Architecture Commons^™

Public Land Revisited: Municipalization And Privatization In Newark And New York City, Samuel Stein, Oksana Mironova

Publications and Research

Public land plays a central role in contemporary urban planning struggles. Using a comparative case study approach focused on the north-eastern US cities of Newark and New York City, we uncover patterns of land acquisition and dispossession that fit five broad and often overlapping periods in planning history: City Beautiful, metropolitan reorganization, deindustrialization, and devaluation, followed by hyper-commodification in New York City and redevelopment amidst disinvestment in Newark. Through this periodization, we find that accumulation and alienation of urban public land has largely taken place through two modes of municipalization (targeted and reactive) and two modes of privatization (community-led and …

Resilient Kalinago Initiative, Yesenia Ward, Cellia Ait-Ouaret, Danie Occeus

Publications and Research

The Kalinago are the Indigenous people of Dominica.Hurricane Maria hit the people particularly hard, losing up to 90% of their homes and community fabric. The people also suffered before the storms. Discrimination, little government aid, no electrical grid, isolation in their mountainous territory, limited social services, and economic mobility. The people have grown up relaying on themselves and their neighbors. With most of the housing stock gone, new building strategies need to be implemented. The goal is to make the territory self-sufficient, and a working expo society about sustainable living and resilience. The territory will undergo a master plan which …

Power Outage Preparedness And Concern Among Vulnerable New York City Residents, Christine Dominianni, Munerah Ahmed, Sarah Johnson, Micheline Blum, Kazuhiko Ito, Kathryn Lane

Publications and Research

Power outages can impact health, and certain populations may be more at risk. Personal preparedness may reduce impacts, but information on power outage preparedness and risk perception among vulnerable populations is limited. We examined power outage preparedness and concern among New York City residents, including vulnerable populations defined as older adults (≥ 65 years), and respondents with household members who require assistance with daily activities or depend on electric medical devices. A random sample telephone survey was conducted during November–December 2016. Preparedness was defined as having a three-day supply of drinking water, non-perishable food, and a working flashlight. Among all …

A Worldwide Model For Boundaries Of Urban Settlements, Erneson A. Oliveira, Vasco Furtado, José S. Andrade, Hernan A. Makse

Publications and Research

The shape of urban settlements plays a fundamental role in their sustainable planning. Properly defining the boundaries of cities is challenging and remains an open problem in the science of cities. Here, we propose a worldwide model to define urban settlements beyond their administrative boundaries through a bottom-up approach that takes into account geographical biases intrinsically associated with most societies around the world, and reflected in their different regional growing dynamics. The generality of the model allows one to study the scaling laws of cities at all geographical levels: countries, continents and the entire world. Our definition of cities is …

Solar And Rain Catching Canopy. Urban Oasis, Afolabi Ibitoye, Langston Clark, Elena Zimareva, Evan Banks, Alexander Aptekar

Publications and Research

The Urban Oasis is designed to work within existing “pocket parks” in New York City as a combined rainwater collector, personal electronics charging station and resting designation for New Yorkers. Intended to not only lessen the demand on the city power grid by using renewable energy to charge devices, the urban oasis is also intended to mitigate grey water overfill in New York’s combined sewer system and, in general, serve as a model for responsible environmental stewardship in urban areas.

The important technical aspects of the canopy specifically analyzed were:

a) how much rainwater could the canopy be expected to …

Where Does Public Land Come From? Municipalization And Privatization Debates, Oksana Mironova, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

This article illuminates contemporary land-use and disposition struggles in New York City by tracing the history of land’s passage between the private and public realms. The authors contend that government and community-controlled nonprofit organizations should govern the disposition of the city’s remaining public land supply, deliberately deploying this scarce resource to promote the well-being of the people and neighborhoods most at risk in a speculation-fueled real-estate environment.

Essential Methods For Planning Practitioners: Skills And Techniques For Data Analysis, Visualization, And Communication, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Jochen Albrecht

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.