CURSUpdateVolume VII, Number 1 • July 2002

Housing Assistance and

Economic Self-Sufficiency

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Visit our website at www.unc.edu/depts/curs

inding housing is considered one of themajor barriers families face in leaving

welfare, along with lack of job skills,childcare and reliable transportation. It is

difficult to find and keep a job when forcedto move constantly or when poor housing

conditions cause health problems. Yet thecurrent welfare program, TemporaryAssistance to Needy Families (TANF), largelyignores the housing needs of clients.

In 1999, former North Carolina GovernorJim Hunt pledged $3 million in TANF fundingfor a pilot program to demonstrate the valueof housing assistance in helping TANF-eligiblefamilies achieve greater self-sufficiency. Thatpilot program ultimately funded eight diverseand innovative programs involving coalitionsof public and nonprofit organizations inBuncombe, Catawba, Durham, Edgecombe,Forsyth, Mecklenburg, Orange and Wakecounties. The demonstration included a vari-ety of educational and housing assistancecomponents. All eight offered clients rentalassistance plus budget and credit counseling,life skills training, and homeowner or tenanteducation classes. Seven programs offereddown payment assistance, five of those in theform of Individual Development Accounts(IDAs).

The local programs were provided up to$500,000 in state TANF funds, and applicantshad to provide a minimum cash match of 50percent of the funds requested. In kind contri-butions above the cash match were alsoencouraged. Total grant amounts (state pluslocal contributions) ranged from $326,790 inEdgecombe County, to $1,151,190 in ForsythCounty. TANF funding ranged from $217,000

in Edgecombe County, to $472,000 in Durham,Forsyth, and Mecklenburg counties. The statefunds were for an 18-month time period, withno guarantee of continued funding.

In November 2000, the Center was commis-sioned by the North Carolina Department ofHealth and Human Services, Division of SocialServices, to evaluate the TANF-Housing Pilotprogram. More specifically, CURS was asked to:● Evaluate the extent to which these projects

helped eligible families secure safe, decent,affordable housing;

● Assess the factors that impact participantsuccess; and

● Distill the lessons learned from the pilot pro-jects that might be replicable in other com-munities in North Carolina and the nation.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

2 From the Director

3 Greening Development to

Protect Watersheds: Is New

Urbanism the Answer?

4 Faculty Fellows Update

5 Center Initiates New CURS

Scholar in Residence Program

6 News From CURS

7 The House Is Home

8 Center Projects: New

and Completed Research

I N S I D E

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his issue of CURS Update featurestwo research projects that offer

important insights on urban policyand development. The cover article previews a study

assessing the implementation andimpacts of North Carolina’sTANF/Housing Pilot Program. This studyis particularly timely given that the TANF(Temporary Assistance to Needy Families)program is up for renewal this year. Thecurrent TANF program largely ignores thehousing needs of both program partici-pants and those who have recently leftthe program even though unstable orinadequate housing has been found to bea significant barrier to securing and main-taining employment and high rent bur-dens leave families with insufficient fundsfor life’s necessities. The N.C. TANF/Housing Pilot Program is innovative inrecognizing the important role that stable,affordable and decent housing plays inthe success of families moving from wel-fare to work. The assessment of this pro-gram, conducted by CURS staff, indicatesthat housing and social service organiza-tions can work together to provide a

range of housing services to TANF eligiblerecipients, and it also identifies factorsthat affect the performance of these pro-grams.

Moving from housing to neighbor-hood design, this issue also contains abrief description of a study comparing therelative impacts of new urbanist style andtraditional style subdivisions on stormwater management and watershed protec-tion. Comparing 50 matched pairs of newdevelopments in 5 states, the interdiscipli-nary team of researchers finds that newurbanist “greenfield” developments do abetter job handling storm runoff and pro-tecting water sheds than do comparablenew traditional developments. Newurbanist “infill” developments, however,were found to be no more likely to pro-tect environmentally sensitive areas.These results suggest that new urbanistdevelopments do not necessarily result inbetter water shed protection and thatthose responsible for reviewing plans fornew urbanist communities should care-fully scrutinize the way storm water isbeing handled and how sensitive environ-mental areas are being treated.

FROM THE Director

“The N.C.

TANF/Housing

Pilot Program is

innovative in

recognizing the

important role that

stable, affordable

and decent housing

plays in the

success of families

moving from

welfare to work.”

Bill Rohe

t

any planners and urbandesigners have assertedthat new urbanism is

a more environmentallysustainable form of devel-

opment than conventional low-densitysprawl. Findings of a study of develop-ments in five states, however, only partial-ly support that theory.

