Digital Commons Network^™

Housing Displacement In Corlears Hook: From Naghtongh To One Manhattan Square, Don Macleod

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The displacement of residents from their homes in New York City began with the European settlement of New Amsterdam and continues to this day. This paper focuses on displacement in Corlears Hook, part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side from the violent extirpation of a Lenape settlement in 1643 New Amsterdam to the gentrification of a traditional working-class neighborhood along the East River propelled by the influx of luxury housing development. Throughout Corlears Hook’s long history, displacement has been caused by violence, well-meaning efforts to improve slum conditions, ham-fisted “urban renewal” projects that favored the wealthy and civic improvements that used …

Staying Power: The Struggle For Space And Place In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Erin E. Lilli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation looks at how gentrification touches down, at the neighborhood and individual scale, in Crown Heights and reproduces experiences of racial inequality in home and place. Taking an historical materialist approach and drawing on residential oral histories, this study frames these reproductions of racial inequality as always-in-tension with ongoing acts of resistance from Black homeowners, renters, and long-term residents. Specifically, the research explores the conditions under which Black residents of a predominantly Afro-Caribbean neighborhood acquire and maintain—and in some cases lose—their housing and sense of place and belonging. These residents resist the varied tactics of anti-Blackness such as landlord …

Running With The Land: Racial Capitalism, Restrictive Covenants, And The Pre-Redlining Roots Of The Private Real Estate Market In Syracuse, New York, Michael Thomas Kelly

Theses - ALL

This thesis locates the roots of the private U.S. real estate market, and racially segregated housing geographies, within a broader, multi-century project of establishing, racializing, and spatializing private property in land. Using archival methods, I examine and directly connect late 18th century land speculation and settlement, early 20th century real estate capitalist class formation, and the construction of all-white suburban sub-divisions based on racially restricted covenants. I investigate the city of Syracuse – a small, post-industrial city in Upstate New York on unceded Onondaga Nation land and one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States. I argue …

Putting Policy In Its Place: Policy Enactment And Engagement Through A Multiscalar Policy-Shed Framework, Barbara L. Maclennan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The objective of this research is to examine the spatial components integral to policy formation, implementation, and evaluation. The research uses solid waste as a case study to explore a multiscalar GIS policy-shed framework. To this end, the goal of this dissertation is to examine the spatial nature of public policy. The research applies spatial concepts and multiscalar methodological applications embedded within GIS and geovisualization to explore the complex spaces surrounding public policy implementation and evaluation.

Limits Of The Black Radical Tradition And The Value-Form, Shemon Salam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Black Radical Tradition was supposed to be victorious against racial capitalism. Instead the tradition was defeated by the early 1970s never to return again. Surprisingly the scholarship still treats the tradition as if this world historic defeat never happened. Furthermore, geographers have not reckoned with this defeat. Limits of the Black Radical Tradition and the Value-formbegins the process of starting a debate, hoping to ignite radical rethinking around the nature of the Black Radical Tradition, racial capitalism, and the value-form.

Geography Of The Middle East Through The Western Lens: A Survey Of Films Set In The Middle East And Filmed In The American Southwest, Jake Bryan Rowlett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Representation of cinematic geography is a struggle in the world of film: a power balance between the work of the filmmakers and the place itself. Often, the filmmakers tip the scales in their favor and the true nature of the place is lost in translation. Throughout the history of cinema, the geography of the Middle East has been manipulated into a vision designed for Western audiences that is strikingly disjointed from reality.

The foundation of modern Orientalist interpretations of the Middle East in film can be seen in the early decades of the film industry, through the “Biblical Epic,” and …

An Investigation Of The Effects Of Public Policy On Spatial Concentration And Company Linkages In The Martitime Sector, Eoin G. Moynihan

PhDs

Industry clusters (Porter, 1990, 1998b) have been the focus of numerous studies, and public policy programmes in recent decades (Ketels, 2013b). The maritime sector in particular has seen a number of maritime cluster organisations established in recent years as policy tools for regional development. Cluster analysis has focused on identifying and mapping clusters, yet comparatively little research has been undertaken on the optimal structure for cluster organisations (or initiatives) as additionality policy tools, to achieve the aim of strengthening cluster linkages and boosting the innovation capacity of cluster firms.

