Research Guides: ANTH 158a: Urban Worlds: Urban Planning and Policy Sources

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Subjects: Anthropology, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies, Sociology, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Find Policy Papers, Scholarly Sources, and Grey Literature

Social Science Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
This collection searches across multiple social sciences databases, including IBSS, Sociological Abstracts, and Worldwide Political Science Abstracts.
Eldis This link opens in a new window
Provides free access to research on international development issues. Navigate by topic or country, or check out their Key Issues guides, for a good selection of reports and white papers from NGOs, with access to some scholarly sources as well.
OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
Books, papers, and statistics from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Published factbooks bring together essential statistics by theme; other statistical data can be manipulated as tables or charts within iLibrary and downloaded.
CNKI (China Academic Journals) This link opens in a new window
Provides access to articles from Chinese journals. Brandeis' subscription includes coverage for 2017 to present in the following areas: Medicine/Public Health; Literature/History/Philosophy; Politics/Military Affairs/Law; Education/Social Sciences; and Economics/Management. CNKI is also available on a Chinese language platform.

Government Planning Agencies

Government agencies can be good sources of information on urban planning. The ones listed below would be useful if you are investigating the Greater Boston area; to find one for your city, see the search tips below.

Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA)
Urban planning and economic development agency for the City of Boston. Launched in Sept. 2016; formerly called the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA).
Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization
Transportation planning organization for 101 cities and towns in the Boston metropolitan region.
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On their website, find transit studies, bike & pedestrian studies, datasets to use in mapping, and "interactive applications" where you can view bike and pedestrian counts, highway road performance, and more.
Boston Transportation Department
Department of city government that oversees transportation planning and enforcement.
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Boston Bikes and the Parking Clerk are part of this department.
Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA)
Independent agency providing health care data and analytics for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Established in 2012, CHIA replaced the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy.
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See also the CHIA collection from the State Library of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT)
Department of state government that oversees highways, rail & transit, the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV), and aeronautics.
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The Highway Division oversees interstates like the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90).
Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC)
Regional planning agency for metro Boston. Public agency established in 1963.

Site: Searching

If you can't find what you are looking for using a website's own navigation, try site: searching! Also called "domain searching," this is a method you can use to search all the pages within one web domain (e.g., brandeis.edu).

Search engines including Google and Duck Duck Go support the following search syntax: housing site:sf.gov

This would search the entire website of the city of San Francisco (sf.gov) for the word "housing."