An interdisciplinary team of NorthCarolina researchers, including planners,landscape architects and a hydrologist,with funding from the Water ResourcesResearch Institute of the University ofNorth Carolina, sought to gather empiri-cal evidence on how well new urbanismpromotes effective stormwater manage-ment and watershed protection. Led byProfessor Philip R. Berke, Department ofCity and Regional Planning, the researchteam comparatively evaluated how well50 matched pairs of new urban and con-ventional developments in five states(Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, SouthCarolina and Virginia) integrated water-shed protection techniques.Developments were differentiated by loca-tion to determine whether new urbandevelopments built on “greenfield” and“infill” sites are more likely to account forwatershed protection than conventional(low-density sprawl) developments.

Findings in greenfields reveal that newurban developments are more effective inincorporating watershed protection tech-niques than conventional developments.

A skeptical view contends that newurbanism in greenfields is little more thanwhat planner Tripp Pollard calls “new sub-urbanism” in his recent article, “Greeningthe American Dream: If Sprawl is theProblem, is New Urbanism the Answer?(Planning 2001). According to this view,such new urban developments are nearlyidentical to conventional suburban sprawlsince both development patterns con-tribute to the loss of green spaces anddegrade watersheds. A supportive view ofour findings contends that even if locatedin greenfields, new urban developmentsdo more to protect watersheds than con-ventional developments.

In infill sites, new urban developmentshave mixed results. On the one hand,they are more likely than conventionaldevelopment to use techniques to reduceimpervious surface runoff and to restoredegraded stream environments. On theother hand, they are no more likely toprotect sensitive areas and to use bestmanagement practices than are conven-tional developments.

The researchers recommend ways inwhich watershed protection techniquescan be used to implement more environ-mentally sustainable developmentdesigns to protect and restore water-sheds. Specifically, they suggest ways todirect more attention to infill and rede-velopment opportunities and to moreeffectively account for watershed impactson infill sites.

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For more information on this study,please contact Dr. Philip R. Berke,UNC Department of City and RegionalPlanning, at 919-962-4765 orpberke@email.unc.edu. Otherresearchers in the project includedNancy White, Michael Holmes and KatOury with the College of Design, NorthCarolina State University; Dan Line withthe NCSU Water Quality Group; andJoe MacDonald and Rhonda Ryznar,Department of City and RegionalPlanning.

Greening Development

to Protect Watersheds:

Is New Urbanism the Answer?

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FACULTY Fellows

Raymond Burby, Professor in theDepartment of City and RegionalPlanning, has two forthcoming publica-tions: “Making Plans that Matter: CitizenInvolvement and Government Action,”slated for Journal of the AmericanPlanning Association, and “ResidentialFlood Insurance and FloodplainManagement: Lessons from the UnitedStates,” in Proceedings of the Workshopon Residential Flood Insurance: TheImplications for Urban FloodplainManagement Policy in Australia, D. IngleSmith, ed. Canberra, Australia: WaterResearch Foundation of Australia,Australian National University. He alsohad publications recently in the Journalof Environmental Planning andManagement and The Australian Journalof Emergency Management.

In October he was an invited panelistat a workshop on best practices in par-ticipatory decision making to improvecivil infrastructure systems at the FirstAnnual Conference on InfrastructurePriorities: A National InfrastructureResearch Agenda, sponsored by theInstitute for Civil Infrastructure Systems.He also coauthored a paper and was aroundtable participant at the 43rd annu-al meeting of the Association of

Collegiate Schools of Planning inCleveland, Ohio, Nov. 8-11.

Mark Daniel, Assistant Professor inthe Department of Health Behavior andHealth Education, School of PublicHealth, is currently participating in fivefunded research grants, three of whichfocus on diabetics in the aboriginal pop-ulation of Australia. He also coauthoredfour chapters in the forthcomingEncyclopedia of Public Health, as well asa chapter in the 2001 publicationTransforming Health Promotion Practice:Concepts, Issues, and Applications. Inaddition, in 2001 Daniel had articlespublished in both Public Health Reportsand Patient Education and Counseling.

Charles E. Daye, Brandis Professor ofLaw, recently published “Powers ofAdministrative Law Judges, Agencies,and Courts: An Analytical and EmpiricalAssessment,” in the N.C. Law Review79:1571 (2001). His 2000 article“Whither ‘Fair’ Housing: Meditations onWrong Paradigms, Ambivalent Answers,and a Legislative Proposal,” was reprint-ed in the 2001 Zoning and PlanningLaw Handbook and as a commentary inLand Use Law and Zoning Digest 53:3(2001). It also is slated to appear as“Revisiting Fair Housing: The One

Congratulations to

Emil Malizia who

will assume the

chairmanship of

the Department of

City and Regional

Planning July 1 for a five year term.

Malizia’s freshman seminar on

“Bringing Life to Downtown” last

fall quickly shifted gears after Sept.

11 and turned its attention to a

case study of the World Trade

Center, a downtown revitalization

project when it was originally con-

structed. The students shared their

findings at a special presentation on

campus Jan. 16.

