Displacement Through Development?
Property Turnover and Eviction Risk in Seattle

Alex Ramiller
2022
Urban Studies

This article considers whether eviction provides a mechanism for property owners to facilitate displacement prior to property redevelopment and neighbourhood change. Models of property-level turnover in the city of Seattle reveal that evictions are more likely to occur at properties that are sold in the same year, properties where planned demolition or remodelling activity is imminent and buildings that have been recently constructed. Increased likelihood of eviction is also associated with a greater volume of remodelling and demolition permit applications filed in the surrounding neighbourhood, suggesting that evictions may be more likely to occur at the early stages of development-driven neighbourhood change.

Moving to Shared Equity:
Locational Outcomes for Households in Shared Equity Programs

Alex Ramiller, Arthur Acolin, Rebecca J. Walter, Ruoniu Wang
2022
Housing Studies

This article assesses the residential trajectories of households that participate in shared-equity homeownership programs such as Community Land Trusts and Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives. The analysis provides evidence that entering shared-equity housing is associated with modest decreases in neighborhood opportunity measures, while exiting SEH is associated with substantial improvements in key measures including lower concentrations of poverty.

Transitioning to Homeownership:
Asset Building for Low- and Moderate-Income Households

Arthur Acolin, Alex Ramiller, Rebecca J. Walter, Samantha Thompson, Ruoniu Wang
2021
Housing Policy Debate

This article assesses the asset building of households that take part in shared-equity homeownership (SEH) models by matching participants in SEH programs to households with similar characteristics from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The article provides evidence that households participating in SEH programs experienced positive, but modest, wealth gains that were slightly lower than those of homeowners in unrestricted units but substantially higher than those of renters.

Toward a Cross-Platform Framework:
Assessing the Comprehensiveness of Online Rental Listings

Ana Costa et al.
2021
Cityscape

This article comprises part of a larger study using web scraping to explore the dynamics of online rental market platforms. Using a mixed-methods approach to study listings across various platforms in five metropolitan areas, the article demonstrates considerable variation in both the types of rental units advertised and the features provided across those platforms.

Establishing the Green Neighbourhood:
Approaches to Neighbourhood-Scale Sustainability Certification in Portland, Oregon

Alex Ramiller
2019
Local Environment

This article compares two alternative frameworks for sustainable neighborhood development - LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) and EcoDistricts - through a comparative case study analysis of two neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon. I argue that the parallel histories of these two neighborhoods point to the value of flexibility, continuous governance, and deliberate community involvement in the pursuit of effective neighborhood-scale sustainability.

Making Radical Change Real:
Danish Sustainability, Adaptability, and the Reimagination of Architectural Utopia

Alex Ramiller, Patrick Schmidt
2018
Utopian Studies

This article explores the role of utopianism in Danish sustainable architecture, with a particular focus on the sustainable designs of the Danish architectural firms Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and 3XN. Through the work of these two firms, we identify competing visions of sustainable utopia embedded alternatively in visions of hedonism and economic transformation.

Scale Limits to Sustainability:
Transdisciplinary Evidence from Three Danish Cases

Alex Ramiller, Patrick Schmidt
2018
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

This article explores the limits to sustainability imposed by geographic scale. Using three case studies (the rural island of Samsø, the city of Copenhagen, and the country of Denmark as a whole) we demonstrate that – even in policy contexts favorable to sustainability – economic, social, and political limitations are limited by a lack of multi-scalar solutions.