Geography Commons^™

Restorative Playscape Design: A Phenomenological Approach To Designing Playscapes, Jennifer Bradley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation outlines the development of a phenomenological and restorative approach to playscape design. Restorative Playscape (RPD) is a phenomenologically based approach to designing children’s play environments that involves a process of attending to, noticing, and uncovering natural affordances for play and development, and making enhancements to the environment so that the affordances can experienced in their full potential and capacity to support children’s growth and development. The restorative approach involves the application of three phenomenological methods to identify the affordances of the outdoor play environment: 1) Child Guided Walks- to explore the affective and relational dimension of children’s experience …

Still Got The Blues - No Time But Here, No Place But Now: Geographies Of Art & Activism In The Work Of Clyde Woods., Jake Mace

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The fight against displacement and dispossession in the increasingly inequitable process of reterritorialization is arguably the most pressing struggle of the modern city – and it is articulated through cultural production as much as through political debate and economic development. Yet research that is at the nexus of critical, urban, and cultural studies and which explores the resistant potential of countercultural production rather than the hegemonic impact of mainstream cultural production is underdeveloped. Clyde Woods’s blues epistemology offers a guide to reading cultural production of marginalized groups as maps of meaning that offer alternative visions of the past, the present, …

Land Tenure And The Urban Institutional Politics Of Sustainability: How Sustainability "Lands" In The Relationships Between Global North And South Contexts., Lindsey Connors

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability is not simply a moral concept but is essential for human survival, and the tensions inherent in sustainable development bear repercussions that are increasingly placed onto the poor and powerless (Redclift 1987). While sustainability has become a relevant concept for urban knowledge and research especially in the global South, much of our urban sustainability knowledge is shaped by research and typologies from the global North (Nagendra et al. 2018; Parnell & Robinson 2017; Roy 2005). This dissertation considers the spatial transferability of sustainability knowledge from a relational perspective (Massey 2002). Sustainable development can be understood from this perspective as …

The Influence Of Urban Forms And Street Infrastructure On Pedestrian-Motorist Collisions, Taylor J. Foreman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unwalkable cities are afflicted by serious issues such as increasing rates of pedestrian traffic accidents, public health concerns, and the denied right to have an accessible city. This study examines how different types of urban forms and street infrastructure contribute to the prevalence of traffic accidents in two major metropolitan cities in the United States: Atlanta, Georgia, and Boston, Massachusetts. This study utilizes geospatial analysis through the Average Nearest Neighbor and Optimized Hot Spot Analysis tools to determine the spatial distribution of traffic accidents throughout both cities. Additionally, statistical tests were conducted to explore the relationships between the number of …

Geovisualization And Open-Source Web Mapping Of Big Origin-Destination Data, A Test Case, Joseph Hiebert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Migration plays a key role in determining the health and success of cities, counties, and countries. It also plays a key role in determining the health and wellbeing of the individuals and families that undergo a migration event. This has led many scholars to map and study global migration patterns to understand how and why people move. While migration data are powerful, the origin-destination (O-D), tabular format of the data can be hard to interpret. To make O-D data more powerful, geographers can lean on computer cartography and new geovisualization techniques to help decision makers make sense of large, complex …

Care Infrastructure Accessibility And The Gender Wage Gap – A Way To Improve Women’S Ability To Equitably Engage In The Paid Labor Market?, Julia Schinnenburg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

World-wide, women are less integrated into the labor force than men and if they are, they earn considerably less on average. This unequal treatment of women results in negative consequences for all members of society, as it harms women’s financial realities and also affects women’s care receivers due to a lack of resources that women can spend on their care giving. The research presented analyses how much the institution of better accessible care infrastructure could improve women’s ability to work for pay and decrease their daily workloads. The extent to which improved care infrastructure accessibility affects women’s lives is determined …

Climate Care: Pathways For Coastal Community Resilience, Jessica Reilly-Moman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Climate change increasingly impacts coasts worldwide. The ability of coastal ecosystems and the human communities who are part of them to absorb disturbance and maintain function or transform, or resilience, is of critical importance to managing these impacts. However, to date, climate resilience largely has focused on biophysical impacts and technocratic solutions, while issues of social and environmental justice and human well-being become more acute and entrenched. Consequently, I ask: How can coastal communities cope with climate change? To answer this question, I leverage traditional, emergent, and novel social research methods in Mexico, Central America, and Maine. Using ethnography, interviews, …

