Category: Uncategorized

Wrapping Up Spring 2023 with Carolina Planning Journal

April 25, 2023 / odrozd / 0 Comments

In Spring 2022, the Carolina Planning Journal had a special year. We published sixteen blog posts and are set to publish Volume 48 on Urban Analytics: Capabilities and Critiques in mid-May. We also hosted Dr. Jamaal Green as a guest speaker in collaboration with DCRP DEI and DCRP’s Planning in Practice Speaker Series. Workshops on editing for the journal and a few social events were also held. Congratulations to Emma Vinella-Brusher, Cameron Mcbroom-Fitterer, Walker Harrison, Amy Patronella, Sarah Kear, Rene Marker-Katz, Henry Read, and Lance Gloss, who will soon graduate. Additionally, the CPJ looks forward to seeing the second and third-year students for more writing and editing next year.

Spring 2023 Posts:

Happy New Year from the Carolina Planning Journal!
Planning for 36 Hours in Fanwood, New Jersey by Kathryn Cunningham
The case for a K-12 planning education by Isabel Soberal
Too Big to Dismantle: Planning for Reuse of the Tarheel Army Missile Plant by Ian Baltutis
Masters Student Panel on Master’s Project Proposal Development by Jo Kwon
Wrestling with Equity: Dr. Jamaal Green Returns to DCRP by Lance Gloss
Winter photo contest winner
What prevents older LGBTQ+ adults from aging in place? An interview with Marisa Turesky, Urban Planning Ph.D. Candidate by Candela Cerpa
Planning for 36 Hours in Seattle, Washington by Nik Reasor
Schoolyards: An Untapped Community Resource? by Emma Vinella-Brusher
1970’s Detroit Gets in a Twitter Feud by Abby Cover
From the Archives) Film Analysis: Oil Culture in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Planning for 36 Hours in Delhi, India by Ian Baltutis
Planning for 36 Hours in Oakland, California by Kathryn Cunningham
The Arctic: An Uncertain Time for Arctic Cooperation by Samantha Pace
Planning for 36 Hours Stockholm, Sweden by Nik Reasor

Please follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook and wait for the new volume on Urban Analytics: Capabilities and Critiques in May 2023.

This will be our last post from 2022-23 editors. Thank you so much for a great Spring semester to everyone who read, wrote, and edited the volume and blog!

Your 2022-23 Editors:

LANCE GLOSS | Editor-in-Chief & JO KWON | Managing Editor

Jo is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in City and Regional Planning with an interest in using visuals in environmental planning. She has been a part of CPJ since 2019. With a background in Statistics and English Literature, she received her M.A. in Computational Media at Duke University. In her free time, she enjoys indie films, live performances, climbing, and drinking coffee.

Happy New Year from the Carolina Planning Journal!

January 3, 2023 / odrozd / 1 Comment

2022 was a special year for the Carolina Planning Journal! We published Volume 47 of our print journal on Planning for Healthy Cities. In the Fall of 2022, we had new writers and editors, including Ian Baltutis, Candela Cerpa, Abby Cover, Kathyrn Cunningham, Ryan Ford, Henry Read, Nik Reasor, Nicholas Stover, Isabel Soberal, Asher Eskind, and Chris Samoray, and our new faculty advisor Dr. Allie Thomas. We also had returning writers and editors Emma Vinella-Brusher, James Hamilton, Walker Harrison, Cameron Mcbroom-Fitterer, Amy Patronella, and Rene Marker-Katz. Angles had a busy semester with 32 posts and 16,797 views.

Summer & Fall 2022 Posts:

Please follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook and wait for the new volume on Urban Analytics: Capabilities and Critiques in May 2023.

Thank you so much for a great year to everyone who read, wrote, and edited the volume and blog. Here’s to another great year!

