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We conduct an empirical investigation of the social environment of “good” neighborhoods in physical form in a model of the “compact city,” Portland, Oregon and discuss the implications for design and evaluation of policies inspired by smart growth and new urbanist movements that focus on the urban form and transportation dimensions of neighborhoods, and of housing assistance policies designed to change the economic mix in neighborhoods. We conceptualize the physical and social dimensions of the “good” neighborhood environment and develop an approach to operationalization that uses publicly available data. Our findings indicate that for the most part, Portland has been successful in creating neighborhoods at several economic scales that feature not only the connectivity, accessibility, mixed land use, and access to public transit that characterize “good” neighborhoods from a physical perspective, but also a “good” social environment indicative of strong ties and collective efficacy. However, there are signs that in the process, Portland may be creating poverty areas that lack connectivity, accessibility, and access to public transit and a mix of destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares Portland in Oregon and Charlotte in North Carolina to determine if recent residential development patterns in each area are as different as their existing policy framework and regulations might suggest. Using spatial data sets from local sources, we first perform a cluster analysis to develop a typology of census block groups based on built-environment characteristics. This derived typology is coupled with data on single-family residential construction for both study areas to assess the degree of similarity. We find that Portland and Charlotte present very different residential development outcomes in recent years. More specifically, single-family residential development has occurred most frequently in the inner- and middle-ring suburbs in Portland and most heavily in the urban fringe areas in Charlotte. Potential explanations of the observed difference are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a quantitative method for classifying neighbourhood types and applies the characterization method to the neighbourhoods of new single-family homes in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. The study first measures a set of 21 urban form attributes in neighbourhoods that contain newly constructed single-family homes. Factor analysis is then used to identify a small set of dimensions that capture essential differences in urban form. Finally, these factor scores are used as input to a cluster analysis to identify distinct neighbourhood types. The results demonstrate that most new single-family homes in Portland are built in new suburban neighbourhoods, but a substantial portion of single-family construction is occurring in traditional and neo-traditional urban neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates the efficacy of smart growth instruments in bringing forth compact urban development and neotraditional neighborhood design. The article first sets forth a set of quantitative measures that operationalize five dimensions of compact urban development and neo- traditional neighborhood design: street network connectivity, density, land use mix, accessibility, and pedestrian walkability. Using these measures, three study areas are evaluated to determine how well their urban development patterns meet smart growth principles. These study areas are Portland, Oregon; Orange County, Florida; and Montgomery County Maryland. Findings indicate that all three areas have quite similar development patterns. Findings also suggest that smart growth instruments have altered subdivision design, which is a traditional aspect of physical urban planning. However smart growth plans have not branched out into non-traditional aspects of planning to encourage mixed land uses and to improve regional accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether sprawl, featured by low development density, segregated land uses, lack of significant centers, and poor street connectivity, contributes to a widening mortality gap between urban and suburban residents. We employ two mortality datasets, including a national cross-sectional dataset examining the impact of metropolitan-level sprawl on urban-suburban mortality gaps and a longitudinal dataset from Portland examining changes in urban-suburban mortality gaps over time. The national and Portland studies provide the only evidence to date that (1) across metropolitan areas, the size of urban-suburban mortality gaps varies by the extent of sprawl: in sprawling metropolitan areas, urban residents have significant excess mortality risks than suburban residents, while in compact metropolitan areas, urbanicity-related excess mortality becomes insignificant; (2) the Portland metropolitan area not only experienced net decreases in mortality rates but also a narrowing urban-suburban mortality gap since its adoption of smart growth regime in the past decade; and (3) the existence of excess mortality among urban residents in US sprawling metropolitan areas, as well as the net mortality decreases and narrowing urban-suburban mortality gap in the Portland metropolitan area, is not attributable to sociodemographic variations. These findings suggest that health threats imposed by sprawl affect urban residents disproportionately compared to suburban residents and that efforts curbing sprawl may mitigate urban-suburban health disparities.