Digital Commons Network^™

The New Westward Expansion: Settler Colonialism And Gentrification In Paula Fox’S Desperate Characters And Kali Fajardo-Anstine’S Sabrina And Corina, Miranda Roberts

English (MA) Theses

This thesis explores two underexplored works of gentrification literature—Paula Fox’s novel, Desperate Characters (1970) and Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s short story collection, Sabrina & Corina (2019). Desperate Characters offers a nuanced and critical examination of characters with privilege who move into Brooklyn in the 1960s, which involves the displacement of Black and Latinx communities; Fajardo-Anstine’s collection introduces Denver as a site of dramatic gentrification in the new century, by portraying Latinx characters from older neighborhoods who must adjust to the disintegration and cohesiveness of their communities in the face of gentrification. In my discussion of these works, I draw from pre-existing scholarship …

Describe The City You Live In, Jingfei Hu

Masters Theses

I dive into the fields: frequency (sound), wavelengths (light), shapes (conversation): they build connections. What is action without reflection? Now I’m a city drifter. Through art making and dialogue I try to drop the anchor into the futuristic turbulent ocean (of society, speed, and the status quo ). Did I drop it? Not sure. I grew up in the most fast- paced city in China, Shenzhen. I feel pressured there. Do I feel that pressure here? of a precarious, unpredictable future? These questions push me out of the turbulent ocean to grab the present.

There are three stages of time: …

Resitance Art And Urban Space: A Strategic Comparison Of Artistic Urban Space Usage In Buenos Aires And San Francisco, Adeline Rose Schmitz

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the early Twentieth century the Mexican Muralism movement reached two important port cities: San Francisco and Buenos Aires. The artists in these cities quickly adopted the usage of public art as means to insert political dialogue into the everyday life of their citizens. Throughout the years the resistance art in these cities has evolved in parallel, shaped by their dynamic histories of social and political change. This paper critically compares the evolutions of resistance art in Buenos Aires and San Francisco over the past twenty years. It does so by analyzing the public art archives of local collectives in …

Riverside Drive, Phillip C. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

RIVERSIDE DRIVE: Eugene, a mild-mannered librarian by day and a foul-mouthed comedian by night, uncovers the hidden legacy of his family’s Harlem home which forces him to transform his life.

The Creation Of The Home: A Sociological And Literary Analysis Of Dominicanidad In Public Spaces Of Washington Heights And Within Dominican Literature, Mádoris Isabel Santana Figuereo

Senior Projects Spring 2023

“The Creation of the Home” is a study that puts in conversation theories within sociology of immigration, culture, nationality, urban studies, gentrification, and literature. These realms of study allow us to capture the trajectories of meaning making by Dominican Immigrants in New York City who lived in the homeland for the majority of their childhood. It shows that even when the physical home is endangered by larger structural forces such as economic precarity, gentrification, and displacement, Dominican immigrants continue to center their identity and cultural markers through symbolic recreations of the home. Dominican literature of the Diaspora shows us that …

The Rome Of The West: An Ethnographic Play With Music, Clayton Roma Bragg Webb

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

The Clash Of The Commons: An Imagined Library Commons Discourse, Emily Benoff

Urban Library Journal

The commons has been adopted by LIS as a metaphor for transformational library spaces. However, post-colonial scholarship exposes the material violence and exclusionary practices that coincide(d) with commons-making in Europe and North America. When weighing such assessments against the traditional role of American libraries as mechanisms of colonial values, it becomes necessary for library professionals to critique their continued evocation of commons discourse from a perspective that centers decolonization. Responding to this challenge, I historicize the commons as both an imagined ideology and an actual instrument of power to contextualize Indigenous and post-colonial assessments of commons-making in the settler colonial …

The Perspectives Of Urban Renewal: Reevaluating The Image Of Late Twentieth Century Gentrification Of U.S. Chinatowns, Christian E. Manalac

Gettysburg College Headquarters

Urban renewal or gentrification has affected many low-income minority families in the United States with redevelopment projects that destroyed their neighborhoods for the affluent white middle class. Unlike, many minority groups who protested against the intrusive practice Chinatowns communities saw themselves divided over the issue. Chinatowns throughout the nation benefitted from redevelopment projects that brought new investments into their neighborhoods’ businesses, but like other minority neighborhood, they also suffered as their residents were displaced. This case study examines the debates over urban renewal of Philadelphia and Washington D.C’s Chinatowns through local newspaper coverage from the 1970s-1990s. Specifically, this study uncovers …