Your 2022-23 Editors:

LANCE GLOSS | Editor-in-Chief & JO KWON | Managing Editor

Lance is a second-generation urban planner with a passion for economic development strategies that center natural resource conservation and community uplift. He served as Managing Editor of the Urban Journal at Brown University, Section Editor at the College Hill Independent, and Senior Planner for the City of Grand Junction. Hailing from sunny Colorado, he earned his BA in Urban Studies at Brown and will earn his Master’s in City and Regional Planning in 2023. Outside of work, he can be found on his bicycle, in the woods, or on the rugby pitch. Jo (Joungwon) is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in City and Regional Planning with an interest in using visuals in environmental planning. She has been a part of CPJ since 2019. With a background in Statistics and English Literature, she received her M.A. in Computational Media at Duke University. In her free time, she enjoys indie films, live performances, climbing, and drinking coffee.

From Archives) What XKCD Can Teach You About Planning

December 27, 2022 / odrozd

This post was originally published on March 27, 2018, and is one of the most viewed articles in 2022.

By Nora Schwaller

XKCD is a beloved, online nerd comic that primarily involves esoteric jokes about physics and math with a healthy dose of snark. But that’s not all these humble stick figures provide. They can also offer valuable insight and lessons into some of the finer complications of planning: from big-picture issues, to niche problems. Therefore, through careful review and study, you can use XKCD comics to become a better planner. Here’s a quick tour of some of the top applications of XKCD to the planning field.

From the master planning perspective, XKCD can help you plan an execute a project from start to finish by realizing the importance of big-picture thinking:

XKCD: Planning

And providing helpful tips on time management and organization, such as the best ways to start a project:

XKCD: Making Progress

To budget your time:

XKCD: Time Estimating

And to make a schedule:

XKCD: Time Management

XKCD can also help you address niche problems that come up in core course class work, as well as harder issues that you address in topical classes. For example, XKCD provides ample advice on how to create and present helpful maps.

It can help you set up your GIS project:

XKCD: Map Projections

And teach you how to add that all important design flair:

XKCD: State Borders

So that you can present your work in a convincing way:

XKCD: Heatmap

XKCD has advice for planning specializations as well. Particularly, it has a lot of information on transit problems.

Such as, how to set up roads for everyone’s use:

XKCD: Highway Engineer Pranks

And prepare for the advances of the future:

XKCD: Driving

XKCD can also assist with your studies by translating abstract concepts to ‘real-world’ situations, like supply and demand and the tragedy of the commons:

XKCD: Hotels

Or the real reasons for considering the best years for Census data:

XKCD: Suckville

And, finally, it can help you connect with the public. Whether that is explaining your most recent research project:

XKCD: Like I’m Five

Or the most recent disaster:

XKCD: Worst Case Scenario

About the Author: Nora Schwaller was a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, where she focuses on disaster recovery. Prior to UNC, she worked for an architecture firm in San Francisco. Outside of class, Nora enjoys long bike rides and short walks, delicious food with good people, and casually perusing information on the design history of contemporary video games and systems.

Machine Learning and Planning Research: How Each Can Push the Other’s Frontiers

July 6, 2022 / odrozd

By Kshitiz Khanal

Planning and social science research communities are increasingly adopting machine learning techniques in their research. Machine learning (ML) represents a broad range of techniques that uses insights gained from data for prediction and other tasks as opposed to hard-coded rules. Even quantitative planning and social science researchers are still catching up to the (mostly technological) developments in computer science and business applications.

Here I discuss some reasons why planning and other social science domains are lagging behind technological developments in computer science and applications of those developments in businesses, how each domain can help push the boundaries of the other and some possible future actions that emerge from those discussions.

Catching up to the sprawl of techniques

Technological developments are happening at a myriad of frontiers in the field of machine learning, so much so that it’s hard to even for domain specialists to keep up. People pushing these frontiers are mostly working in big technology companies and universities from select regions of the world.