A Spatial Analysis Of Supply-Demand Of Public Transportation In Jefferson County, Kentucky., Nastaran Abdoli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public transportation is important as it serves individuals, especially the transit-dependent population, by providing a basic mobility service to these people and all others who rely on public transportation. This research utilized estimating public transportation demand and supply to analyze the spatial patterns of public transportation in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The study focuses on the transit-dependent population, and it considers indicators of age, poverty status, vehicle ownership, and foreign-born population with less than five years residency in the United States. This study conducted a public transit supply-demand analysis to identify areas with imbalanced supply and demand in Jefferson County at …

Broccoli Over Brownies: Factors Affecting Healthy Food Choices For Low Income Residents Of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Aileen Patricia Profir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The world is on the cusp of a nutritional crisis: malnutrition, in all its forms, now directly affects one in three persons on the planet. Chronic malnutrition is closely associated with a wide range of public health issues such as stunted growth, increased incidence of disease, school or work absences, and obesity. Access to proper nourishment for food insecure individuals is often evaluated as a measure of distance to market, yet a causal relationship between proximity to food resources and improved health outcomes is unclear. Multiple dimensions of food access influence fruit and vegetable consumption for those who are food …

Changing Faces, Changing Places: Understanding Immigration, Housing Market And Native Out-Migration In Established And New Destinations In The United States., Anqi Xu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation concerns residential incorporation and the socioeconomic impact of immigrants primarily from Latin America and Asia with their rapid geographical dispersal in the U.S. I adopt econometrics methodologies and GIS techniques to examine how immigration affects housing price changes and white out-mobility in established and new destinations, utilizing datasets from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The first part examines the effects of immigration into the U.S. established and new immigrant destinations on housing prices using county-level data that span 2011 to 2017. Using the global and local Moran’s I statistics, I demonstrate …

Geographic Imaginaries Of Urban Spatial Segregation: A Case Study Of The West End Neighborhoods In Louisville, Kentucky., Amber Dock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to translate the framework of geographic imaginaries into an urban context in order to capture a narrative of how residents conceptualize and experience segregation. This framework is rooted in an investigation of local discourses as they exist within a specific social, political, and historical context. Institutionalized segregation and structural racism are the foundations on which the American urban context studied here was built upon. This study employs multiple methods, including contextualizing the study area, analyzing discursive content, and visualizing the results. The results of these analyses included empirically connecting concentrations of protected classes to …

Urban Green Space: Mitigator Or Multiplier Of Inequality In The Denver Metropolitan Area?, Joshua Charles Baldwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Studies have shown that communities of color and low-income populations are likely to live in neighborhoods that lack access to quality green spaces, unable to directly benefit from the environmental, recreational, and cultural services they provide. The goal of this research was to determine if the green space inequality patterns seen globally and nationally exist in the Denver Metropolitan Area. Using an existing green space dataset, ecosystem services fieldwork, GIS digitizing, and bivariate correlation analysis I uncovered numerous green space inequalities based on proximity, acreage, and quality. Key findings included 1) Lakewood’s Hispanic and less-educated populations have relatively little access …

Examining Spatial Inequities In Green Space Distribution And Access Around The Historic City Of Savannah, Georgia., Chiamaka F. Chimah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Green space supports recreational activities and environmental sustainability which has proven to aid physical and social well-being as well as environmental health. However, spatial inequities are observed in the distribution and accessibility of urban green space. This norm identified as an environmental justice issue has left racial minorities and people of low socioeconomic status at a disadvantage. This study adopted a geospatial approach to assess green space quantity, quality, and accessibility, and generate a green space index. This research assessed the relationship between racial structure, socioeconomic characteristics and green space inequities in all municipalities in Chatham County, Georgia with a …

Communications And Methodologies In Crime Geography: Contemporary Approaches To Disseminating Criminal Incidence And Research, Mitchell Ogden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many tools exist to assist law enforcement agencies in mitigating criminal activity. For centuries, academics used statistics in the study of crime and criminals, and more recently, police departments make use of spatial statistics and geographic information systems in that pursuit. Clustering and hot spot methods of analysis are popular in this application for their relative simplicity of interpretation and ease of process. With recent advancements in geospatial technology, it is easier than ever to publicly share data through visual communication tools like web applications and dashboards. Sharing data and results of analyses boosts transparency and the public image of …

Climate Resilient Development And Discourse In The Peruvian Highlands, Jamie A. Haverkamp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation strives to rethink apolitical and ahistorical efforts for adapting to climate change in terms of a political struggle for survival in times of radical global environmental change. Drawing on ethnographic and participatory fieldwork with agro-pastoralists of the Peruvian Andes, government officials and international NGO actors, this dissertation follows emergent climate-resilient discourse of rapid glacier retreat as it travels from global origins and articulates with local culture and indigenous ecologies in the Cordillera Blanca. Through this research, I offer a critical interpretive analysis of modern, capitalist and rationalist ways of knowing and planning for climate change, finding that such …