Somebody Is Looking Back At Me, Jesse Jae Hoon

Theses and Dissertations

Somebody is Looking Back At Me, a new play by Jesse Jae Hoon, is a time-jumping fever dream satire following bestselling Asian American author Olivia, who returns to a gentrifying Chinatown. As her new successful friends transform the neighborhood, she must confront the district’s troubled past and her own allegiances.

Contemporary Films And Contemporary Issues: An Introductory Film Class Curriculum, August W. Liguori-Chien

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

Teachers spend years teaching students to interpret texts. This interpretive skill is deemed vital in our education system, but little time is devoted to developing students’ ability to interpret film, the most popular media students engage with. Film is an incredible amalgamation of words, motion, and music. The world of film offers students incredible opportunities to interpret, analyze, and be moved. If our students must be able to interpret literature shouldn't they also be able to do the same in the immense world of film.

This class will not focus exclusively on the history of film or the classically taught …

Blindspotting And Covid: The Gentrification Of Racism, Ashley Starr-Morris

Journal of Religion & Film

The novel Coronavirus is not only exposing old patterns of racism and systemic inequalities, but deepening them as well. The notion of blindspotting, as described in the film by the same name, is used to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the “spiritual emergency” or crisis of racism in America. "Blindspotting" is an image or situation that can be interpreted in two ways but is understood by some in only one way, thereby producing a blind spot. In 2020 and 2021, we see segments of American society, from politics to white Christian nationalism, upholding a sacred canopy of exceptionalism by …

Dreaming Of Home: Youth Researchers Of Color Address Nyc’S Housing Crisis, Samuel Finesurrey, Waleska Cabrera, Meldis Jimenez, Brittiny Ando, Alanna Garcia, Alexander Garcia, Jayden Johnstone, Abdul Mohammed, Sheylany Paulino, Edwin Reed, Emelyn Saavedra, Gisselle Saavedra, Rajendra Singh, Aysia Smith, Marlena Syriaque

Publications and Research

New Yorkers are facing a housing crisis. Long-standing disparities of race and class in New York City have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Coronavirus and the looming eviction crisis threaten working-class communities, immigrant families and youth searching for housing stability throughout the city. This report is a call to action demanding that city and state elected officials, along with civic leaders, address the housing crisis that youth are inheriting. A team of youth housing fellows, housing organizers from the Broadway Housing Communities, and CUNY academics shaped this project around the ethos, “No research about us, without us.” The work …

Environmental Cues And The Sociospatial Imaginary: An Examination Of Spatial Perception And Meaning-Making In A Gentrifying Neighborhood, Todd Levon Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What could be more ordinary or pedestrian than two people walking down an urban street and talking about what we see and what we make of it? Yet this simple, quotidian act of walking a street—seeing, perceiving and experiencing physical spaces, places and objects—and making meaning of what is encountered, is the basis of my dissertation. It is also my basis for claiming that I have learned a great deal—and much unexpectedly—about how differently different people see and interpret the urban streetscape. What are the various environmental cues that stand out to different individuals? What are the psychosocial imaginaries that …

Combatting Arts-Led Gentrification: A Case Study Of Slanguage Studio, Julia M. Campbell

Global Tides

This essay examines Slanguage Studio, founded by Karla Diaz and Mario Ybarra Jr. in 2001, as a case study that illuminates how community-based art spaces can resist arts-led gentrification. The processes of arts-initiated gentrification and displacement of lower-income residents of color are demonstrated through explorations of arts districts in the Lower East Side, SoHo, and Boyle Heights. In response to artist Charles Gaines’ claims that art spaces inevitably lead to gentrification, Slanguage Studio offers an alternative in which community needs are prioritized.

Latinos In Brooklyn: Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations In Sunset Park/Windsor Terrace And Bushwick, 1990-2017, Sejung Sage Yim

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines the key demographic and socioeconomic trends in Brooklyn, New York between 1990 and 2017. The report focuses on the two community districts that have the first- and second- largest Latino populations in the borough: Bushwick (community district 4) and Sunset Park/Windsor Terrace (community district 7).