Compared to the expansion of machine learning science mostly by computer scientists and business applications of those developments by the likes of big technology companies, the use of machine learning in social science domains such as planning research remains low, albeit growing. Following are some factors that hinder the use of machine learning for planning research:

Funding: Computer science and AI related domains are some of the best funded research domains. Similarly, companies (not only primarily technology companies) invest in ML/AI resources because of the potential return on investments. Comparatively, research funding in planning and social science domains as well as the capacity of local governments and nonprofits to carry out research is lower.
Skills gap: Planning and social science researchers are not typically trained in machine learning. Although the realization of the utility of machine learning and adoption is increasing, the gap in skills among most planning researchers looking to use machine learning is a challenge.
Datasets: There are many well-known benchmark datasets for AI/ML research. Benchmark datasets are popular datasets on which the performance of new machine learning models are tested for standardized comparison with other models. Similarly, businesses generate datasets as part of their operations. There are limited datasets amenable for planning research in comparison. Data generation is a resource-intensive task, and it is not surprising that the amount of datasets available is lower where the allocation of resources is lower.

How ML can help planning research beyond predictions

With the broad variety of techniques available for prediction, causal analysis, data generation, and other tasks, it is more about how not if machine learning is useful in planning research. Let’s look at a few interesting applications.

Making sense of non-traditional data sources: Making sense of a lot of data sources that can be useful such as newspaper archives, social media, satellite images, online forums, and listservs can be cumbersome with traditional approaches. Using machine learning techniques such as image segmentation, optical character recognition, natural language processing, etc. can help gain insights from a large volume of data.
Causal reasoning: The emerging field of causal machine learning can be used in evaluating policies, creating better programs by targeting heterogeneous effects, and gathering insights from natural experiments that are not practical or possible from traditional social science research designs [1].
Creating synthetic datasets: ML models such as Generative Adversarial Networks (algorithms that can generate data such as images and texts strikingly similar to provided examples) can be used to create synthetic data that can help reduce bias in unbalanced datasets[2].
Theory building: Machine Learning can also guide theory building in planning and the social sciences. Theory building includes extensively testing the robustness of hypotheses. The suite of machine learning tools and developments in ML based causal reasoning can help guide theory building by uncovering novel and robust patterns in data [3].

How planning research can help ML

The field of AI/ML draws frequent criticism (deservedly) about the associated ethical and social justice issues. Planning research can help push those frontiers of machine learning and some more. Some of them are discussed below.

Exploration of potential ethical and social justice issues: The field of planning has forever been concerned with ethics and social justice. Planning scholars can help explore potential ethical and social justice related harms and biases from AI/ML [4].
Expanding social applications of machine learning: There is much to be gained by applying machine learning beyond building new machine learning architectures and improving the profitability of technology and other businesses. The techniques can be used in research where insights gained about improving people’s lives through planning are more straightforward.
Explaining the explanations of the black box of machine learning: AI/ML practitioners are pushing towards more explainability in terms of how the models came up with their predictions or outputs. Knowledge of social systems for which machine learning was used can help put those outputs in context [5].
Moving beyond benchmark datasets: Many machine learning researchers being concerned only with performance on benchmark datasets is a common criticism of machine learning models. Applications to planning problems can help the domain of machine learning move towards goals that are more directly beneficial to humanity.

The way forward

The application of machine learning techniques to planning problems can advance both of these fields. Increased collaboration, increased access to funding, increased institutional support, creation of learning materials, incentives for cross-disciplinary research projects and publications, push for more open data, etc. can help the two domains tango for increased social good.

References

[1] S. Athey and G. W. Imbens, “Machine learning methods for estimating heterogeneous causal effects,” stat, vol. 1050, no. 5, pp. 1–26, 2015.

[2] M. Hittmeir, A. Ekelhart, and R. Mayer, “On the utility of synthetic data: An empirical evaluation on machine learning tasks,” in Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, 2019, pp. 1–6.

[3] P. Choudhury, R. Allen, and M. Endres, “Developing theory using machine learning methods,” Available SSRN 3251077, 2018.

