News

The future of transportation in cities lies in the implementation of fleet electric vehicles (EVs). With the benefits of decreasing fossil fuel consumption and reduced maintenance costs, the City of Peoria is identifying opportunities for more sustainable transit systems. As Peoria expands its sustainable transportation systems, including the recent launch of RoboRide, the City is interested in adapting its fleet vehicles to include EVs. Students will research the costs and infrastructure needed for wide scale adoption of electric vehicles, and critically examine the benefits and limitations of fleet electrification.

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As one of the fastest growing communities in Arizona, Peoria’s population continues to age, creating a need for the City to further develop its resources available for its population of older adults to ensure the well-being and active participation of all members of the community. In response to this need, the City’s Neighborhood and Human Services Department is interested in developing a resource guide for older adults that includes information about the City’s health services, recreation programs, and classes, as well as how to be an active member of the community

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Since its start in 2017, Project Cities has partnered with four local communities, engaged 38 interdisciplinary faculty members, and facilitated over 75 high-impact projects with over 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. As we look back on a transformative five years and celebrate our recent President’s Medal for Social Embeddedness, Project Cities is excited to announce the release of its first Impact Report.

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Community engagement is a critical component of ensuring that a community has input and is receiving information from its local government. Cities have used a variety of engagement strategies to gather feedback on its services, as well as inform future planning. As a growing community, the City of Peoria is tasked with facilitating engagement with the community but is often challenged by communicating with “hard-to-reach” community members, often those underrepresented in their communities. 

In fall 2021 and spring 2022, Peoria’s Office of Communications partnered with three classes to design strategies for bettering its community engagement processes. 

The original student content is available on the Project Cities website. Read the full summary report here.  

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The City of Peoria recently approved its Sustainable Peoria Plan, a roadmap for sustainability that outlines goals and initiatives around its eight pillars of sustainability. 

In 2009, the City established its first Sustainability Action Plan, which was then revised and relaunched in 2012 as the Sustainability Action Plan 2.0. Following an extensive review and publication of Peoria’s Peoria 2040 General Plan, the Water Conservation and Sustainability Division began the process of developing its new Sustainability Peoria Plan, which would include community input. As part of this process, the City of Peoria enlisted the help of ASU Project Cities to facilitate four projects with students from the School of Sustainability and School of Public Affairs that would inform the City’s sustainability planning efforts and provide the foundation for its community input process. 

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In a growing community, water is a valuable resource for the City of Peoria. The City is guided by its general planning document, PlanPeoriaAZ 2040, which outlines the City's commitment to ensuring the best quality of living for Peoria residents through the Livability Initiatives. One of its key priorities is Smart Growth, which emphasizes sustainable development, mainly conserving water resources in anticipation of future growth.

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To highlight some of Project Cities star students and faculty, PC staff sat down to interview Hunter Hedelius, an undergraduate student in the School of Social Transformation. During the spring 2022 semester, Hunter worked on a project with City of Peoria as part of Greg Broberg’s JUS 301 Research Methods course. As a culmination of student projects in the last three years, students in Greg’s class set out to understand how Peoria residents get information from the City about events and community services. From this, students conducted a survey of Peoria residents to understand what information is being left out of communities in order to inform recommendations for Peoria to engage its residents. Hunter analyzed the survey data and synthesized the findings for the showcase presentation.

Check out the project final summary report | Community Engagement Strategies

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ASU's Full Circle, a publication focusing on news from the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, recently highlighted one of our star faculty members, Al Brown!

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On September 14, 2022, ASU Project Cities hosted its first in-person kick-off event since the start of COVID. Over 50 undergraduate and graduate students from 5 Peoria projects joined their project leads and Peoria executive leadership to learn more about the community they are working with this semester and plan for the coming semester. 