MALIZIA

Center Welcomes

New FellowBrian A. (Tony) Ciochetti, Associate Professor of finance in theKenan-Flager Business School, joined the UNC faculty in 1993. He isdirector of the school’s Real Estate Program and the newly created Centerfor Real Estate Development. He teaches courses at both the graduate andundergraduate level on residential and commercial real estate develop-ment. Drawing on his academic and professional experience in the realestate industry, Ciochetti is a frequent author and reviewer of articles for

American Real Estate and Urban Economics Journal, Real Estate Economics and theJournal of Real Estate Research. In 2001 he presented a paper entitled “GeographicCharacteristics of Commercial Mortgage Default” at the Real Estate Research InstituteConference in Chicago and coauthored three papers at the American Real Estate andUrban Economics Association Conference in New Orleans. In both 2000 and 2001 hehad research grants with the Real Estate Research Institute.

Ph.D. (Real Estate and Urban Land Economics), University of Wisconsin-Madison,1995; M.S. (Real Estate and Urban Land Economics), University of Wisconsin-Madison,1991; B.S. (Finance), University of Oregon.

CIOCHETTI

UPDATEAmerica Act, A Legislative Proposal” in aforthcoming issue of the Journal ofAffordable Housing.

David Godschalk, Stephen BaxterProfessor, Department of City andRegional Planning, delivered the plenaryaddress, “Urban Hazard Mitigation:Creating Resilient Cities,” at the UrbanHazards Forum, John Jay College, CityUniversity of New York, on Jan. 22.Godschalk also has been appointed chairof a study group to recommend thestructure and function of an inter-insti-tutional Disaster Studies Institute withinthe University of North Carolina.

Asad Khattak, Associate Professorin the Department of City and RegionalPlanning, is serving as an associate edi-tor of the Intelligent TransportationSystems Journal. In addition, Khattak andMRP student Robert Schneider receivedthe best paper award from theTransportation Research BoardCommittee on Pedestrians at its meeting

in Washington, D.C., Jan 12-16. Khattakalso had two other articles published in2001: “Effects of Work Zone Presence onInjury and Non-injury Crashes” (withAemal Khattak and F. Council), AccidentAnalysis and Prevention, and “InjurySeverity in Multi-vehicle Rear-EndCrashes,” Transportation ResearchRecord.

Frances Lynn, Director of theCommunity Outreach and EducationCore of UNC’s new Center forEnvironmental Health and Susceptibility,received a grant in October from theNational Institute of EnvironmentalHealth Sciences that is looking at ethi-cal, legal and social issues surroundingenvironmental genomics. She is workingwith two community groups, the NorthCarolina Breast Cancer Coalition and theNorth Carolina Occupational Safety andHealth Project to prepare educationalmaterials for their members.

John B. Stephens, Coordinator of the

School of Government’s Public DisputeResolution Program, worked with threeother state groups to sponsor two con-ferences on “Improving Public DecisionMaking through Participation:Leadership, Governance, andCommunity.” The conferences, held inGreenville and Hickory, attracted morethan 300 participants and resulted in acompilation of resources on participa-tion, collaboration and related topics.Specifically, the compilation identifies 14North Carolina organizations that canprovide advice, training, reports andother assistance to groups seeking effec-tive public participation. This report isavailable online (http://www.iog.unc.edu/programs/dispute/resourcemats.htm),as well as his recent article in theSchool’s quarterly publication, PopularGovernment(http://www.iog.unc.edu/pubs/electronicversions/pg/pgsum01/article4.pdf).

Center initiates new CURS

Scholar in Residence Programhe Center has a new residency program designed to facilitate research proposal development by social and behavioral

researchers in the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Center Director Bill Rohe reports that, beginning next fall, the Center will host its first CURS Scholar in Residence, ProfessorKrista Perreira, Department of Public Policy. The competitive program has been made possible by support from the Dean’s

Office, College of Arts and Sciences, and provides for a course buy-out ($7,000) so that faculty members can develop large, ide-ally interdisciplinary, research proposals. In addition, the program provides $1,000 for graduate student assistance or for otherproposal development costs such as travel or editing services.

“Each Scholar in Residence”, Rohe said, “will be provided with office space at Hickerson House to allow him/her to get awayfrom day-to-day interruptions and focus on developing a competitive research proposal to an external funding source. A newscholar will be selected each fall and spring semester.”

For more information on how to apply for the program, contact Mary Beth Powell at 919-962-3076 or via email, mbeth_powell@unc.edu.

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CURS

William (Bill) Rohe, Director ofCURS, recently completed a report forthe Neighborhood ReinvestmentCorporation entitled “Supporting theAmerican Dream: An Assessment ofNeighborhood Reinvestment’s HomeOwnership Pilot Program” (with co-authors Roberto Quercia and ShannonVan Zandt). Rohe also participated in ameeting entitled “Chicago PublicHousing Transformation” at ColumbiaUniversity, Nov. 30, 2001, and presenteda paper entitled, “The Challenges ofUniversity-Community Partnerships,” atthe annual meeting of the Urban AffairsAssociation in Boston, March 22.

