Resources

The School of Urban Studies and Planning is located on the third floor of the newly constructed Urban Center Building. The Center, completed in 2000, is the first part of a planned six-block district development of office, housing, retail and classroom buildings. The Urban Center Plaza is now home to the PSU Bookstore, the new Portland streetcar, a Tri-Met Information kiosk and several retail establishments serving the Portland State campus and the surrounding neighborhood. This University District represents the shared vision of Portland State, the City of Portland, and Tri-Met.

The Urban Center houses the entire College of Urban and Public Affairs and the complex includes a Distance Learning Center. The School and the Center for Urban Studies share the third floor. Facilities include three seminar rooms, workspace for graduate research assistants, along with faculty offices and a faculty lounge. The second floor of the building contains the computer and GIS labs, a planning studio (for 36 students), and a site-planning studio (for 24 students). There is also a student lounge and one large classroom for up to 80 students. Other classrooms are assigned elsewhere on campus.

The College of Urban and Public Affairs' library is located on the seventh floor of the Urban Center Building and occupies approximately 1500 square feet including space for the library holdings, study desks for students and computers for on-line library searches. The library is staffed and open to students Monday through Friday and serves primarily as a resource for reference materials, including agency reports from the Portland metropolitan region.

In addition to university-wide resources, the College of Urban and Public Affairs maintains two computer laboratories: the basic lab, with Macintosh and PC computers and the GIS Research Laboratory. The computer labs are staffed and open for student usage Monday through Saturday. A full line of equipment and services are available through these service centers

Graduate research assistantships provide both financial support for students and assistance to the faculty in their scholarly research. Two of the research units in the School of Urban Studies and Planning, the Center for Urban Studies and the Institute on Aging, provide administrative support for faculty seeking external research funding. The Institute for Portland Metropolitan Studies connects University resources to the issues in the six-county Portland metropolitan area. The Institute serves as a facilitator for interactions between academic researchers and both citizens and professionals engaged in meeting the needs of their communities. Finally, the Center for Population Research and Census provides a setting for demographic research within the School, although its primary responsibility is to produce the official publication estimates for Oregon's counties and cities.