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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Prioritizing Climate Equity: A Qualitative Analysis Of The Massachusetts Mvp Program, Noah H. Gordon Aug 2023

Prioritizing Climate Equity: A Qualitative Analysis Of The Massachusetts Mvp Program, Noah H. Gordon

Masters Theses

The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program (MVP Program) has funded Community Resilience Building workshops in hundreds of communities over the past 6 years. The Planning Reports produced by these workshops offer valuable insight into the climate adaptation and climate justice priorities of Massachusetts municipalities. Climate justice literature holds that the impacts of climate change will be disproportionately felt by marginalized communities, and those addressing climate change should address the risks faced by those communities, referred to as Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities in Massachusetts. Using an inductive qualitative coding approach, this study analyzes 30 Planning Reports from towns with High, Medium …


Perceived Safety And Equitable Access: An Investigation Of The Northwest Arkansas Regional Greenway, Jessica Shearman May 2023

Perceived Safety And Equitable Access: An Investigation Of The Northwest Arkansas Regional Greenway, Jessica Shearman

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

In today’s world, designers, planners, and policymakers are grappling with conflicts of climate change, habitat loss, and increasing diversity all during a migratory trend towards urban areas and higher densities of living. Creating public spaces that are both resilient ecologically and environmentally, while also creating a sense of place is essential for providing a higher quality of life equitably for all citizens. Through case studies and literature review, the public’s safety perceptions when accessing public spaces is key to equitable access. Specifically, differing perceptions of safety based on gender, race, and backgrounds. Perceived safety can be defined as an awareness …


Governing Smart Cities As Knowledge Commons - Introduction, Chapter 1 & Conclusion, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Madelyn Sanfilippo Jan 2023

Governing Smart Cities As Knowledge Commons - Introduction, Chapter 1 & Conclusion, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Madelyn Sanfilippo

Book Chapters

Smart city technology has its value and its place; it isn’t automatically or universally harmful. Urban challenges and opportunities addressed via smart technology demand systematic study, examining general patterns and local variations as smart city practices unfold around the world. Smart cities are complex blends of community governance institutions, social dilemmas that cities face, and dynamic relationships among information and data, technology, and human lives. Some of those blends are more typical and common. Some are more nuanced in specific contexts. This volume uses the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to sort out relevant and important distinctions. The framework grounds …


Growing Pains: Toward A Coalition-Based Theory Of State Land Use Policy, Patrick Rochford Jan 2023

Growing Pains: Toward A Coalition-Based Theory Of State Land Use Policy, Patrick Rochford

Honors Projects

In the decades following World War II, mass suburbanization remade the American landscape. While suburbs accounted for 83% of the nation’s growth between 1950 and 1970, cities bled their populations and natural resources dwindled. Treating the postwar era as a critical juncture, this thesis examines the political history of twentieth-century state land use policy to illuminate how competing interests have shaped policy outcomes across the United States. Specifically, the paper seeks to explain the passage of statewide growth management and smart growth programs. After providing a history of American suburbanization, the paper considers an emergent challenge to the postwar growth …


Advancing Social Equity And Promoting Black Self-Determination: A Community Garden Opportunity Plan For Richmond, Va, Alessandro U. Ragazzi Jan 2023

Advancing Social Equity And Promoting Black Self-Determination: A Community Garden Opportunity Plan For Richmond, Va, Alessandro U. Ragazzi

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

Urban agriculture provides a variety of economic, environmental, and social benefits. Recognizing these benefits, the City of Richmond administers a community garden program known as “Richmond Grows Gardens.” Through this program, underutilized city properties are permitted for use as community gardens. However, an emerging concern is the potential for community gardens to perpetuate underlying structures of social and racial inequality through displacement and social exclusion. Considering these concerns, this plan investigates the implementation of community gardens in Richmond and establishes a methodology for ranking existing and available community garden sites based on the social and racial demographics of their surrounding …