Therefore this research addresses the following questions:

1. To what extent …

"White" Space: The Racialization Of Claremont, California, Emily Audet

Scripps Senior Theses

The City of Claremont, California—a suburb of Los Angeles and the home of the Claremont Colleges—stands out as disproportionately non-Hispanic white in comparison to neighboring cities and counties. This research employs the concept of racialization of place to examine how Claremont has been racialized as “white.” Through an analysis of land-use regulations and descriptions of the city, this research analyzes the structural and ideological processes that racialized the city. The city government used exclusionary zoning ordinances and private citizens employed racially restrictive housing covenants to maintain Claremont’s majority-white status. The city government and local organizations and businesses also implicitly assert …

Flood Of Change: The Vanport Flood And Race Relations In Portland, Oregon, Michael James Hamberg

All Master's Theses

This thesis examines race relations amid dramatic social changes caused by the migration of African Americans and other Southerners into Portland, Oregon during World War II. The migrants lived in a housing project named Vanport and an exploration behind Portlanders’ negative opinion of newcomers will be undertaken. A history of African Americans in Oregon will open the paper and the analysis of events leading up to a 1948 flood that destroyed the housing project and resulted in a refugee and housing crisis will comprise the middle of the paper. Lastly, an examination of whether or not an improvement in race …

Losing Values: Illiquidity, Personhood, And The Return Of Authoritarianism In Skopje, Macedonia, Fabio Mattioli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On May 17, 2015, over 50,000 people took to the streets of Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, protesting against Prime Minister Gruevski and his party, the conservative neoliberal Internal Revolutionary Organization of Macedonia (VMRO). After nine years of authoritarian government, it was the first significant demonstration in which the population demanded accountability for Gruevski's despotic system of rule. This dissertation is the story of how Gruevski's system of power was built and why it lasted for so long. I argue that a series of failing financial processes, which included the use of illiquidity, created the material and …

The Geopolitics Of Reproductive Healthcare: Latina Immigrants’ Experiences As Non-Citizens And Biological Citizena In Atlanta, Ga, Rebecca E. Lane

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines the experiences of Latina immigrants in Atlanta, GA in accessing and receiving reproductive healthcare. Although Atlanta is a new destination city for immigrant labor, the state of Georgia has passed anti-immigrant legislation, including a 2011 law that allows local police to check immigrants’ documentation while investigating unrelated violations. This localization of immigration policing heightens immigrants’ risk of detention and deportability. In combination with media discourses of illegality, local immigration policing instills fear in immigrants, which deters them from going out in public in order to perform everyday tasks such as seeing a doctor. Latinas immigrants’ ascribed illegality …

You Are What You (Can) Eat: Cultivating Resistance Through Food, Justice, And Gardens On The South Side Of Chicago, Ida B. Kassa

Pomona Senior Theses

Though food is widely recognized as a basic necessity for humanity, disparate access to it highlights whose bodies, environments, health, nutrition, and utter existence has mattered most in American society—and whose has mattered the least. Through interviews with residents of the South Side of Chicago about the alternative food pathway they’ve forged for themselves, we learn that food becomes much more than just sustenance. Interviewees describe our present day food system as undeniably rooted in a history of enslavement and exploitation of Black and Brown bodies; they regard food justice work by communities of color as an important source of …

How The West Was Settled: Teacher's Guide, Leah Sloan

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Grounding Diaspora In Experience: Niagara Mennonite Identity, Cynthia Anne Jones

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative case study grounds theoretical notions of diaspora in personal accounts of Russian Mennonites living on the Niagara peninsula of Canada. The focus is on successive, complex interrelationships with ‘place’ (in a fixed sense, and a globally connected sense), with attention to gender, generation, and life-stage. How have these individuals experienced diaspora, and how has this influenced their culture and identity? Interrelationships with place are examined within an analytical framework composed of three key elements as identified in diaspora literature: cultural hybridity, social heterogeneity (internal divisions), and responsibility flows. The results are both descriptive and theoretical, featuring first person …

Not Your Father’S Border: An Examination Of The Border In Northern Ireland And Its Relevance To The Global Change In The Importance Of World Borders, Aaron Patterson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Humanity has long maintained barriers separating specific entities from others. Ranging from cultural, religious, financial, and racial differences among a few others, the reasoning behind borders has remained a purely human endeavor. But our current golden age of technology has somewhat shrunk, or at least reassessed the necessity for borders. The boundaries of today, while many remain in the same locations as in the past, are vastly different from the borders created by previous generations. Globalization, a relatively new term, has made communication simple and fast. The noticeable result has been, of course, better communication between locations, and thus easing …

Fields With Dreams: The Distribution Of Farmland With Publicly-Funded Conservation Easements In Pennsylvania, Amy Sue Hill

Masters Theses

Conservation easements have played an increasingly significant role in the American movement to preserve farmland from urban development. Conservation easements are legal instruments that enable a landowner to sell his right to develop his property to an outside party, typically a government entity or a private land conservancy. The distribution of conservation easements used to preserve farmland is highly variable. Conservation easements often are found in regions where productive farmland and intense development pressure collide. Conservation easements are most common in places where both public and private sectors give strong financial and political support for conservation.