CURS Research Associate Rebecca

Elmore co-authored “Water Safetyamong Latino Farmworkers in NorthCarolina” with Dr. Thomas A. Arcury, Dr.Sara A. Quandt and Gregory B. Russell ina recent issue of Journal of Agromedicine(Vol. 8, Issue 2).

Elmore also currently serves on boththe Advisory Committee of the Latino

Crime Prevention Task Force of theGovernor’s Crime Commission and on atask force working in conjunction with ElPueblo, Inc. and the Governor’s HighwaySafety Program to develop a Spanish-lan-guage highway safety video. In addition,Elmore is editor and designer of thenewsletter published by LA CALLE, theCarolina Alliance of Latino LawEnforcement, the North Carolina StateChapter of the National Latino PeaceOfficers Association.

James (Jim) Fraser, SeniorResearch Associate, has recently beennamed an adjunct professor in the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Geography.His paper, “Neighborhood Revitalizationand the Practice of Evaluation in theU.S.: Developing a Margin ResearchPerspective,” also was recently acceptedfor publication in the second issue (June2002) of the new American SociologicalAssociation journal City and Community.

The editor of this edition of CURSUpdate is Nan H. Burby. Burby, who

has an MA in Journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill, for 15 years edited theDepartment of Environmental Sciencesand Engineering’s ESE Notes and wasassistant editor of the University Gazettebefore moving to New Orleans in 1991.She has continued to do freelance editingin recent years but basically considersherself retired!

Smart Growth/New EconomyDirector David Salvesen and CURSAssociate Director Mary Beth Powell

attended the national New Partners forSmart Growth Conference in San Diego,CA, in January.

Salvesen and Powell also gave smartgrowth presentations recently—Salvesento the Energy Policy Work Group inGreensboro in February and Powell atthe Minority Health Conference at theUNC School of Public Health in March.

Staff News

NEWS FROM

ust when we finished saying congratulations (and thanks!) to Carolyn Jonesfor 20 years of service to the Center, we then sadly said farewell. She is leav-

ing the university to spend more time with family especially her eight grand-children! Carolyn started working for the Center on December 7, 1981, and with

the exception of a 2 week period at another campus location has been with theCenter ever since. How fortunate for us!

Jones was recently recognized as a Star Heel in the University Gazette . Her letterof nomination said that she “. . . emanates every positive quality a manager could

ever want in an employee. She’s dependable as clockwork; she anticipates and carriesout tasks long before she’s been asked to perform them and is simply a joy to workwith . . .”

We celebrated her departure with her on May 15 with friends dropping by whoworked with her in the past 20 years like former Center director Jonathan Howes,Carroll Cyphert, Colin Austin, Pat Coke, Linda Cochetto and many others as well as allof us now at the Center who have had the pleasure of working with her everyday. Thestaff, faculty, and students will miss Carolyn's ability to get things done promptly, hergood judgement, dependability and dedication to the University and the Center.

jHats off to Carolyn Jones!

We all wish Carolyn the

best that life has to offer!

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URS and UNC-Chapel Hill’s Centerfor the Study of the American South

(CSAS) have formed a unique part-nership to develop This House is

Home, a multifaceted initiative onaffordable home ownership that includesa mobile gallery, a photographic exhibitand a conference on affordable homeownership to be held in Chapel Hill inMarch 2003.

In partnership with the EnterpriseFoundation and the National BuildingMuseum, the initiative combines scholarly,artistic and public outreach elements. Itseeks to influence policy debate amongacademics and housing practitioners aboutthe impacts of affordable home ownershipand to reach a wide public audience.

The centerpiece of This House is Homeinitiative is a national photography, oralhistory and public art tour, traveling in acustom-designed mobile gallery to foursites: San Antonio, TX, Portland, OR, thePine Ridge Indian Reservation in South

Dakota and a site yet to be selected inEastern North Carolina. This gallery istouring neighborhoods in which afford-able homes are being developed and dis-plays photographs of people and theirhousing as well as narratives describingthe impacts of that housing on their lives.Award-winning photographer and CSASFellow Bill Bamberger will accompany thegallery during three-month sittings andphotograph local affordable homebuyersand their homes. The gallery will also beused for a wide array of arts-based civicdialogue on affordable home ownership.

The Chapel Hill conference on afford-able home ownership will bring togetherartists, humanists, social scientists and awide array of housing policymakers andpractitioners for an exchange of ideas andperspectives. In preparation for this confer-ence the initiative will sponsor affordablehousing-related interdisciplinary course-work and student research involving wide-ly diverse disciplines such as art, history,urban planning, folklore, public health,economics and public policy.

In late summer of 2003, the initiativewill conclude with a comprehensive exhi-bition of the Bamberger photography andrelated audio narratives at the NationalBuilding Museum (NBM) in Washington,DC, and simultaneous commercial publi-cation of Bamberger’s photographic work.The NBM exhibit will include relatededucational programming arranged col-laboratively by the UNC and the muse-um. Subsequent to the five-month NBMshowing, the exhibit will travel to othernational museum venues under themuseum’s auspices.

