Institute of Urban and Regional Development

The Center for Community Innovation is assessing both the social and individual benefits of second units as well as their potential to accommodate future housing needs in the East Bay.

Berg oversees the City of Santa Cruz’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund and Inclusionary Housing Program as well as the HUD CDBG and HOME Programs. In 2003 Berg developed Santa Cruz’s Accessory Dwelling Unit Program, which won national APA, AI and EPA awards.

This study examines the potential for individuals trapped in dead-end jobs in the service economy to cross the Digital Divide into jobs in the knowledge economy. The conventional wisdom is that the lack of human capital entraps workers in dead-end jobs, unable to capitalize on the demand for high-skilled labor in an increasingly networked -- and exclusive -- society. Other approaches focus on the demand side, suggesting that information technology (IT) itself acts to exacerbate societal divisions and ultimately income inequality, particularly in high-tech regions. IT not only drives the bifurcation of the economy into high-end knowledge analyst and low-skill service jobs, but also creates a new networked system of economic organization that has few access points for those who are "switched off." The implication is that as globalization accelerates and IT jobs shift offshore, these patterns of bifurcation, inequality, and job inaccessibility will only grow worse.

The author argues instead that a low-wage future is not inevitable for disadvantaged groups. The downskilling of IT work, along with the rise of workforce intermediaries, creates an opportunity to move large numbers of low-wage workers into jobs with a career ladder, particularly at the peak of the business cycle. Although some entry-level work is disappearing offshore, the economy still offers opportunities for jobseekers with little college education to work in IT. Nonprofit training programs in the "second-chance" employment and training system play an important role in making the transition possible for those whom the educational system has failed. The majority of training program graduates remain in IT four years later, with a clear career trajectory ahead.

This report reviews transit-linked development in over two dozen U.S. cities, the history of joint development, and the evolving role of the Federal Transit Administration (formerly the Urban Mass Transit Administration). The report attempts to classify and catalogue existing joint-development projects by size, type, location, and year of completion. Included as an appendix are brief descriptions of the more than one hundred existing U.S. joint-development projects. An analysis was made on the financial impact joint development has had on the capital budgets of transit agencies that pursue joint development and the policy framework in which it occurs.

In addition, the study presents the results of a survey of transit officials responsible for negotiating joint development agreements and their appraisal of its effect on their agency's operating and financial performance as well as other goals.

Finally, the study uses quasi-experimental and multi-regression analysis to measure the effects of joint development and transit service on commercial real estate market performance indicators such as office rents, office absorption rates, and vacancy rates. From the transit side, a similar analysis was done to measure the effects of joint development on system ridership and revenues. These analyses show that transit service and presence of joint development are statistically correlated with unique benefits to the real estate market, namely higher rents, lower vacancy rates, and faster absorption rates.

The study concludes with an assessment of the institutional and market conditions necessary for successful joint development and recommendations to FTA for promoting and facilitating local joint-development efforts.