[4] A. Hagerty and I. Rubinov, “Global AI ethics: a review of the social impacts and ethical implications of artificial intelligence,” ArXiv Prepr. ArXiv190707892, 2019.[5] U. Bhatt, M. Andrus, A. Weller, and A. Xiang, “Machine learning explainability for external stakeholders,” ArXiv Prepr. ArXiv200705408, 2020.

Kshitiz Khanal is a PhD candidate at the Department of City and Regional Planning. His current research focuses on the application of emerging machine learning techniques in energy planning. He studied engineering and energy planning. Before coming to UNC, he co-founded an open technology advocacy non-profit in Nepal and was involved in energy as well as open data for development research. He enjoys playing and watching football (soccer), calligraphy, and sipping the Himalayan silver tips tea.

Edited by Jo Kwon, Managing Editor

Featured image courtesy of Cyberpunk style AI generated image using text submission “urban planning”

From the Archives: Got Green Space?

May 15, 2020 / odrozd

This post was originally published by Anna Patterson on November 24, 2017. As COVID-19 has limited much of our activity and movement to our homes, many people are turning to the outdoors for a bit of refuge. Exploring the importance of green spaces- particularly on public health- this piece is once again relevant.

Planning for Preventative Health

Urban green space provides a place to escape the concrete and steel of urban city centers, spend time in nature, connect with others, and get moving. As Americans become increasingly sedentary, a push towards funding and implementing green space as a means of increasing individual health has gained traction. Doctors now write green prescriptions for patients to go walk at their local park three days a week or to visit the local farmers market weekly to purchase healthy local fruits and vegetables. Not to mention, green space is aesthetically pleasing and likely to increase property values. But planners and public health practitioners often underestimate the power of green space to prevent disease and serve as a promotive factor for physical, social, and emotional health.

In young children, green space promotes muscle strength, coordination, cognitive thinking, and reasoning abilities—all important aspects to the future health and success of children. Additionally, green space promotes cleaner air and increased exercise.

Research demonstrates that the relationship between green space and increased health outcomes is particularly strong for individuals from lower socioeconomic statuses. In large cities, elderly, youth, and those whose highest level of education was secondary benefited most from living near green space.

Research regarding the mental health benefits of green space is emerging. It is widely accepted in current Western culture that stress is ubiquitous. However, when a person is exposed to high levels of stress for long periods of time, the resulting toxic stress can wreak havoc on the body and result in negative health outcomes. Previous research demonstrates that the quantity of green space in a person’s living environment is linked to stress on the biological level. Individuals with less green space exhibited higher cortisol levels, an indicator of stress, than individuals who lived in greener environments.

Partnerships for Prosperous Green Spaces

Partnerships, especially between public health and city and regional planning practitioners, are crucial to the work of health equity. Ultimately, successful large-scale green space initiatives require investment from commercial, philanthropic, and government organizations.

High Line Park in Manhattan’s West Side exemplifies a successful, large-scale, public-private investment. Friends of the High Line, the conservation group that organized to save the old High Line railway, agreed from the start to pay the entire cost of operations of the park. In turn, the City of New York paid most of the construction costs for the park. Today, the park attracts over 3 million visitors per year and provides a unique and aesthetically pleasing landscape for residents and visitors alike to get their daily dose of green space.

640px-A_visit_to_the_High_Line_park — *High Line Park in New York City. Photo Credit: David Berkowitz*

Problems with the Popularity of Green Space

Admittedly, a multitude of factors contribute to the impacts that access to green space has on individual health outcomes. For example, residents who work odd hours or multiple jobs may not benefit as much from access to green space, since they are unable to utilize such spaces during daytime hours or have other priorities that take precedence.

Little research has been done on the effects of urban green space, which is traditionally built in blighted areas that have not been developed because of their high poverty rates and lack of surrounding attractions. How do residents interact with visitors to parks and green space built in low-income areas? Do residents have a voice in the building of such parks, which will not only literally change the landscape of the neighborhood, but create a gentrifying force that attracts trendy restaurants, rising property taxes, and increased traffic to the place they call home.

