Series
Master's Projects

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Publication Series
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Associated Organization(s)

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Item
    Maximizing Opportunity in Atlanta's Housing Opportunity Bond
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-08) Thompson, Brock
    The affordable housing crisis burdens the nation and America’s largest cities, in particular. In the absence of comprehensive federal action to provide residents adequate housing, local governments (cities and counties) are employing massive general obligation bonds for the purpose of providing residents affordable housing (“municipal housing bonds or MHBs”). From Asheville & Charlotte to Denver, San Francisco, & Portland, governments have pledged hundreds of millions over the last two decades alone to address the issue (see “Other References Not Cited”)1. Direct public provision of housing, site acquisition, gap financing for private development, and owner-occupied rehabs are among the most common uses of funds. To date, cities using housing bonds have taken different approaches to spending with little documentation about the extent to which that approach addresses needs. Some have focused on public housing while others aim to leverage private funding; some have committed funds mainly to assist the lowest-income households while others look to expand higher-AMI workforce housing (see “Other References Not Cited”). In the context of Atlanta’s proposed $100M 2020 housing bond (Pendered, 2020a), this paper is aimed at developing a spending strategy for City of Atlanta housing bonds. Goals include maximizing the number of households served in the near term and prospects of long-term affordability. This paper looks to reconcile the (1) Current and projected demand for affordable housing units in the City of Atlanta (by AMI and household size), with the (2) Costs required to supply affordable units of various types for each of those groups. A pro forma will model the impact of various housing strategies on the existing and projected housing gap relative to their costs. The spending strategies of other cities will serve as a benchmark.
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    Community as a Core Principle: Restoring Urban Headwaters and Implementing Green Infrastructure in the Upper Flint River Basin
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-05) Muller, Rachel
    This Applied Research Paper presents strategies for incorporating community engagement in green infrastructure projects. More specifically, it will develop strategies for engagement within Finding the Flint, a project seeking to daylight the Flint River and create a Nature Preserve Park in College Park, Georgia. This paper focuses on Finding the Flint because the project exemplifies both the obstacles and opportunities associated with increasing community voice in watershed management issues.
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    Race and Transit Investment in DeKalb County, Georgia
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-05) Lapwood, Bonnie
    This paper aims to dissect intra-county neighborhood-level attitudes to transit in DeKalb County, Georgia, and the way in which they have fallen along racial and class lines during the five decades that the county has funded MARTA. This paper explores how these attitudes and their expression in neighborhood organizing have affected where transit dollars have been spent, where they have been wasted, and where they have not gone despite general support for them.
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    Evacuation with Efficiency: An Inland and Coastal Flood Based Emergency Evacuation Planning Scorecard Proposal
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-04) Newman, Ian
    This paper focuses on the need for flood-based natural hazard resilience planning. It also addresses how having a quantifiable and practical scorecard for communities to asses their current statuses, in relation to their levels of preparedness for evacuation plans and programs, is a current need in emergency management planning. This paper offers a transferable, pragmatic, and implementable scorecard, the Flood Emergency Evacuation Scorecard (FEES). The FEES is this paper's proposal and can be used to help address necessary economic and policy directions towards helping to develop further structured and pragmatic flood emergency evacuation programs for communities that face chronic flooding.
  • Item
    An Analysis of COVID-19, Air Quality, Race and Socioeconomic Status in Georgia
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-04) Chatman, Olivia E.
    In the United States, the existence of air pollutants, which may have adverse effects on respiratory health, have disproportionately impacted communities of color and of lower socioeconomic statuses, an issue described as environmental injustice. Following the spread of the COVID-19 respiratory virus in late 2019 that resulted in a global pandemic, and has also disproportionately impacted vulnerable populations, identifying the correlations between the air quality and COVID-19 occurrences among BIPOC groups, also known as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, is essential to moving forward in addressing issues related to environmental injustice and health disparities among vulnerable groups. This study examines the question of whether Black populations in Georgia at the county level are more likely to experience disproportionality higher levels of air pollution and COVID-19 infection rates beginning with the conduction of literature review that identifies current knowledge and research gaps related to COVID-19, air quality and environmental justice. A spatial analysis of the relationship between PM2.5 air pollution, COVID-19 cases and deaths, race demographics, as well as socioeconomic factors in Georgia counties reveals any disparities related to health and air among Black populations.