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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

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Claremont Colleges

Pitzer Senior Theses

Urban Studies and Planning

2013

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Designing Affordable Housing For Adaptability: Principles, Practices, & Application, Micaela R. Danko Apr 2013

Designing Affordable Housing For Adaptability: Principles, Practices, & Application, Micaela R. Danko

Pitzer Senior Theses

While environmental and economic sustainability have been driving factors in the movement towards a more resilient built environment, social sustainability is a factor that has received significantly less attention over the years. Federal support for low-income housing has fallen drastically, and the deficit of available, adequate, affordable homes continues to grow. In this thesis, I explore one way that architects can design affordable housing that is intrinsically sustainable. In the past, subsidized low-income housing has been built as if to provide a short-term solution—as if poverty and lack of affordable housing is a short-term problem. However, I argue that adaptable …

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Fruitful Communities: Evaluating The History And Impacts Of Treepeople’S Fruit Tree Program, Kayla B. Imhoff Apr 2013

Fruitful Communities: Evaluating The History And Impacts Of Treepeople’S Fruit Tree Program, Kayla B. Imhoff

Pitzer Senior Theses

TreePeople is a Los Angeles based non-profit organization that uses environmental education, initiatives, and programs to engage with the greater community to work towards the goal of a sustainable future for Los Angeles. The Fruit Tree Program is one of TreePeople’s longest running programs of 29 years, which distributes free bare-root fruit trees to economically disadvantaged communities as a source of fresh fruit and the other environmental benefits that trees offer. This paper is a comprehensive report detailing the history of the program and the impacts it has had on communities across Los Angeles County. Looking at three communities in …

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Currents Of Change: An Urban And Environmental History Of The Anacostia River And Near Southeast Waterfront In Washington, D.C., Emily C. Haynes Apr 2013

Currents Of Change: An Urban And Environmental History Of The Anacostia River And Near Southeast Waterfront In Washington, D.C., Emily C. Haynes

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes how social and environmental inequalities have interacted throughout Washington, D.C.’s urban and environmental history to shape the Anacostia River and its Near Southeast waterfront into urbanized and industrialized landscapes. Drawing on the principles of environmental justice, urban political ecology, and environmental history, I examine the construction of urban rivers and waterfront space over time. I link the ecological and social decline of the Anacostia River and Near Southeast neighborhood to a broader national pattern of environmental degradation and social inequality along urban rivers that resulted from urban industrialization and federal water management. Finally, I discuss the recent …

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From Farm To Fork To Landfill: Food Waste And Consumption In America, Mariel Nunley Apr 2013

From Farm To Fork To Landfill: Food Waste And Consumption In America, Mariel Nunley

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis focuses on the creation and disposal of food waste in the United States. Food waste is a specific yet highly critical issue that implicates the large, incongruous systems of both food production and waste disposal. Waste is created throughout the food supply chain, with producers as well as consumers guilty of throwing away good food. Rather than repurpose food as compost or donate it to those in need, wasted food, although completely biodegradable and often edible, is mixed in with the rest of our garbage and disposed of in a landfill. By evaluating the systems of waste disposal …

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Cultivating Resistance: Food Justice In The Criminal Justice System, Caitlin M. Watkins Apr 2013

Cultivating Resistance: Food Justice In The Criminal Justice System, Caitlin M. Watkins

Pitzer Senior Theses

This Senior Thesis in Environmental Analysis seeks to explore the ways in which certain food-oriented programs for incarcerated women and women on parole critically resist the Prison Industrial Complex and the Industrial Food System by securing social and ecological equity through the acquisition of food justice. It focuses on three case studies: the Crossroads’ Meatless Mondays program, Fallen Fruit from Rising Women: A Crossroads Social Enterprise, and Cultivating Dreams Prison Garden Project: An Organic Garden for Women in Prison. Each project utilizes food as a tool to build community, provide valuable skill sets of cooking and gardening, and educate women …

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Altering The Urban Frontier: Gentrification And Public Parks In New York City, Sarah E. Evers Jan 2013

Altering The Urban Frontier: Gentrification And Public Parks In New York City, Sarah E. Evers

Pitzer Senior Theses

After decades of cuts to federal funding, cities were left with few resources for public services, particularly parks and open spaces. Current trends of massive gentrification in New York City are changing the housing market and other components of the private sector. In addition to altering socio-spatial dynamics in the housing and consumer markets, gentrification can alter public spaces as well. By comparing three New York City neighborhoods at different stages of gentrification, I analyzed socio-spatial dynamics, public and private funding, event programming, and ethnographically observed changes in the physical and social landscape of the park, and neighborhood, over time.

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