Overview

The issue of affordable housing has reached crisis levels in communities across the US over the past two decades. Rapid and dramatic increases in real estate prices have outpaced real income for a wide swathe of the population, including in Washington State. These pressures were more intense in places where either natural or cultural amenities provided attractive recreational opportunities.

The Washington State Legislature asked the Metro Center to conduct a comprehensive study on housing market conditions in tourism-dependent municipalities. This study aims to explore various aspects of housing affordability and workforce housing in these unique communities. Key objectives include examining nationwide policies supporting affordable housing, analyzing the correlation between rising area median incomes and housing costs, and assessing the equitable distribution of state housing funds across urban and rural regions. Additionally, the study investigates state policies affecting housing costs in rural areas, identifies strategies to enhance local government revenue flexibility, and evaluates the outcomes of these strategies in supporting workforce housing initiatives.

Metropolitan Center for Applied Research and Extension

• Brad Gaolach, Ph.D., Director, Professor of Community and Economic Development, WSU Extension
• Martha Aitken, BASW, Assistant Director
• Jody Norman, MA, MCRP, Urban Extension Specialist

Researchers (listed alphabetically)

• Mark Beattie, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of Hospitality and Business Management, WSU Everett
• Anthony Gill, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Washington
• Gabriella Reznowski, MLIS, Business and Economics Librarian, WSU Pullman
• Jessica Schad, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, Utah State University
• Jennifer Sherman, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Sociology, WSU Pullman
• Alex Theophilus, Sociology Ph.D. Student, Utah State University
• Barbara Tolbert, Mayor (2011-2023), City of Arlington, WA

The Need to Adapt

The Metro Center helped the City of Arlington, WA support downtown businesses through the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic recovery. The project encouraged businesses to be adaptive to ongoing challenges while also addressing customer behavior, the economic reality facing both businesses and customers, and long term community resilience and vision.

COVID-19 has been devastating to many small businesses. Success during this time may rely on a business’s ability to adapt. The City of Arlington, asked the Metro Center to help plan and implement a strategy to support downtown business resilience during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The Metro Center first designed a survey to assess the needs and strengths of local businesses, including their e-commerce savvy, as they face reduced in-person sales. Working in partnership with the Arlington city government, and the Stilly Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Metro Center has since helped the city design alternative, COVID-friendly strategies for traditional downtown fall and holiday events.  

Initial survey data of local Arlington businesses showed that some of the most vulnerable businesses have struggled to embrace e-commerce. To support those businesses and boost sales of those already using social media and online ordering, the Metro Center is helping the city adopt an online marketplace open to all Arlington businesses. The marketplace, www.ShopLocalArlington.com went live in early November.

In addition to communication, marketing and logistical support for the online marketplace, the Metro Center will provide the city with recommendations that encourage the innovation and nimbleness required by merchants to address the inevitable series of changes over the coming months, A detailed analysis of subsequent surveys will gauge the success of these efforts.

The project concluded in early 2021.

Marketing efforts for this project lean heavily on social media. From video creation to highlight marketplace items and local businesses, to teaming up with a local social media resident influencer – the aim here is to grow and sustain followers across social media platforms. Learn more at www.instagram.com/meetmeinarlington and www.facebook.com/shoplocalarlington.

Project Team

• Metropolitan Center for Applied Research and Extension: Martha Aitken, Maggie Anderson Fasy and Brad Gaolach
• WSU Division of Governmental Studies and Services: Season Hoard, Monica Babine, Christina Sanders & Brian Anderson
• WSU Extension: Trevor Lane, Anthony Gromko

May 20-23, 2019
Motif Hotel – Seattle, WA

Washington State University Extension’s Metro Center was proud to coordinate and host the 2019 National Urban Extension Conference on “Innovation in the City: A Land Grant University Experience,” provided opportunities for Extension professionals from all program areas to share their research and innovative educational strategies that address the needs of urban, suburban, and peri-urban populations as well as urban-rural interdependencies.

The only national gathering of Extension professionals who serve our cities. The conference, highlighted strong urban programming and Extension’s opportunity to support the university-level mission of our land-grant universities in our metropolitan regions. With urban focused sessions, mobile tours, networking opportunities, social events, and exhibits the conference both educated and inspired.

Metro Center’s event specialists took charge of this national convening from inception to completion.

Our team scouted locations, managed all aspects of budgeting, advisory, programming, and logistics. This 400+ person event included networking events, a poster session, more than 150 presentations, and ten mobile learning workshops throughout downtown Seattle, WA.

Conference Chair

Brad Gaolach, Washington State University

Local Planning Committee

Martha Aitken, Washington State University

Maggie Anderson Fasy, Washington State University

National Planning Committee Members

John Byrnes, Penn State University

Sarah Chvilicek, University of Nevada

Cindy S Davies, New Mexico State University Extension

Kristin Davis, North Carolina State University

Jacqueline Davis-Manigaulte, Cornell University

Julie Fox, The Ohio State University

Willie Howard, University of Kentucky

Misty Layne-Watkins, University of Tennessee

Chris Obropta, Rutgers University

Carol Parker, Cornell University

Brenda Rogers, University of Florida

Joaquina Scott Kankam, Prairy View A&M University

Andree’ Walker Bravo, Utah State University

Karen Wobig, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

DeShana York, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Kamran Zendehel, University of the District of Columbia

The City of Stanwood approached the Metro Center with a request to help them plan and implement a community feedback survey to assist with the city’s strategic planning efforts. The survey distributed to residents of both Stanwood, and residents of Camano Island who pass through Stanwood on their way on and off the island, will gather input about residents’ perceptions of city services and their opinions of future community needs.