How Can Planners Participate in the Green Space Movement?

Ultimately, green space serves as a unifying force, fostering social health and understanding amongst individuals who might not otherwise interact. It provides a place to reflect, relax, and mentally recharge. The effects of green space on physical, mental, and social health are often overlooked.

Planners’ participation in the creation and conservation of green space requires advocating for and educating others about the benefits of green space, particularly for marginalized populations. Green space should be viewed not as a luxury or architectural aesthetic, but as a necessity. While preserving and maintaining green space, and particularly parks, is likely more expensive and less profitable than razing the land for an asphalt parking lot or strip mall development, the health benefits truly do add up.

*Photo Credit: Pixabay, Creative Commons.*

About the Author: Anna Patterson is a dual degree master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning and the Department of Health Behavior. Her scholarly interests include health and the built environment, vulnerable populations, and community development. Prior to coming to UNC, Anna worked as a program officer for a health foundation in Alamance County, NC. She likes American folk music, slalom water skiing, and hikes along the Haw River.

Featured Image: Coker Arboretum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Source: Anna Patterson

The Hawker Center

September 24, 2019 / odrozd

Many Americans got their first big glimpse into Singaporean culture via the 2018 rom-com Crazy Rich Asians, which is set in the small Southeast Asian country often associated with finance and food. The film primarily focuses on the gilded world of Singapore’s super-rich, but also highlights one of the most democratizing urban places on the planet and a unique cultural and urban planning product of the region: the hawker center.

Hawker center staff on patrol for tables to clear at the Chinatown Hawker Centre, Singapore. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

On their first night in Singapore, Rachel and Nick (the “rom” in the rom-com) join friends at a hawker center, a semi-open-air bazaar of dozens of food stalls serving the broad spectrum of food one can expect in a country whose unique culinary culture is a mosaic of Chinese, Malay, and Indian foodways. As Nick puts it in the movie, “Each of these hawker stalls sells pretty much one dish and they’ve been perfecting it for generations.” The Crazy Rich crew fills up on fresh sugar cane juice, laksa, satay, chili crab and more all while sitting among a crowd whose diversity is enabled by the affordable prices of hawker fare.

Browsing chicken rice options at the Chinatown Hawker Centre, Singapore. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

In the region, street (hawker) food has been a cultural fixture for decades. In Singapore, the institution of the hawker center has explicit roots in planning. In 1950, the Hawkers Inquiry Commission began investigating problems arising in the hawker industry: poor hygiene, disorder caused by the unorganized use of the public right-of-way, and resulting law enforcement issues. The first wave of hawker centers was built as a solution between 1971 and 1986. The island’s 100+ hawker centers (with more on the way), as well as hawker registration operations, are currently under the purview of Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA). According to the NEA, individual hawkers rent stalls out with prices varying by size and location (median of $1234/month, accounting for about 12% of costs), with additional fees for service and maintenance, varying from $240 to $930.

Dessert beckons at the Chinatown Hawker Centre, Singapore. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

Parallel models in Hong Kong (cooked food centers) and Malaysia (hawker centers, kopitiams) reflect similar accessibility and diversity. Generally, customers first find a seat, reserving it with a pack of tissues (or another personal item) before browsing options. At busy times, it is common to share tables. Customers order at individual stalls plastered with the menu – photos, prices, and all. Self-serve stalls require the customer to bus their own order, but many will deliver to the table, identified either with a quick point or the number of the table (as noted by a label). A nearby beverage hawker is available – and will often stop by the table – to take a drink order. Teas, coffees, and juices are popular all day, while beers come out in the evening. A diverse offering of highly specialized stalls means that many options are quite affordable, especially the wide variety of noodle and rice dishes, without sacrificing quality.

