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Full-Text Articles in Architecture

The Slow Violence Of Business As Usual Planning: Racial Injustice In Public Health Crises, Monika Sharma Apr 2021

The Slow Violence Of Business As Usual Planning: Racial Injustice In Public Health Crises, Monika Sharma

Masters Theses

This thesis is a critical analysis of the normative planning practice in relation to the aspirational principles of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) (especially Section A, Part 1: Overall Responsibility to the Public). By exploring several dimensions of typical, or Business As Usual, planning practices in a local planning department in Springfield, Massachusetts and contextualized within larger planning concerns in the United States, I illustrate that socio-spatial, racialized oppression is deeply embedded in these common practices. Through a multimethod approach that includes historical survey, archival research, interviews, and direct observation, I argue that most professional planning operates from …


Massachusetts Complete Streets Program: An Exploratory Spatial And Social Equity Analysis, Toriellen Swistak Jan 2021

Massachusetts Complete Streets Program: An Exploratory Spatial And Social Equity Analysis, Toriellen Swistak

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Masters Projects

The effects of transportation planning on equity are often overlooked or not prioritized, sometimes resulting in an inequitable distribution of infrastructure investment with disparities in access. This paper examines the characteristics and distribution of approved Complete Streets projects across Massachusetts using social and spatial methods to analyze trends across socioeconomic demographic data. The methods applied include buffering techniques in GIS software to analyze population data within a half-mile radius of approved projects from 2016-2019. The half-mile measure of proximity is used as a proxy for access, in which descriptive statistics and regression models examine in detail.