Funding for this project hasbeen provided by the Ford Foundation,GE Mortgage, the NeighborhoodRedevelopment Corporation, theFannie Mae Foundation, and FreddyMac. Additional funds are being raisedto cover project costs.

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For more information on This House is

Home contact Joseph Mosnier, Center forthe Study of the American South,CB#3355, Manning Hall, UNC-CHAPELHILL, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3355, 919-962-5931 or via email, mosnier@unc.edu.

This House is Home Initiative

Photographer Bill Bamberger shows photos to San Antonio, TX, high school students.

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CENTERProjects

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Importance of Quality of Life in the

Location Decisions of New

Economy Firms

DAVID SALVESEN-PI. Traditionally, thelocation decisions of firms have been drivenby factors such as land costs, labor costsand access to materials and markets. Today,however, quality of life for employees isbecoming an important factor as well, par-ticularly for New Economy industries thatseek locations that will attract and retain awell-educated workforce. With fundingfrom the U.S. Department of Commerce, theCenter, through its Smart Growth/NewEconomy program, will examine linksbetween location decisions and quality oflife. For more information, contact DavidSalvesen at 919-962-7045 or via email atsalvesen@unc.edu.

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY

DEVELOPMENT

Can Housing Filter Without the

Neighborhood Filtering? An

Empirical Investigation

ROBERTO QUERCIA & LISA BATES-CO-PIs. An underlying principle of U.S. housingstrategy and the provision of affordablehousing has been to increase constructionof high-quality residential units in order tospeed up filtering, the process by whichhouseholds “move up” in the housing mar-ket. The assumption has been that filteringhas no impact on the aspects of a neighbor-hood that are important for residents’ lifeopportunities. The main question in thisDepartment of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD)-funded project is: “Is itpossible for a housing unit to filter down inprice without a concomitant decline in thequality of the surrounding neighborhood?”The researchers, using data from two wavesof the American Housing Survey supple-mented by U.S. Census tract data, willaddress that question. For more informa-tion, contact Roberto Quercia at 919-962-4766 or via email at quercia@email.unc.edu.

A Study of the Impact of

Homeownership on Opportunity for

Low and Moderate Income

Households

WILLIAM ROHE & SHANNON VANZANDT-CO-PIs. The goal of this HUD-fund-ed research is to identify and examine themechanisms by which homeownership andneighborhood characteristics impact objec-tive and subjective measures of opportunityfor low- and moderate-income households.Data for the longitudinal study consist ofsurvey data collected at the individual levelboth before and after participants have pur-chased, or considered purchasing, a homein eight different sites across the nation.Secondary data will also be collected on thecharacteristics of the target neighborhoods,including crime rate, housing vacancy,demographics and poverty levels. For moreinformation, contact Bill Rohe at 919-962-3077 or via email at brohe@unc.edu.

This House Is Home: An Initiative

to Advance Affordable Home

Ownership in America

WILLIAM ROHE & HARRY WATSON-CO-PI. This House is Home is a collaborationof UNC with the Enterprise Foundation andthe National Building Museum, with sup-port from several foundations and corpora-tions. (See story on initiative on page 7.)

NATURAL HAZARDS MANAGEMENT

Building Disaster Resilient

Communities Course

RAYMOND BURBY-PI. Under agreementwith the Federal Emergency ManagementAgency’s National Emergency ManagementTraining Center, the University of NorthCarolina is assisting the University of NewOrleans in preparing a course for FEMA’sHigher Education Project. For more infor-mation, contact Ray Burby at 919-962-4774or via email at burby@email.unc.edu.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

North Carolina Smart Growth

Training Program

DAVID SALVESEN-PI. The purpose ofthis project, funded by the Z. SmithReynolds Foundation, is to develop andimplement a smart growth training programthat will provide local planners, elected offi-cials, developers, realtors, lenders and otherswith the knowledge, understanding andtools necessary to promote smart growth intheir communities. The goal is to improvethe ability of many of these individuals totranslate smart growth principles into prac-tice. Participants will be given the opportu-nity to gain new skills and learn of successstories in other communities. The trainingcourse is being developed in conjunctionwith the N.C. Smart Growth Alliance andthe N.C. Cooperative Extension Service atNorth Carolina State University. For moreinformation, contact David Salvesen at 919-962-7045 or via email at salvesen@unc.edu.

