We present solution methodologies for vehicle routing problems (VRPs) with stochastic demand, with a specific focus on the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demand (VRPSD) and the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demand and duration limits (VRPSDL). The VRPSD and the VRPSDL are fundamental problems underlying many operational challenges in the fields of logistics and supply chain management. We model the VRPSD and the VRPSDL as large-scale Markov decision processes. We develop cyclic-order neighborhoods, a general methodology for solving a broad class of VRPs, and use this technique to obtain static, fixed route policies for the VRPSD. We develop pre-decision, post-decision, and hybrid rollout policies for approximate dynamic programming (ADP). These policies lay a methodological foundation for solving large-scale sequential decision problems and provide a framework for developing dynamic routing policies. Our dynamic rollout policies for the VRPSDL significantly improve upon a method frequently implemented in practice. We also identify circumstances in which our rollout policies appear to offer little or no benefit compared to this benchmark. These observations can guide managerial decision making regarding when the use of our procedures is justifiable. We also demonstrate that our methodology lends itself to real-time implementation, thereby providing a mechanism to make high-quality, dynamic routing decisions for large-scale operations. Finally, we consider a more traditional ADP approach to the VRPSDL by developing a parameterized linear function to approximate the value functions corresponding to our problem formulation. We estimate parameters via a simulation-based algorithm and show that initializing parameter values via our rollout policies leads to significant improvements. However, we conclude that additional research is required to develop a parametric ADP methodology comparable or superior to our rollout policies.

Since the late 1990's, "food deserts" have dominated the academic and policy literature on food access and food security. Food deserts are defined as areas that lack easy access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food, and are typically measured using Geographic Information Systems and spatial data sets. However, while food deserts may provide a useful measure for identifying food insecurity at a broad scale, they fail to account for individual definitions and perceptions of food access (Barnes et al. 2015; McEntee 2009). Furthermore, the food desert model assumes a lack of agency on the part of low-income populations (Alkon et al. 2013), and ignores other factors of food access, such as walkability, grocery store safety, customer service, and personal preference. In this research, I examine the food access perceptions of residents, non-profit employees, and business owners in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Although Lents is classified as a food desert, there is also an abundance of ethnic grocers and specialty markets within the neighborhood. These grocers reflect the neighborhood's racial and cultural diversity, and are often overlooked by the spatial datasets typically used to measure food access. The research that I conducted in Lents revealed a disconnect between how the residents I interviewed perceive their food environment, and how government, non-profits employees, and business owners within the neighborhood view local food access. The findings underscore the importance of factors other than physical proximity when measuring food access, and also show the importance of ethnic and specialty markets in the landscape. These findings support the assertion that binary measures of food access often fail to capture the complexities of individual perceptions of food access (Alkon et al. 2013).

Dog parks are the fastest growing type of park in U.S. cities; however, their increasing popularity has been met with increasing criticism of pets in public space. Dogs have shown to be a deep source of neighborhood conflict, and the provision of dog parks, or off-leash areas, is a seemingly intractable controversy for city officials. In 2003, Portland, Oregon established a network of 33 off-leash areas which remains the second largest both in count and per capita in the country. The purpose of my research is to understand the public debate over off leash dogs during the establishment of Portland's off-leash area network, and how dog parks relate to processes of demographic change. The analysis involved two phases. First, I conducted a thematic analysis of editorial perspectives published in the major local newspaper. Second, I conducted an exploratory spatial analysis of the distribution of Portland's off-leash areas and patterns of racial and economic change throughout the city from 2000 to 2015. Central to the debate are conflicting notions of responsible pet ownership. The notions of responsibility employed in the debate are primarily personal, yet the findings from my exploratory analysis of the relationship between dog parks and demographic change suggest a need to attend to notions of public responsibility. I recommend that future research, discussion, representations, and policy regarding dog parks consider the consequences of off-leash areas as amenities within the changing neighborhoods in which they exist.

