Share your work

The University Digital Conservancy is home to open access articles, institutional documents, dissertations, datasets, university produced publications, campus newspapers, podcasts & more. Learn about the UDC.

Learn how to deposit.

 

Communities in the UDC

Select a community to browse its collections.

Recent Submissions

No Thumbnail Available
Item
Creating Affordable Homes: An Evaluation of the Minneapolis Homes Create Strategy
(2024-05-01) Goodrich , Dan; Yudelman, Beth
This project was a qualitative analysis of the Create Strategy of the Minneapolis Homes Program. The project was designed to determine to what extent the strategy is meeting its goals. The Minneapolis Homes Program is managed by the Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED) housing division. The mission of the Minneapolis Homes Program (started in 2020) is to help people access, create, and sustain affordable homeownership to eliminate racial disparities in homeownership. This capstone project was specifically focused on the Create Strategy of the program - to what extent are the Minneapolis Homes: Financing and Property Sale Programs successfully creating opportunities to build new homes and rehabilitate existing homes to eliminate racial disparities in homeownership within the city of Minneapolis? Three key findings emerged from our research: 1) Minneapolis Homes is well led and viewed as a national leader, 2) Some developers experience significant “pain points” when working with the city. Further, the experiences that builders have with the city can vary significantly and can be inconsistent. For example, newer community developers need more support navigating the city’s process and receiving early financial support for construction, while larger developers want more consistency, and 3) The Create Strategy is underfunded. More funding is needed for the Minneapolis Homes Create Strategy to increase capacity within the city as well as for specific development projects. In addition, outside forces such as post-Covid inflation, labor shortages, and the Minneapolis 2040 plan lawsuit are adding time, costs, and stress for builders. On a macro level, we recommend that Minneapolis Homes work closely with city departments and divisions to advance the city’s identified primary goal. On a micro level, we recommend that Minneapolis Homes 1) clarify the primary goal within CPED in relation to equity and homeownership: what to incentivize and what to require, 2) seek additional funding to advance the identified goals of the Create Strategy, 3) continue to streamline the process for developers and customize support (including more financial and logistical support when needed), and 4) continue to strengthen communication with developers, city staff, and funders. In addition, Minneapolis Homes should examine whether more homeowner participation in evaluating the Create Strategy is beneficial.
No Thumbnail Available
Item
Does Community Air Monitoring Lead to Better Environmental Policy? Evaluating AB 617 in Richmond, California
(2024-05-01) Hunt, Samantha
Community air monitoring, publicly-operated low-cost air monitors to gather local, real-time pollution data, is one method to potentially improve air quality. Regulatory agencies are increasingly funding community monitoring to complement sparse networks of regulatory monitors. However, data from low-cost monitors often faces challenges about data quality, contributing to monitoring data seldom leading to policy change. If community air monitoring is truly an avenue for improving air quality rather than increasing awareness, I argue this data must drive regulatory change. In California, Assembly Bill (AB) 617 created a comprehensive program of public involvement in designing plans to install additional air monitors and subsequently reduce emissions. Here, I analyze key AB 617 documents from Richmond, California to trace whether new air monitoring data is linked to strategies to reduce emissions. I find most monitoring data is not used and rarely connected to regulatory change. I also classify the types of actions within Richmond’s emissions reduction plan, finding relatively few new policies that are enforceable and ready for near-term implementation. Since community monitoring data is largely unused, changes in environmental regulation may be more likely if new regulatory monitors are installed instead. Regulators should also make it clear to community members from the outset that low-cost monitoring data will not lead to new regulation at this point. An alternative, potentially more effective method to improving air quality may be using new monitoring data to pursue change through media advocacy and direct pressure on industry rather than going through state institutions.
Thumbnail Image
Item
Thumbnail Image
Item
Thumbnail Image
Item