TRANSPORTATION

The Dynamics of Truck-Driver and

Occupational Factors in Truck-Involved

Collisions: Identifying High Risk Drivers

ASAD KHATTAK-PI, AND DANIELRODRIGUEZ-CO-PIs. This project, funded bythe University of Tennessee SoutheasternTransportation Center, will analyze thedynamics of truck drivers’ collision involve-ment, with the objective of identifying factorsthat can reduce the risk and severity of truck-involved collisions. The study will use aunique longitudinal data set that containshuman resources, operations and safety datafor more than 11,000 unscheduled over-the-road tractor-trailer drivers of a major U.S. for-hire truckload company over a 26-month peri-od. The researchers hope, through both uni-and bi-variate analysis, as well as multivariateregression models, to identify the strategiesand combinations of policies and countermea-sures (driver education, training and enforce-ment) that are likely to be most effective inreducing collisions. For more information, con-tact Asad Khattak at 919-962-4760 or viaemail at Khattak@email.unc.edu.

NEW Research

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Industry Clusters and Technology

Policy Development in Kentucky

EDWARD FESER-PI. In a project com-missioned by the Kentucky Science andTechnology Corporation to aid implemen-tation of the Kentucky Innovation Act,Feser and a team of students from theDepartment of City and RegionalPlanning studied Kentucky’s industrialbase to identify promising technology sec-tors, strengths and weaknesses in tradi-tional industries, and the location of geo-graphic centers of technology-orientedactivity. A copy of the study report, titled“Kentucky Clusters: IndustrialInterdependence and EconomicCompetitiveness,” is available on-line atwww.kstc.com/what/clusters/index.cfm.

The study found that while Kentuckyhas enjoyed some success in replacing itstraditional, low-skill nondurable manufac-turing base with higher-wage, higher-techheavy industry and distribution activities,knowledge-intensive industries such asinformation technology, software, elec-tronics and pharmaceuticals are still sig-nificantly under-developed. The studyrecommended that Kentucky focus lesson, the recruitment of outside businesses,and more on building its capacity to gen-erate economic growth from within.Specific recommendations included sup-porting R&D activity and infrastructuredevelopment in promising university dis-ciplines, implementing broad-based entre-preneurship strategies to nurture start-upsin all sectors, and establishing businessassociations to foster cross-firm network-ing, joint problem-solving, and spin-offs inthe state’s leading industry clusters. Formore information, contact Ed Feser at919-962-4768 or via email atfeser@email.unc.edu.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Public Participation in Planning

and Local Government

Involvement in Hazard Mitigation

RAYMOND J. BURBY-PI. This threeyear study funded by the NationalScience Foundation resulted in severalimportant findings: 1) planners mustinvolve a wider array of stakeholders inplan-making than is usually the case ifhazard mitigation plans are to matter andto have an impact on local governmentactions; 2) local governments also mustdevelop commitment to take action, inaddition to knowing what to do to miti-gate losses from natural and technologicalhazards; and 3) state growth managementlaws that require opportunities for citizenparticipation do indeed affect local gov-ernment attention to citizen involvement.

Evidence was gathered from 60 plan-making processes in the states of Floridaand Washington. It indicates that withgreater stakeholder involvement, plans arestronger, and proposals made in plans aremore likely to be implemented. The find-ings also indicate that emergency man-agers can build an informed constituencyand real commitment among elected offi-cials when they make optimal decisionsregarding five key choices: objectives to beachieved by involving citizens; points inthe planning process when citizens partici-pate; which citizens to include; techniquesto be employed in securing citizen input,and information to be provided to citizens.

Results of the study are contained inseveral working papers on citizen participa-tion (see CURS Update, December 2001 orCenter’s website, www.unc.edu/depts/curs)as well as three articles in professionaljournals: “Making Plans that Matter:Citizen Involvement and GovernmentAction,” Journal of the American PlanningAssociation (forthcoming in 2002);“Involving Citizens in Hazard MitigationPlanning: Making the Right Choices,” TheAustralian Journal of Emergency

Management, 16 (3), 2001, and“Mandating Citizen Participation in Plan-Making: Six Strategic Choices” (with S.Brody and D. Godschalk), under review,Journal of the American PlanningAssociation. For more information, contactRay Burby at 919-962-4774 or via email atburby@email.unc.edu.

Mobilization as a Response to Risk

Perceptions and Declines in

Housing Values

PHILIP BERKE & LUCIE LAURIAN-PIs.This HUD-funded research focused onresidents’ information about a toxic site intheir neighborhood, on their perceptionsof environmental risks and on theirresponses to these perceptions. The analy-sis relies mainly on information collectedthrough a random sample telephone sur-vey of 341 persons currently living aroundfour toxic sites in communities in NorthCarolina, as well as interviews with com-munity leaders and real estate agents, andthe review of written documents aboutthe sites.

The key findings of the study were: 1)being aware that a site exists does notnecessarily translate into being informedabout it; 2) information levels and riskperceptions are key factors in residents’choice of response; 3) the key response toenvironmental risk perceptions is partici-pation, and that is triggered by distrust inthe institutions responsible for thecleanup; 4) mobility is not a commonresponse to stress; 5) residents’ passivity ismost often explained by their trust in thecleanup process or by a sense of resigna-tion, but rarely due to a lack of interest,and 6) community mobilization is anessential predictor of information levelsand risk perceptions and thus an indirectpredictor of residents’ responses. ContactLaurian (llaurian@email.arizona.edu) foravailability of copies of her Ph.D. disserta-tion, Cleaning-up Contaminated Sites:Residents’ Perceptions and Responses.