"Hidden Hills" is a secure, isolated enclave of 550 homes, with a long history of political and economic power wielded, in some cases, by families who have lived there for generations. This neighborhood serves as the bedroom for many of Portland's wealthy and well-known and has housed many of Oregon's-leading figures. It is faced with SB 917, a 1991 mandate to merge its only formal social institution, its 104-year-old school district, with one of two contiguous districts. Merger will not mean the immediate closure of the school, but will mean the loss of local administrative and political control and changes in the delivery of education and the arrangement of staff and students. The school will be run by another district in another community. This eighteen-month field study was undertaken in order to answer the questions: (a) How do neighborhood residents define this situation, and (b) What strategies will they devise to cope with the situation. I entered the community as a marginal participant and full observer. "Marginal" because, although I was the official recorder for both the school board's Consolidation Task Force (CTF) and High School Option Committee, I attended numerous other school and community meetings as a full spectator. I also conducted both formal and informal interviews and conversed casually with residents at every opportunity. Sources of secondary data were the 1990 Decennial Census: Multnomah County Elections Office: Oregon Department of Education; Oregon Historical Society Library; City of Portland Urban Services; Hidden Hills School District; and Multnomah County's Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission. The mandate to merge posed a threat to the neighborhood. The school is valued both for its educative and non-educative functions. It is a symbol of the neighborhood's integrity, part of which is its long history and body of tradition. It stands as testimony to the neighborhood's distinctiveness, which partially inheres in the institutionalization and the privatization of its school. It is the school that residents feel distinguishes this affluent neighborhood from other such neighborhoods. Its social cohesiveness and small-town atmosphere is perceived by residents as unique. There is a symbiosis between the school and the neighborhood that makes any threat to the school a threat to the neighborhood's identity. The rational response was mounted by the CTF, whose progress was halted at the point where neighborhood input was necessary but not forthcoming, due to what members perceived as denial. But residents were articulating a form of anticipatory grieving in the recurring reference to loss loss of identity, loss of local control, loss of the neighborhood school, and loss of academic excellence and small class-size. There was organized apathy among residents while they assimilated the fact that things this time were different. Initial impulses to make the old, formerly effective, forays "down to Salem" weren't working to gain exemption from the grip of the new law. It was time to form new lines of action based on a new definition of the situation. The CTF redefined the situation and did its work by identifying five options to consolidation. Residents were then brought together at neighborhood coffees where their subjective realities were negotiated within the constraints of the objective reality of the consolidation mandate. During these negotiations an intersubjective reality was realized where all residents, while having their own subjective meanings of the threat to the school and the neighborhood, were still able to articulate the objective fact that this was a threat to a core structure of meaning. Core values, beliefs, identity, and assumptions were brought into relief as residents re-defined the situation and discussed strategies to cope as a neighborhood, rather than as individuals. The CTF was given much-needed direction from neighbors.

Gentrification emerged as a middle-class interest in renovating houses in old city cores. The process changed in parallel with the economic and political restructuring during the last decade. In this period, urban regeneration became an urban strategy used by the local governments as well as a mask for gentrification. It aimed at restructuring the urban land in line with the preferences of wealthier groups rather than the social needs of existing residents. The governments intend to remove poor images of cities through the displacement of poor inhabitants. This, in turn, increases the risk of dilapidating the authenticity of the existing social, cultural, and historic fabric of the regeneration areas. Against this trend, international conservation agencies promote rehabilitation projects to benefit existing communities of historic neighborhoods. In line with the international declarations, they intend to rehabilitate socio-economic conditions of long term inhabitants along with the conservation of historic heritage. Accordingly, the unique architecture of Fener and Balat neighborhoods has been the focus of international efforts during the last decade. Besides, the neighborhoods attracted the local governments&rsquo / interest and were declared as urban regeneration area in 2006. In this regard, thesis intends to compare Rehabilitation of Fener Balat Districts Program (RFBDP) based on the partnership of Fatih Municipality and EU and Fener Balat Neighborhoods Regeneration Project (FBNRP) based on a model of Fatih Municipality and private sector partnership, with a focus on conserving existing communities and preventing displacement.