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, …

Mapping Staten Island: A Field Study Guide, Nerve Macaspac

Open Educational Resources

This is a guide for the field study and urban lab as partial requirements for GEG 260 Urban Geography at CUNY College of Staten Island. The field study introduces students to spatial ethnography and offers an opportunity to observe, experience and examine a range of spatial urban phenomena that they have learned in the classroom within actually-existing urban environments. Designed as a collaborative activity, students will work in teams in exploring and examining the built environment on-site and then produce multimedia deliverables to capture their reflections throughout the field study using creative and experimental methods. The collaborative and experimental design …

From Ghettos To Authentic Hubs: The Changing Meaning Of Racial Difference In The Post-Colonial City, Samia De Araujo Khoder

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Consumerism And Pride: The Fate Of Paris’ Marais “Gayborhood”, Christina M. Csensich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the 1980s the Marais neighborhood in Paris, France, became a haven for queer people, specifically gay, white men, filled with queer-owned and queer-centric businesses. By the year 2020, however, these businesses had been priced out by name-brand international corporations. In the 1990s, French television commercials and programs would not speak the word ‘homosexual,’ even when a character was openly queer. By the 2010s, companies regularly featured queer people and gay pride imagery and slogans in their advertising. The queer community in Paris has a unique relationship with the consumer economy, one that ties aspects of queer identity directly to …

Gentrification And The South Bronx: Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations In Bronx Community District #1, Lawrence Cappello

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

In recent decades skyrocketing real estate values throughout New York City have prompted residents to seek out reasonably priced housing and speculative investment opportunities in traditionally poorer neighborhoods. This is commonly referred to as “gentrification."

This report examines the extent of gentrification in the South Bronx neighborhoods of Melrose, Mott Haven, and Port Morris – officially designated Bronx Community District #1 – widely known as one of New York City’s prominent Latino areas. It presents key socioeconomic and demographic trends between 1990 and 2017. It also looks at topics such as employment, income structures, poverty rates, language acquisition, race/ethnicity, …

No Longer Fenced Out: Outlaw Media Discourse And Resistance To Gentrification In Greenwich Village, Joseph Francis Gallegos

American Studies ETDs

Greenwich Village is a so-called “gayborhood” that accepts and welcomes LGBT people. However, Greenwich Village has been undergoing gentrification for the past few decades, and this process exists due to a police-created order of violence that subjugates and displaces queer people and people of color. This order seeks to create a space that is friendly to capital and wealth.

Resistance to these strategies requires tactics that do not necessarily hew to mainstream methods of getting a message out, such as using mainstream media to make a case against gentrification. These often fail, as they will fall on deaf ears of …

Geographic Imaginaries Of Urban Spatial Segregation: A Case Study Of The West End Neighborhoods In Louisville, Kentucky., Amber Dock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to translate the framework of geographic imaginaries into an urban context in order to capture a narrative of how residents conceptualize and experience segregation. This framework is rooted in an investigation of local discourses as they exist within a specific social, political, and historical context. Institutionalized segregation and structural racism are the foundations on which the American urban context studied here was built upon. This study employs multiple methods, including contextualizing the study area, analyzing discursive content, and visualizing the results. The results of these analyses included empirically connecting concentrations of protected classes to …

Gentrification In Seattle: Amazon Overpowers The City Council, Keyleigh N. Wallick

Student Publications

In this paper, I will analyze gentrification in the city of Seattle, Washington. I argue that gentrification in Seattle is driven by the tech and real estate industries that are powerful and lucrative enough to deter accountability despite the City Council’s efforts. First, I will discuss gentrification mostly through a sociological lens. Then, I will consider gentrification in Seattle, focusing on the Central District, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, and First Hill neighborhoods. Additionally, I will discuss the role immigration plays in gentrification and the vulnerability of certain communities in Seattle. Finally, I will analyze the efforts the City Council …

Neighborhood Change Within New Jersey: The Evolutionary History That Led To The New Newark, David Medina

Student Publications

As Newark lies 10 miles west of Manhattan, there is an increased encroachment from investors and gentrifies as surrounding cities such as Hoboken and Jersey City become too expensive and overcrowded. Known as the “Brick City”, Newark has history dating back to 1666. Leading up to World War II Newark was thriving, until an increase in suburban development and white flight that altered the race demographic. After years of racial stigma, the history of Newark is at risk as gentrification and neighborhood change looms over the city and its 282,862 residents, many of which are minorities.