This thesis analyzes the …

The Samuel Smith Land Grants: A Historical Study Of Land Ownership And Use In Southern West Virginia, Stephen M. Porter

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study intends to illustrate the history of several tracts of land granted to General Samuel Smith, of Baltimore, Maryland by the state of Virginia in the years 1796 and 1797 containing, in totality, 300,000 acres (more or less). This research attempts to untangle some of the tangled web of ownership (both surface and mineral) that has affected this tract in particular and reflects the general trend of corporate land ownership in southern West Virginia.

National Identity And The British Empire : The Image Of Saint Paul’S Cathedral, Rebecca Pierce

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This paper considers the historical geography of place and identity construction through the case of English Nationalism and the British Empire as encapsulated in London’s Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The research explores several themes: 1) the British Empire’s use of Saint Paul’s Cathedral as a representation, both physically and symbolically, of the ideals and power of the empire; 2) the British Empire’s employment of the Cathedral as the emotional and ideological center of national identity and imperialism in the English population; and 3) the British Empire's manipulation of the image of Saint Paul’s Cathedralas a national and religious landmark. Data analysis …

Spatial And Ethnic Patterns Of Real Estate Control Affecting Upward Mobility Of Immigrants In A Nineteenth Century Industrial Community, Debra S. Alfonso

Masters Theses

The subject of immigrant success has previously been analyzed in the context of ethnic characteristics, individual heroism, worker solidarity, and advancement of industrialization. Most immigrants start at the bottom of the social-economic ladder. The mechanisms of advancement vary depending on both ethnic values and the constraints of the socioeconomic system. The key variable is normally thought to be advancing occupational status.

The problem addressed is how did recent immigrants to a 19th century steel-town obtain home ownership and advancement in spite of declining industrial wages. Using a GIS system to link and analyze geographic and historical records I was able …

Designing Carolina: The Construction Of An Early American Social And Geographical Landscape, 1670-1719, Meaghan N. Duff

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This study explores the promotion, population and settlement of the Carolina lowcountry and evaluates the colony's pioneer years, the period before an English-dominated plantation society achieved supremacy. Many designers participated in the construction of proprietary South Carolina's social and geographical landscapes. The explorers and propagandists who first characterized the colony for European audiences developed the region in the minds of potential emigrants. their recruitment campaigns determined in part the people who colonized the province. The Lords Proprietors and their agents, who devised an elaborate settlement program set forth in the Fundamental Constitutions and other land policies, influenced how Carolina evolved …

Reflections Of Social Change: Burial Patterns In Colonial Fairfax County, Virginia, Kimberly Joyce Wells

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

"A Handsomely Improved Place" : Economic, Social, And Gender-Role Development In A Backcountry Town, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1750-1810, Judith A. Ridner

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

As a social history of the town and people of Carlisle, Pennsylvania from 1750 to 1810, this dissertation traces the evolution of communal identity in the early American backcountry. By focusing on the growth and development of one urban community, this work details not only how and why one group of backcountry inhabitants took pride in their town's outward accomplishments and material prosperity, but also explains how Carlisle's evolutionary growth prompted the town's people to see themselves as key players in an economic and social universe that stretched far beyond the geographic boundaries of their localized realm.;Using state and county …

Town Development In The Colonial Backcountry: Virginia And North Carolina, Christopher E. Hendricks

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The backcountry of colonial Virginia and North Carolina saw a process of urbanization during the third quarter of the eighteenth century uniquely shaped by a large-scale migration from colonies to the north, aided by the westward extension of local government. This rapid development did not lead to the creation of a hierarchical economic system of central places, but rather linear networks shaped by the geography of the region. Ironically, this phenomenon occurred in an area of two American colonies usually considered to be devoid of towns.;This dissertation is a study of twenty-eight towns established from 1744 to 1776 in the …

The Development Of Building Patterns In Tidewater Virginia, 1620--1670, Martha Irene Pallante

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

An Analysis And Study Of The Population Of Pana, Illinois, Antoinette Paula Strader

Masters Theses

No abstract provided by author.