COMPLETED Research

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To achieve these objectives, the UNC-Chapel Hill research team, consisting ofDr. William M. Rohe, Dr. James C. Fraserand Spencer Cowan, collected and ana-lyzed data on program and participantcharacteristics, program accomplishments,obstacles to implementation, and effectivepractices. The research team conductedinterviews with program staff at twopoints in time. Approximately seven inter-views were conducted at each site yield-ing close to 50 total interviews. Programdocumentation, such as quarterly reports,was also collected and analyzed.

Program Results

The eight programs committed to pro-viding 1,146 people with rental subsidies,down payment assistance, housing coun-seling or other housing-related assistance.At the end of the grant period, a total of1,398 clients were served. A total of 386people were provided with short- or long-term rental assistance; 16 people movedinto non-subsidized housing; 21 peoplereceived down payment assistance in buy-ing homes; and 16 people received utilityor deposit assistance. A total of 750 clientswere provided with homeownership edu-

cation, while 209 people received addi-tional training and counseling services,including life skills training, job skillstraining or credit counseling. Five coun-ties (Catawba, Forsyth, Mecklenburg,Orange and Wake) were able to meet orexceed their goals for total number ofclients served; the remaining three coun-ties fell short of their goals.

Elements of Successful Programs

The financial assistance provided toprogram participants, such as rent subsi-dies and down payment assistance, wasinstrumental in helping families achievehousing stability. Moreover, pilot pro-grams having an IDA component wereable to provide additional down paymentassistance, thereby helping participatingfamilies buy homes.

In addition, the educational and train-ing classes offered by pilot programs werealso seen as extremely important. Programstaff stressed the importance of life skills,job readiness and tenant/homeownership.They also offered substance abuse anddomestic violence counseling and trainingin helping participants move towardself-sufficiency.

Effective interagency partnerships werealso critical to program success. While thedevelopment of interagency partnershipstook time away from serving clients, pro-gram staff felt those partnerships wereessential, as the partnerships allowed thelead agencies to focus on their strengthswhile drawing on the strengths of others.Partnerships also helped agencies avoidduplication of services and increase staffknowledge of community resources.One service provider in EdgecombeCounty commented:

By partnering with other agencies, we feelthat we are not alone in the mission to helpthose that are homeless move back to self-suf-ficiency. We also feel that by working togetherwe are not duplicating benefits but sharingresources and learning more about each ofour roles, which can strengthen this commu-nity. In our 20 years of operation, we knowthat only through collaboration can themany different needs of the homeless be met.

Limitations of Pilot Program

Program staff highlighted several pro-gram, client and community factors thatimpacted program outcomes.

Housing Assistance and Economic Self-Sufficiency

TRANSPORTATION

Transportation and Equity: A

Review and Future Research and

Directions

DANIEL RODRIGUEZ-PI. Utilizing anaccessibility-based perspective to reviewthe transit policy and transit planning lit-erature, Rodriguez found that planningtools address equity issues far less con-vincingly than they do efficiency andeffectiveness issues, yet current policydebates almost always revolve around thedistribution of benefits and burdens ofprograms and policies.

Three distinct areas of emphasis in theliterature were identified: 1) physicalaccess to transit; 2) personal financialaccess to transit; and 3) access providedby transit. The emergence of research in

these three areas over time reflects plan-ners’ increasingly broader and improvedunderstanding of the role of transporta-tion as a provider of accessibility. Theshifts in emphasis from local transitaccess to regional access, and a height-ened awareness about the role of trans-portation in facilitating an individual’sparticipation in society, are hallmarks of arelative improvement. The study con-cludes that the literature remains unnec-essarily skewed towards work access andoften ignores issues of gender, race andclass diversity.

This report is available on the Institutefor Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS)website: http://www.nyu.edu/icis. Formore information, contact DanielRodriguez at 919-962-4763 or via email atdanrod@email.unc.edu.

Impact of Truck Driver

Compensation on Driver Safety

and Turnover: A Case Study

DANIEL RODRIGUEZ-PI. The purposeof this project, sponsored by the FederalMotor Carriers Safety Administration, wasto determine how the pay level influencessafety related outcomes in a particulartrucking firm. Results suggest at least twoavenues through which higher payresults in improved safety outcomes: 1)higher pay allows firms to attract morequalified individuals from other firms,and 2) higher pay reduces individualturnover, which has an indirect bearingon crash risk.

Researchers found no evidence thatincreases in individual pay creates “incentiveor reciprocity effects” that influence safety.The results are more consistent with

Completed Research

The overall program length, a year anda half, was said to be too short to allowclients to achieve self-sufficiency.Participants were unable to substantiallyincrease their incomes in that time frameso that they no longer needed housingassistance. Local staff also reported thatfunding constraints, such as uncertainty asto continuation funding as well as rigidrestrictions on how program funds couldbe spent, impacted program effectiveness.

