of income, household size, distance to work, transit pass ownership, or even parking availability. Carshare use was negatively associated with the number of household vehicles, suggesting that it may be a useful tool in reducing car ownership. For respondents with higher education and income levels, increased carshare use was associated with fewer cars. Ridehail use, however, was not as clearly associated with reducing vehicle ownership and the effect was much smaller than that of carsharing. Parking availability in the building also has a significant and positive association with vehicle ownership. In sites with no parking available, there is an increased chance of the household owning less than two or more vehicles. However, this effect seems to disappear with the increased use of shared mobility. For all income levels, monthly use of ridehail and carshare between two and three times may decrease the odds of owning two or more vehicles. The use of both options, relaxing parking requirements and shared mobility availability, seems the best strategy to reduce vehicle ownership. In the short term, it is an alternative to those residents that decide to get rid of one or all cars but still are not ready to give up using cars. For the long term, a new relationship with vehicle ownership can be built now for the younger generation.

Physical and social characteristics of neighborhoods are important to resident satisfaction for clinical and nonclinical populations. This study draws upon data collected from a sample of 172 individuals with psychiatric disabilities living in 16 supportive housing sites in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. Research questions explore the extent to which subjective and objective measures of neighborhood physical and social environments contribute to neighborhood satisfaction for this population. Mixed methods were employed to construct a detailed understanding of the factors that influence satisfaction with one's neighborhood of residence. Predictor variables were neighborhood social climate, neighborhood physical quality, perceptions of safety, crime reports, neighborhood diversity, and WalkScore data. This study found that aspects of the social environment collectively accounted for more variance in neighborhood satisfaction than physical environmental variables; further, subjective assessments of the environment were more predictive of neighborhood satisfaction than objective indicators. Qualitative data were collected on aspects of the neighborhood that residents liked and disliked. These data were analyzed using thematic content analysis to contextualize quantitative findings. Findings provide important information regarding neighborhood features that contribute to or detract from neighborhood satisfaction among individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Supportive housing programs aiming to improve residents' well-being and increase residential tenure may consider looking to features of the neighborhood that most impact resident experiences.

Founded in 1892, the Portland Art Association (PAA) served as Oregon's and the Pacific Northwest's leading visual arts institution for almost a century. While the Association formally dissolved in 1984, its legacy is felt strongly today in the work of its successor organizations, the Portland Art Museum and Pacific Northwest College of Art. Emerging during a period of considerable innovation in and fervent advocacy for the arts across America, the Association provided the organizational network and resources around which an energetic and diverse group of city leaders, civic reformers and philanthropists, as well as artists and art educators, coalesced. This thesis describes the collaboration among arts and civic advocates under the banner of aesthetic education during the Association's first four decades. Though art education continued to be critically important to the organization after 1932, the year the Association opened its new Museum, art was no longer conceived of as an instrument for improving general community life and programs focused on more specialized, fine arts-related activities.