The Adair Park neighborhood in southwest Atlanta was designed as a residential enclave for working class whites that has evolved to what it is today: an area primarily inhabited by low-income minorities. Many of its residents have worked to preserve the area's distinctive architectural heritage. Low housing values and vacancies have attracted affordable housing developers such as the Atlanta affiliate of Habitat for Humanity. In response to specific plans for the development of affordable housing in the area, members of Adair Park organized themselves to petition the City of Atlanta to adopt architectural standards that preserved the existing housing stock, and ensured that any new construction would be compatible with the neighborhood's architectural character. This study explores the tensions between inner-city communities and affordable housing developers in the quest for affordable and architecturally significant neighborhoods. The conclusions from this research suggest that the desire of predominately low-income neighborhoods to preserve the architecture character of historically significant neighborhoods may be firmly rooted in middle class aspirations and values. Moreover, the conclusions from this research also suggest non-profit housing developers should consider these attitudes prior to constructing affordable housing in predominately low-income neighborhoods.

In 2008 the Federal government enacted a Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) to address the neighborhood effects of the late-2000s foreclosure crisis. Congress subsequently funded a second and third NSP. This research employs mixed methods to examine the effectiveness of the first round of the NSP in three Florida jurisdictions. The results are analyzed within the larger context of substantive housing theory and federal housing policy. The success of the program is evaluated using a mixed-scanning procedural planning theoretical framework.

This dissertation investigates how the process of gentrification is experienced in the lives of residents of the Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans. Using an ethnographic approach, I demonstrate the impacts of gentrification on neighborhood life and practices, showing how memory and belonging are negotiated in the context of gentrification. I also call into question assumed distinctions between gentrifiers and longstanding residents. I lived in the neighborhood for eight months, conducted in-depth interviews with residents, attended neighborhood organization meetings, and was a participant observer in activities such as second line parades. Emotional and physical impacts of events in the neighborhood history continue to permeate the present day lives of longstanding residents. I show how these residents turn to nostalgia as a way of inhabiting the present. I argue that gentrification brings more challenges, threatening practices that are vital to the fabric of the neighborhood. Longstanding residents have maintained traditions of everyday engagement with the neighborhood space, such as second line parading. However, the influx of gentrifiers brings new sensibilities of inhabiting and engaging with the neighborhood that sometimes clash with the practices of longstanding residents, threatening these ways of life. I also interrogate the perspectives of gentrifiers by examining their responses to racialized constructions of the neighborhood. I show how discourses of gentrification and racialization are linked by examining how this neighborhood is remembered. I argue that the authenticity of a particular narrative about the neighborhood is either challenged or embraced by gentrifiers, depending on their own racialized identity, in order to support their particular politics of belonging to the neighborhood. This dissertation is unique in identifying 'returning residents' who complicate traditional boundaries in the literature between gentrifiers and longstanding residents. These are residents that grew up in the neighborhood, then moved away for some time, and subsequently returned as the neighborhood was becoming gentrified. They are neither gentrifiers nor longstanding residents. Thus, the task of urban scholars in comprehending the complex and multi-faceted process of gentrification demands an approach with a nuanced treatment of residents, making their understandings, practices and motivations a central focus of our work on this topic. / text

<p>The goal of this study is to understand how residents may benefit from living in a mixed income, HOPE VI development in the South. This analysis focuses on a former housing project and its immediate neighborhood in the aftermath of HOPE VI revitalization. I conducted a case study by utilizing original data collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews and unstructured interviews, along with administrative records, evaluation data, media accounts, observation, and casual encounters. A unique contribution of this study of a HOPE VI development is that it also addresses the surrounding neighborhood. Furthermore, this case study offers a unique lens for examining contemporary black gentrification in a publicly constructed space. </p><p>A major finding of this study is that complex intra-racial social dynamics among African American community members may stem from HOPE VI intervention. Specifically, there may be limited positive interaction among residents in the development, and between them and residents of the proximate exterior neighborhood. Further, the nature of constrained interaction manufactures divisive processes for claiming space and community identity that may potentially have negative consequences for renters. </p><p>These consequences stem from a reproduction of space and community, which shapes social control, policing, and exclusion contests, among other tensions. Overall, this study brings to bear some unimagined consequences of HOPE VI that potentially neutralize anticipated benefits of mixed income living for the poor, based on real and perceived alterations of class, mobility, and shared identity in and around the development site.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Geography, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-85).