An Investigation Of The Performance Of Urban Rail Transit Systems On The Corridor Level: A Comparative Analysis In The American West, Daniel Zimny-Schmitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1980s, significant investments have been made in urban rail transit across the United States, particularly using light rail technology. Most of these light rail systems have been built in Sunbelt cities which no longer had legacy rail systems. As a result, they were constructed using a building blocks approach, being funded corridor by corridor. Most research, however, on urban rail performance has taken place at the system-wide level, leaving a significant gap at the level of the transit corridor. This research examined nineteen urban rail corridors in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Portland. A performance score was constructed …

A Shifting Island Landscape: Changes In Land Use And Daily Life In The 19th And 20th Century Village Of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland, Lauren Marie Couey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates changes to village spatial arrangement and land use patterns in the nineteenth and twentieth century village of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland. To understand how spatial changes within the historic village were shaped by interactions between villagers and outside groups, including landlords and government agencies, a landscape approach was utilized. An examination of historic maps, valuation documents, and Irish Census documents, combined with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey and archaeological excavation, were used to understand how historical pressures impacted island life. Inishark's geographic isolation creates a unique case study to understand the impact of historical pressures on rural Irish …

Modeling The In-State Geographic Market Changes Of South Dakota Public University Enrollments, 2006 To 2015, John Green

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The spatial nature of how high school students choose a college has become an integral part of the recruitment process at universities across the country. In South Dakota, the impact of distance on enrollment at state operated institutions influences the geographic footprint of each university. Between 2006 and 2015, the nature of those enrollment numbers and geographic footprints changed within the state, creating enrollment stagnation or decline at state run institutions. This research paper addresses the geographic nature of those enrollment declines, models the college enrollment decision of students in the state, and applies those findings towards potential enrollment projections. …

Moving Mountains : A Study Examining Long-Term Impacts Of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining On Mortality In The Appalachian Region Using Geographic Information Sciences Techniques., James Howard Kent Pugh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the last hundred years, the Appalachian region has been dominated by the coal industry. It has also been and currently is one of the unhealthiest regions in the United States. Recent scholarship has examined the relationship between coal mining and health and mortality rates in the Appalachian region. The first study incorporates air quality and pollution data to examine if coal mining counties have higher levels of pollution and if this pollution contributes to mortality disadvantage. In the second study, I construct a population-based coal-exposure measure to better evaluate the relationship between coal mining and health I find that …

This Is Just A Phase : The Impact Of Population Structure On Haplotype Phasing And Linkage Disequilibrium Measures At Functional Genetic Sites., Roxanne Kaaren Leiter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The block-like structure of the human genome has been the subject of many scientific papers and is of practical significance in large-scale genome-wide association studies. How stringent haplotype block boundaries are within and between populations has been the subject of ongoing debate within human population genetics. This thesis will contribute to the description of universal and population-specific haplotype blocks at functional sites, namely across the IL-10 gene family (including IL-10, IL-19, IL-20 and IL-24), which is involved in a number of immune system processes, and MAPKAP-K2, an adjacent and functionally significant kinase gene. Beyond the description of blocks across these …

Party Development And Political Conflict In Maine 1820-1860 From Statehood To The Civil War, Lee D. Webb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a history of politics in Maine during the state’s formative period, the years from statehood until 1860. The history focuses on party conflict and on the development of organized political parties, particularly the Democratic and Republican parties. It concentrates on the structures and processes that politicians built, including party newspapers, county conventions, state conventions, legislative caucuses, and ultimately state committees and the office of state committee chair – all to compete effectively for power. During this 40-year period, parties also develop powerful new messages, campaign strategies, and developed leaders with the skills to accomplish these tasks.

I …

Russian Real Estate Purchases In Finland, 1990-2016, Mika Hasanen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Foreign real estate ownership has been a frequent topic in the Finnish public discourse in the 2010s. Real estate purchases by Russian citizens have received lots of negative attention. In this thesis, the spatial distribution of real estate bought by Russians was studied. Purchases between January 1990 and August 2016 were mapped and analyzed using Getis-Ord Gi* hot spot analysis. The home addresses of the buyers were also geocoded to find out where the majority of buyers live, and geodetic distances to their properties were calculated. Buildings on these properties were analyzed to examine motives for the purchases.