The two most significant client factorsthat hindered program success were poorcredit ratings and low motivation levels.Other reported factors were client lack offinancial management experience, lowlevels of self-esteem, lack of trust in ser-vice providers, low education levels, lowwages, domestic violence, substanceabuse and illness.

Finally, community factors that provedto be barriers to program completionincluded the lack of affordable housing,transportation and childcare.

Recommendations and Conclusions

Over 1,000 households received someform of financial housing assistance orhousing-related counseling and education.The short time period of the initial grantsand uncertainty as to whether continua-tion funds were to be provided, however,resulted in considerable stress among theimplementing agencies.

Program participants in all eight countiesstressed the need to continue the TANFHousing Program, indicating that the pro-gram offers many families their only hope atlong-term housing stability and self-suffi-ciency. A service provider in CatawbaCounty described the impact on families:

Families have been provided with stablehousing and with an opportunity to improvetheir credit history and increase their eco-nomic literacy. Obviously, the 12 familiesthat have purchased their own homes havealso moved even farther—building assets fortheir families…The families have realized adream they thought might never come true.

Program staff recommended thestrengthening of interagency relationshipsbetween local agencies and theDepartment of Social Services; increasingprogram length to at least three years;implementing an IDA component in everycounty; and increasing program fundingand staffing levels.

At the time of this writing, it is too soonto gauge the impact of the housing assis-tance provided on the self-sufficiencyefforts of the program participants. Tounderstand the full impacts of the pro-gram, the participants need to be followedfor a longer period of time.For more information on this project, please contactDr. William M. Rohe, Center for Urban and RegionalStudies, at 919-962-3077 or via email atbrohe@unc.edu.

ZXV

efficiency wage theories than with theoriesrelated to the New Institutional Economics.

A unique dataset was used to evaluate theimpact of driver compensation levels by esti-mating models of time-to-accident. The datacontain monthly human resources, operationsand safety information for all unscheduled

over-the-road truck drivers of a major U.S. for-hire truckload company over a 26-month peri-od, in addition to individual demographicinformation. A total of 11,540 individual dri-vers and over 5,000 crashes were observed. Areport has been submitted to the FederalMotor Carriers Safety Administration (FMCSA)

for comments and review and will be availableto the public once it is authorized by FMCSA.For more information, contact DanielRodriguez at 919-962-4763 or via email at dan-rod@email.unc.edu.

Center for Urban and Regional Studies

Hickerson House, Campus Box 3410

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3410

STAFF

Director

William (Bill) Rohe

Associate Director

Mary Beth Powell

Senior Research Associate

James (Jim) Fraser

Smart Growth/

New Economy Director

David Salveson

Senior Research Associate

Lucy Gorham

Research Associate

Rebecca (“Bekki”) Elmore

Neighborhood Construction

Company Coordinator

Mary Wible Brennan

Accounting Technician

David Hardt

Grants Manager

Holly McPherson

Processing Assistant

Linda Comer

Newsletter Editor

Nan H. Burby

Phone: 919/962-3074

Fax: 919/962-2518

http://www.unc.edu/depts/curs

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CenterABOUT THE

he Center for Urban and Regional Studies (“the

Center”) in the College of Arts and Sciences at

UNC-Chapel Hill is a research center focusing on

issues and problems faced by our nation’s cities and

regions. Created in 1957, it is one of the oldest uni-

versity-based urban research centers in the country.

The Center supports research activity across campus

through its “Faculty Fellow” program, supporting and

drawing on 65 faculty members from 23 departments.

The Center’s mission is to promote and support high-

quality basic and applied research on planning and policy

issues. It is uniquely situated to support the interdiscipli-

nary research required to tackle the complex challenges

faced in urban, regional and rural settings alike.t

www.unc.edu/depts/curs

Katherine Anthony

Shelita Atkinson

Linda Bates

Marcus Becton

Ruth Ann Binder

Erin Crossfield

Spencer Cowan

Matthew Hayes

Amanda Henley

Amanda Huron

Jonothan Lepofsky

Nathan Macek

Sarah Nash

Elizabeth O’Conner

Jeremy Raw

Henry Renski

Marta Rocha

Mary Margaret Shaw

Jill Sherman

Felipe Targa

Emily Williamson

Beverly Wilson

Deong Yoon

Shannon Van Zandt

STUDENTS AT CURS

CORRECTION

The December issue of CURS Update incorrectly identified contact information for the Fannie Mae Foundation. To obtain the

final report, Evolving Challenges for CDCs: The Causes and Impacts of Failure, Downsizing and Merger, contact the

foundation at 202-274-8075 or via e-mail, fmfpubs@fanniemaefoundation.org. The report can also be downloaded at

www.knowledgeplex.org. The Center regrets the error.