Twitter Talk For National Council On Public History 2020, Michelle Hamilton, Ariel Beaujot

Hear, Here Conference Papers

A talk created for a Twitter-based presentation at the National Council on Public History 2020.

Becoming Gentrifier/D: Aesthetics, Subjectivities, And Rhythms Of Gentrification In Seoul, South Korea, Myung In Ji

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Gentrification has been extensively studied beyond Euro-American societies. In particular, previous research of Seoul’s residential gentrification has broadened our understanding of the role of the developmental state and property speculation in urban clearance and renewal. However, little attention has been paid to the contemporary retail gentrification in Seoul that has different aesthetics, subjectivities, and rhythms compared to residential gentrification. In retail gentrification, old urban neighborhoods are no longer demolished but cherished with their nostalgic landscapes and atmospheres. In this context, this dissertation project explores Seochon, a gentrifying neighborhood in Seoul, that was designated as a cultural heritage site in 2010. …

The Tourist And The Toured: How Hostel Owners Navigate The Age Of Global Gentrification, Brianna Bilter

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since the mid-1990s, numerous Moroccan riads, or traditional homes built around a central courtyard, have been converted into tourist accommodations in Morocco’s old medinas. This paper seeks to analyze the impact of riad-style hostels specifically on the medinas, as hostels are relatively new to Morocco and have various benefits and consequences for the community. Though hostels are often portrayed as a sustainable form of tourist accommodation compared to multinational hotel corporations, they have an acute impact by bringing tourists into previously residential spaces and exacerbating the effects of global gentrification. My research relies on interviews with hostel owners and employees, …

Enacting Race And Class Online: Gatekeeping And Meaning Making On Reddit’S R/Brooklyn, Peter J. Sclafani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the following thesis I examine how race- and class-based power structures are conceptualized and actualized in the virtual sphere. The Internet as an “imagined community” upholds the historically embedded power structures that perpetuate deeply-rooted American hegemonic ideals as they relate to race and class.

To demonstrate the conceptualization of power structures in virtual space an analysis of discourse on the social media and news aggregate website, Reddit, that positions online conversations about race and class as an extension of the racial inequality present in social structures offline. Isolating gentrification, and topics related to gentrification such as new business openings …

Rui(N)Ation: Narratives Of Art And Urban Revitalization In Detroit, Jessica Ks Cappuccitti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation considers the City of Detroit as a case study for analyzing the complex role that artists and art institutions are playing in the potential re-growth and revitalization of the city. I specifically look at artists and arts organizations who are working against the popular narrative of Detroit as “ruin city.” Their efforts create counter narratives that emphasize stories of survival and showcase vibrant communities. By focussing on artist-led and institutional initiatives, I emphasize the importance of art in both community and narrative-building.

This research has taken the form of a written dissertation and two adapted projects, and positions …

A(Void) Is Built, Taylor Hayes

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

My thesis project dissects the carefully designed structure and political nature of public and private spaces through the physical manipulation and redaction of architectural and design magazines. Utilizing the process of collage and décollage, the work (re)presents visual cues of interiors, architectural passageways, and empty spaces as manipulated and defamiliarized structures. Margins and negative spaces are illuminated to reveal unpredictability, fragility, uncertainty, and the absence of truth. Here, space is far from passive – instead space is constantly in the process of being constructed. Through this work, I question how architecture is intentionally designed for the white wealthy and consequently …

Under The Paving Stones, The Beach, Amanda L. Katz

Theses and Dissertations

Under the paving stones, the beach investigates the human labor that goes into sustaining life inside of a luxury condominium on Brooklyn’s newly redeveloped East River waterfront. The rhythms of labor and leisure occasionally synchronize as we sense the physical, psychological and environmental limits of our current way of life.