How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores a series of events that occurred in the spring of 1876. The relationship between the Indianapolis city government, the Marion County Courts, the Indianapolis Police Department, and the African American community came together to usher in changes never before envisioned. The Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) was formed in 1855, then disbanded 12 months later in a political dispute. From 1857-to-1876, the IPD was all white. These changes took place as the Reconstruction era was coming to a close. The first Ku Klux Klan was at its apex, terrorizing black communities, and Jim Crow was coming into its …

Global Population Distributions And The Environment : Discerning Observed Global And Regional Patterns., Jeremiah J. Nieves

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Between 1990 to 2015, numerous groups used ancillary data about the environment surrounding populations to more accurately map global populations from standard census data. No comprehensive study has been undertaken to characterize the observed relationships between population density and ancillary data. Better understanding these relationships may produce more accurate population maps, focus resources on new datasets with a high probability of modelling importance, and lead to expanded end-user applications. This study examined these relationships by extracting variable importances from 36 independently run, country-specific population models from the WorldPop project’s population data. Covariate data describing urban/suburban extents were found to be …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Communality In Louisville Community Gardens., Victoria Ann Montgomery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Environmental change and food security issues boost interest in green initiatives, which in turn motivate policy makers and the general public toward the support and maintenance of urban community gardens. In Louisville Kentucky, an urban heat island in the United States, support for community gardens requires greater community support and volunteers. Objectives and organization of community gardens vary, as issues in production and sustainability are not the same for all garden communities and are contributing factors to their degree of success. Community gardens represent elements from both communal living and community but vary in their degree of communality. Using qualitative …

Exchange Patterns And Relations In Collaborative Governance., Charles Wharton Kaye-Essien

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collaborative governance has received considerable attention in recent years. From environmental resource management to public safety, collaborative governance continues to play a vital role in regional problem solving. In spite of this increasing popularity previous attempts to model the political, economic, and demographic determinants of collaboration have in most cases produced inconsistent results, thereby undermining the ability to generalize from such findings. Additionally, our understanding of the relational patterns that emanate from collaborative agreements remains fairly rudimentary. The main objective of this research is to address some of the gaps in the literature and improve our understanding of collaborative governance …

Welcome Home Ranch Rockshelter: Examinations Of Prehistoric Cultural Transitions In The Palmer Divide, Colorado, Katherine V. Mayo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Welcome Home Ranch rockshelter is located in the Palmer Divide region of Colorado. The archaeological evidence on site suggests that this rockshelter was occupied between the Late Archaic period (c. 1000 BC – AD 150) and Early Ceramic period (c. AD 150- 1150). Excavations at Welcome Home Ranch provided a dataset of lithics, ceramics, and features with which to test ideas about prehistoric life during this transitional time frame between the Archaic stage and the Late Prehistoric stage. It is during this transitional time period, c. AD 150, that the Palmer Divide region and its prehistoric residents experienced a variable …

The Lgbt Community And Public Space: A Mixed Methods Approach, Emily L. Sanschagrin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public space researchers have created a body of literature describing how women feel in and access public spaces and have briefly explored men and race in public space, but have not explored other identities adequately including sexuality. Geographical queer theory provides a foundation for public space research, but literature is limited to the creation of and contest over space. The goal of this research is to explore LGBT feelings in public spaces in St. Louis, MO. There are three components including a survey, interviews, and hand mapping of emotional associations within the city. Overall, feelings in public space were found …

The Rogues Of 'Quoddy: Smuggling In The Maine New Brunswick Borderlands 1783-1820, Joshua M. Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Smuggling has been an important problem in American-Canadian relations. Yet the nature of smuggling is little understood; it is by definition an elusive, secretive, and subtle practice. This dissertation explores smuggling as a social force within a border community on the United States-Canada boundary. Smuggling almost always involved the illicit crossing of political boundaries, and as such can be used as a means of studying popular attitudes toward the creation of national borders. Moreover, because smuggling is directly related to the transition to modem capitalism, this study sheds light on the roots of both American and Canadian economic development. The …

"The Little City In Itself": Middle-Class Aspirations In Bangor, Maine, 1880-1920, Sara K. Martin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the inception and growth of "the Little City in Itself," a residential neighborhood in Bangor, Maine, as a case study of middle-class suburbanization and domestic life in small cities around the turn of the twentieth century. The development of Little City is the story of builders' and residents' efforts to shape a middle-class neighborhood in a small American city, a place distinct from the crowded downtown neighborhoods of immigrants and the elegant mansions of the wealthy. The purpose of this study is to explore builders' response to the aspirations of the neighborhood's residents for home and neighborhood …