To implement the project, the Metro Center assembled a project team which included colleagues with the needed expertise at WSU’s Division of Governmental Studies and Services (DGSS). After listening to the city’s needs, the project team developed a ‘menu’ of different approaches for conducting the survey with the strengths, weaknesses and cost of each approach noted, plus additional options for visualizing the results of the survey. The options were discussed with city officials, who made the final decision.

The City of Stanwood will implement two types of surveys:

• A random sample of 1,500 Stanwood households will receive a mailed, postcard invitation to participate in an online survey.
• An opportunity survey, which will be widely available to both Stanwood and Camano Island residents via weblink and distributed through local advertising and event channels.

Survey respondents from Stanwood will be asked questions about attitudes toward city government, services, programs and activities. Additional socio-demographic data will permit the project team to make statistical comparisons of responses from population subgroups (e.g. age, sex, race).

Survey respondents from Camano Island will take a shorter version of the Stanwood survey, focused on garnering input on businesses and city services in Stanwood used by Camano Island residents.

When this project concludes in October 2019, the City of Stanwood will be poised to promote and incorporate community input into their strategic planning process.

• Metropolitan Center for Applied Research and Extension: Martha Aitken, Brad Gaolach, and Patricia Townsend
• WSU Division of Governmental Studies and Services: Season Hoard, Christina Sanders, and Brian Anderson

Overview

The City of Everett’s Chronic-Utilizer Alternative Response Team (CHART) was designed to address the needs of Everett’s most vulnerable residents who have overlapping health, mental health, legal and substance abuse issues. The Metro Center worked in partnership with the William D. Ruckelshaus Center and the WSU School of Economic Sciences to create an evaluation of the CHART program to gauge its effectiveness and scalability to other areas within Snohomish County.

CHART (CHronic-Utilizer Alternative Response Team) is a team of criminal justice, emergency response, and research partners who collaborate in an effort to reduce the impact of chronic utilizers on health care, emergency services, crisis care, legal and criminal justice systems. By taking a systemic approach, the goal of the program is to create an individualized plan that will have a positive and measurable impact on the use of those resources without simply shifting costs from one partner organization to another. The primary goal of CHART is to decrease the system impacts associated with the disproportionate overlapping service utilization by these individuals; however, it’s anticipated that program efforts will also positively impact the lives of those identified for participation in CHART.

The Metro Center was recruited to develop an evaluation framework and project outcome goals for this program.

In October 2018, the Metro Center began working with the City of Everett’s Public Health and Safety Director/Prosecutor and key CHART stakeholders to develop an evaluation framework and build consensus around the CHART program outcomes. In January/February the Center conducted a ‘pre-assessment’ to ascertain CHART stakeholders’ general goals and perceptions of the evaluation project.

The situation assessment included a series of questions designed to elicit history, CHART involvement and scope, alignment of vision and organizations, collaborative potential and relevant data connections to support the noted purpose. The themes and general opinions noted in the linked brief are based on these assessment interview results. The clarity and diversity of comments formed a rich source of opinion that led to fruitful group conversations at an October 7, 2019 convening in Everett.

The summary brief summarizes key themes, specific comments and several suggested Metro Center / Ruckelshaus Center recommendations to form a starting point for discussion.

• Metropolitan Center for Applied Research and Extension: Martha Aitken and Brad Gaolach
• William D. Ruckelshaus Center: Kevin Harris
• WSU School of Economic Sciences: Bidisha Mandal

July 30-August 1, 2019 – Talaris Conference Center in Seattle, WA.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, this by-invitation only workshop brought together a select group of 40 experts across an array of disciplines, sectors, and locations to:

1. identify the key challenges megapolitan regions and their adjacent communities and natural spaces face as urbanization continues,
2. explore the myriad approaches used in megapolitan regions to address these challenges, and
3. synthesize this information to identify priority research areas that a research network could promote for improving urban systems sustainability.

Group perspective, knowledge, experience, connections, and collaborative and big-thinking mindset were the greatest asset to this convening.

This was a working conference – attendees not just attended, but rolled up their sleeves and focused on the most critical megapolitan challenges and opportunities. Together, with fellow attendees from academia, industry, government, and non-profits we hope to build new collaborative partnerships and outputs.

The end products from this conference, to be shared widely across our networks, include:

1. a white paper to NSF,
2. a peer-reviewed synthesis journal article
3. a “Green Print” for working managers and practitioners to help them transition material from the conference into their daily work, and
4. a scope of work for informing future education and outreach products.

This workshop is funded by a National Science Foundation Sustainable Urban Systems conference grant awarded to Washington State University. 

Grant Team:

• Metropolitan Center for Applied Research and Extension: Brad Gaolach, Julie Padowski, Anand Jayakaran, Patricia Townsend
• Reed College: Aaron Ramirez
• City of Eugene, OR: Scott Altenhoff

Planning Team:

• Metropolitan Center for Applied Research and Extension: Brad Gaolach (Chair), Julie Padowski, Anand Jayakaran, Patricia Townsend (Co-Chair), Kevan Moffett, Martha Aitken, Maggie Anderson Fasy
• Reed College: Aaron Ramirez
• City of Eugene, OR: Scott Altenhoff
• Urbanova: Kim Zentz
• University of Washington: Thaisa Way
• The Nature Conservancy: Jessie Isreal