A busy morning at Chong Choon kopitiam, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

The spaces themselves are utilitarian: fairly stark and unadorned, but functional and durable. Seating and tables are simple, sturdy, and easy-to-clean, just like the tile floors. The cups and plates are similarly long-lasting hard plastic, labeled on the bottom allowing staff to return them to the proper stalls. Bussing and dishwashing is centralized, with some centers asking patrons to help by delivering their dishes to a collection station. Napkins are the responsibility of the customer, so elderly salespeople often can be found roaming centers selling packs of tissues. Patrons can also sometimes find tissues being sold by the bathroom attendant, where payment is also collected for using the toilet. Bathroom design also prioritizes ease of cleaning, most being completely tiled. The common design of these spaces is low-maintenance and centralizes some costs that otherwise might make restaurant entrepreneurship challenging.

The white, washable walls of Woon Lam kopitiam, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

While using these spaces does cost money, their affordable cost (a cup of coffee for less than $1.50 in Singapore and less than 50 cents in Malaysia) for a quality product allows for a diverse clientele, even in a wealthy place like Singapore. They can be found in nearly every neighborhood, allowing for many types of people to access them. They are a ubiquitous and quotidian experience: about 60% of Singaporeans eat one of their daily three meals at a hawker center. In combination, these factors make for a satisfying restaurant experience in a cultural touchstone that closely resembles a vibrant public space. It’s this atmosphere that makes hawker centers (and their counterparts in the region) the best places to eat, drink, people-watch, and absorb culture in Southeast Asia.

A local pharmacist’s supplies at a kopitiam in Pulau Ketam, Selangor, Malaysia. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

The best advertising at Kafe Kheng Pin, Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia. Photo credit: Doug Bright.

About the Author: Doug Bright is a first-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning, specializing in transportation. He’s a proud Chicagoan, enjoys taking the streets by two wheels, and indulges in improvisational cooking. He likes thinking and talking about education, design, and sustainability. He also likes jokes. Doug received his undergraduate degree in Social Studies from Harvard College.

What XKCD Can Teach You About Planning

March 27, 2018 / odrozd

From the master planning perspective, XKCD can help you plan an execute a project from start to finish by realizing the importance of big-picture thinking:

XKCD: Planning

And providing helpful tips on time management and organization, such as the best ways to start a project:

XKCD: Making Progress

To budget your time:

XKCD: Time Estimating

And to make a schedule:

XKCD: Time Management

It can help you set up your GIS project:

XKCD: Map Projections

And teach you how to add that all important design flair:

XKCD: State Borders

So that you can present your work in a convincing way:

XKCD: Heatmap

XKCD has advice for planning specializations as well. Particularly, it has a lot of information on transit problems.

Such as, how to set up roads for everyone’s use:

XKCD: Highway Engineer Pranks

And prepare for the advances of the future:

XKCD: Driving

XKCD can also assist with your studies by translating abstract concepts to ‘real-world’ situations, like supply and demand and the tragedy of the commons:

XKCD: Hotels

Or the real reasons for considering the best years for Census data:

XKCD: Suckville

And, finally, it can help you connect with the public. Whether that is explaining your most recent research project:

XKCD: Like I’m Five

Or the most recent disaster:

XKCD: Worst Case Scenario

About the Author: Nora Schwaller is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, where she focuses on disaster recovery. Prior to UNC, she worked for an architecture firm in San Francisco. Outside of class, Nora enjoys long bike rides and short walks, delicious food with good people, and casually perusing information on the design history of contemporary video games and systems.

Women in the Workplace: 4 Takeaways

February 22, 2017 / odrozd

The following is a collaborative piece between Angles and the Center for Community Capital.

UNC’s Center for Community Capital (CCC) works with seven female Graduate Student Fellows from DCRP. In anticipation of our transition into the workforce, we met with researchers and analysts at the CCC to reflect on women’s roles in the fields of research and planning. We discussed how gender intersects with our career decisions with work-life balance, compensation and negotiation, communication, and personal growth. Here are four takeaways from our discussion:

1. Sexism can be subtle and obvious in the workplace. It should be corrected as soon as it occurs, whether it is overt or covert. Sexism can show up in less obvious ways, such as who absorbs extra, unpaid tasks. Women might, for instance, take on the “emotional labor” of the spaces we occupy and the maintenance of important workplace relationships. Emotional labor can take the form of women acquiring duties such as maintaining and improving the aesthetic of the workplace, taking responsibility for first impressions and hospitality with clients or partners, and being the ones to absorb extra responsibilities when someone leaves a position.