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To highlight some of Project Cities' star students and faculty, PC staff sat down to interview Gabby La Caria, an undergraduate student in the School of Social Transformation. With a double major in Justice Studies and Public Service and Public Policy, Gabby is focusing on law and policy, hoping to attend law school in the future. She is interested in racial and social justice and wants to pursue constitutional law since it affects everyday people.

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To highlight some of Project Cities' star students, PC staff sat down to interview Shrut Kirti Chawla, a recent master’s graduate from The Polytechnic School Environmental and Resource Management program! With a background in biotechnology, Shrut enrolled in the ERM program to pursue her passion for environmental health and safety. As a student, Shrut was the Vice President of the Environmental & Resource Management Club at ASU, as well as a Safety in the Built Environment office assistant.

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As a leader in sustainable solid waste, the City of Peoria is always on the cutting edge of sustainable solid waste management. As part of a larger Solid Waste Management project portfolio, the City of Peoria has worked with ASU Project Cities on three solid waste projects, including Textiles & EPS, E-Waste, and Biomass Gasification.

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To highlight some of Project Cities star students and faculty, PC staff sat down to interview Jade Bravo. As part of the culminating experience for her Master’s of Public Policy, Jade worked with Peoria’s Water Services Director, Cape Powers, to research tiered water pricing as a water conservation strategy. 

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We are pleased to announce the release of 6 new project summary reports! The fall 2021 semester comprised of 10 student projects that engaged over 60 students from various disciplines, including sustainability, engineering, environmental resource management, and public affairs! 

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This week we are excited to highlight one of our exceptional faculty members, Dr. Gregory Broberg! With an extensive background as an elementary and middle school teacher, Greg has cultivated a passion for educational equity, focusing on how to best support the unique needs of students. Before he was a teacher, he worked in various capacities in the juvenile court, including being a Court Appointed Special Advocate. Dr. Broberg is with the ASU School of Social Transformation as a Justice & Social Inquiry faculty member and Senior Lecturer.

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To highlight some of Project Cities star students and faculty, PC staff sat down to interview Hussain Farwa. Farwa has worked on two Project Cities projects, one with the City of Peoria and one with the Town of Clarkdale.

Farwa’s first project was the COVID needs assessment for local businesses for the City of Peoria. For this project she worked on a peer community analysis to learn more about what other cities were doing to support local businesses during COVID. For her second project, she worked with the Town of Clarkdale to identify a peer community, Camp Verde, to identify recommendations for affordable housing issues. The following dialogue and summary come from an interview with Farwa about her experience in the Project Cities program.

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The City of Peoria posted a lovely article about the partnership between ASU faculty and students and the city, which is going on three years! Here is a short excerpt:

"Project Cities is kicking off its third year of working with the city of Peoria, bringing ASU faculty and students alongside city staff to improve quality of life for residents.

The program brings cross-disciplinary collaboration and research-backed solutions to complex municipal sustainable challenges, while at the same time adding value to students’ learning experience by providing real-world applications to each student’s field of study."

Read the full article here.

Students recap project findings for Fall 2021 student showcase 

On December 1, 2021, ASU Project Cities hosted its virtual project showcase with the City of Peoria. Students from five ASU schools covered a variety of topics throughout the semester, including sustainable solid waste management, messaging campaigns, community engagement, and historic preservation.   

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On September 16, 2021, Project Cities hosted its first community site visit in two years! Students from Nicole Lee’s Communication Campaigns and Al Brown’s Sustainable Waste Management courses convened at Peoria’s Municipal Operations Center to tour the facility and meet with their respective project leads to workshop project scopes.

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On September 8, 2021, ASU Project Cities hosted its “Meet Peoria” kickoff event for the fall semester student projects. Students from eight projects convened for an informative Q&A panel with Peoria

leadership and the

opportunity to ask questions and learn more about their projects. The event kicked off with an exciting game of Peoria trivia, touching on Peoria’s history and previous projects with Project Cities. Following the trivia, city leaders joined for an interactive panel about their work with Peoria and to answer questions about this semester’s projects.

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