2. Obligations, such as family care, may influence promotion and productivity. Outside-of-work activities and obligations like exercise, community commitments, friendships and partnerships, vacations, child- or elder-care, and general down-time are important aspects of life that can affect productivity at work. And, as The New York Times noted last year, many of these care obligations fall disproportionately on women—women in the United States perform an average of 4.1 hours of unpaid work per day. Whatever you prioritize, you will likely succeed in, and these decisions come with trade-offs. For example, putting in the time to be promoted may require sacrificing some of the things that keep you grounded. Having a family is also time-consuming, but it is up to each individual and their partner, if they have one, to communicate priorities and needs when balancing work and family.

3. Effective communication is key. Women can sometimes be drowned out by louder voices, interrupted, or talked over. If you recognize this happening to one of your colleagues, speak up and direct the conversation back to what she was trying to say. Verbally affirming each other’s voices will not only build solidarity but can also support women’s voices in the workplace. Also, taking detailed meeting minutes and notes that you can refer back to if there is any misunderstanding or need for reiteration can be a helpful tool if and when responsibilities become unclear.

4. Negotiate compensation. When it comes to negotiations of salary and pay, it is essential to be prepared with labor data and to negotiate the first salary offer. Use the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics website to find your industry and job title and look up the average, minimum, and maximum pay for that position considering your work experience. Take into account the unique skills you can leverage. If you are a rare asset, the demand for your labor will be higher and may put you in a higher pay range. Also, consider the cost of living where you are applying for a job and adjust for additional expenses.

As students we are used to living with minimal costs, paycheck to paycheck, and it is easy to be blown away by an initial offer because of its comparison to what we had been living off of in graduate school. Resist this temptation and do your research. If the employer won’t increase your salary, negotiate for additional vacation days, paid time off, relocation costs, and other workplace benefits.

For online applications that request a desired starting salary with no example range, consider auction theory as a guide: If you under-bid, you will be paid less than you like. If you over-bid, you are less likely to get the job. Bid your reservation wage – the least amount of money you will accept that will meet your needs and quality of life goals. Looking up average pay for your sector and experience is also helpful with these applications. In the long run, negotiating your first salary is crucial to addressing the income gap between men and women. Often, your subsequent salaries will be based off of your previous salary, so negotiating at the outset is especially important.

The knowledge and experience of the women at CCC was insightful and gave us perspective on how to make decisions about priorities, to support each other in the workplace, and to stand for what we deserve as equals in the workforce.

Featured photo: 2016-17 Center for Community Capital Fellows. Photo Credit: Julia Barnard.

About the authors: Julia Barnard is a Research Associate at the Center for Community Capital where she assists with the center’s work in consumer financial services, affordable housing, communications, and outreach. She is also the facilitator of the Center’s Fellowship Program for graduate students. Julia obtained her Master’s degree from UNC’s Department of City and Regional Planning, and served as an Editor for the Carolina Planning Journal.

Colleen Durfee hails from Ohio as a first year master’s candidate for City and Regional Planning at UNC Chapel Hill. Prior to UNC, she received her bachelors from The Ohio State University where she studied economic and political geography. She is interested in the impact planners can have on land use decisions in disaster recovery and how residents confront post-disaster challenges. Outside of coursework, she enjoys playing pick-up basketball, procrastination via cooking, and exploring unfamiliar cities.

Pork, GRITS, and Planning

October 12, 2016 / odrozd

As a native North Carolinian, there are a few things that come to mind as quintessentially Southern. At the top of this list is barbecue. The smell of hickory chips, the taste of tangy vinegar, and the social ritual of the pig pickin’ are, for many, cornerstones of a place-based identity.

Unfortunately, our cultural appreciation for authentic barbecue underscores a fundamental tension between the strength of Southern identity and the quality of our health. Alongside a regional cuisine typified by rich comfort foods, the South has the highest percent of obese adults. Relative to other U.S. regions, the 17 states that comprise the US Census region also have a lower overall life expectancy, stronger negative associations between poverty and healthy food access, and a higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke.¹ These statistics are even more alarming given that the region also has the highest percentage of uninsured non-elderly adults and, of the entire region, only Arkansas and Louisiana have expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act.²

But the twin components of culture and health don’t have to be at odds. The question is, how do we leverage our assets to tackle our problems? And what is the role of Planning in the context of Southern health promotion? Graduate Research and Intervention in the South, or GRITS, is a student organization established 2 years ago by Christina Galardi, an alumna of the dual MPH/MCRP program at UNC. Her intention was to create a forum for graduate students from multiple disciplines to delve more deeply into these issues.

The mission of GRITS is to prepare students for community-based field work by exploring the distinctive challenges and opportunities in the American South. The initiative began with a series of journal clubs, panel discussions and guest lectures, including a rural health roundtable on the health of farmworkers in Eastern North Carolina, and a talk titled “Southern Discomfort” by Mindi Spencer, a professor at the University of South Carolina.

Last year, the group hosted a panel discussion on public health in local affordable housing facilities with representatives from CASA, the Greensboro Housing Coalition, and the Charlotte Planning Department. Kirstin Frescoln, a doctoral student in DCRP also offered her perspective based on her research on how housing and community development can improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations. GRITS also hosted a screening of Deep South, a documentary about the neglected HIV/AIDS crisis in the rural south, and a panel discussion on defining and sustaining a local food economy in the Piedmont region.

GRITS event flyer, Spring 2016.

This year, we hope to increase interdepartmental collaboration, facilitate more skill sharing and skill building workshops, and increase volunteering and shadowing opportunities with local organizations. A skill-sharing social with graduate students from the Center for the Study of the American South, a panel on initiating and implementing health policy, and a community asset mapping workshop are currently on the books.

As anyone who has ever overheard a dispute about the superiority of tomato- or vinegar-based bbq sauce knows, Southern culture is nuanced and multifaceted. So too, are the solutions to our health concerns. New perspectives and interdisciplinary collaboration are a vital part of the problem-solving process, and, given the deterministic relationship between the health of communities and the physical environment on which they’re built, a partnership between Public Health and City Planning would be a valuable asset. Our next general meeting will be on October 24 from 2-3pm, location TBD. We would love for you to join us and share your ideas.

If you can’t make the meeting but are interested in joining GRITS or attending our events, sign up for our listerv by emailing uncgrits@listserv.unc.edu or visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/GRITSatUNC/.

Featured Image: A Piggly Wiggly store in Owasso, Oklahoma in 2006. Photo Credit: Wikimedia.

Citations

¹ The State of Obesity. Adult Obesity in the United States. 2016. Available online at: http://stateofobesity.org/adult-obesity/.
² The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Health and Health Coverage in the South: A Data Update. 2016. Available online at: http://kff.org/disparities-policy/issue-brief/health-and-health-coverage-in-the-south-a-data-update/.

About the Author: Sarah Shaughnessy is a dual Master’s degree candidate in Public Health and City and Regional Planning. She grew up in Raleigh, attended Grinnell College in Iowa, and spent a year working on an organic farm in Washington State before returning to North Carolina for graduate school. She serves on the GRITS leadership team along with Public Health students Hannah Quigley and Bridget Hoschwald.

Carolina Angles

April 27, 2016 /

Go check out our new blog at www.carolinaangles.com. Launched in September of 2015, it has already attracted over 3,000 unique readers and has published more than fifty posts by students and practitioners.

CPJ Editorial Board at the September 2015 Launch Party for Carolina Angles Blog