Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Modernity In Miniature: Maoism And The Beijing Department Store, Samuel M. Hellmann

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the Beijing Department Store as a contradictory structure embedded in the world’s largest Communist revolution. By looking at the urban planning decisions behind constructing a colonial form in the center of the socialist capital, I attempt to unravel the complex intersection of economic development and egalitarian mass action in the early Maoist period. Constructed in 1955 during the first Five Year Plan, the Department Store sheds light on the specific parameters of post-revolution modernization campaigns. Furthermore, by looking at the conceptualizations of the building by the Party, architects, and the workers inside the store, I examine ...

Thinking Like A Region In Northeast Ohio? Factors That Predict Local Government Participation In Collaborative Policy And Planning, Meghan Rubado, Joanna Ganning, Thomas Hilde, Wendy A. Kellogg

Urban Publications

Local governments in Northeast Ohio often collaborate with one another to provide services, pursue regional initiatives, and create regional plans. Collaborative arrangements can create efficiencies, save money, improve service quality, and boost regional vitality. But they also present costs and risks that leaders must weigh against potential benefits.

Darkness In The Parlor: Prostitution And Narratives Of Urban Exploration In London’S West End, Aiden Evans

The Forum: Journal of History

Prostitution in London’s West End came to constitute a multidimensional transgression for middle-class observers during the late-Victorian period, contesting traditional distinctions between West and East, middle-class and working-class, and public and private life. First, through the use of Late Victorian urban exploration narratives, I will show that urban explorers applied a rigid conceptual framework to identify the working-class prostitutes occupying London’s affluent West-End. Rooted in class-based hierarchies, these systems of identification presumed that working-class prostitutes were categorically distinct, visible, and undisguisable in London’s West End. Moreover, I argue that this conceptual framework reveals the authors’ binary understandings ...

Urban Palimpsests: Studying Enlightenment Influences In The Post-Earthquake Rebuilding Of Lima And Lisbon, 1746–1765, Emily Chung

The Forum: Journal of History

Urban renewal has long existed as a vessel for the assertion of authority, embodying hierarchy, policy, and culture in the most tangible way with architecture and civic landscaping shaped to accommodate the upper strata of society. Particularly interesting to study through this lens is the latter half of the eighteenth century which marks the turning point between royal absolutism and the emergence of competing forms of power in the European Empire, through the growth of the Enlightenment movement. This paper offers a comparison of two imperial cities, Lima and Lisbon, which due to similarly tragic earthquakes, were provided the opportunity ...

Communication Competence Training Within Minority-Owned Small Businesses, Shirleena Racine Baggett

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Business ownership is imperative in correcting economic issues for demographic groups subjugated to discrimination, inequality, poverty, and other harmful disadvantages. This project supports the idea that building communication competence within minority-owned small businesses and nonprofit organizations, will significantly increase achievement of long-term sustainability and success. The solution is not only creating communication training tailored for minority entrepreneurs, but to allow access in feasible and tangible ways. This study begins by defining communication and explaining its function to assist in moving past the narrative of communication interaction as “talking and listening,” but instead a concept rooted in logic, theoretical analysis, and ...

Disamenity Or A Signal Of Competence? The Empirical Political Economy Of Local Road Maintenance, Benjamin Blemings, Margaret Bock

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Empirical results find different conclusions than theoretical evidence of how electorates perceive road work. This paper uses a geographically smaller unit of analysis than prior work, political alignment, local election cycles, and difference-in-differences. It finds political distortions in invasive road maintenance timing and rules out maintenance seasonality. Spatial discontinuity plots leveraging ward boundary cutoffs confirm the shift. Results identify new public distortions to road maintenance, local election cycles, which are widespread and frequent. The estimates are used to calculate financial costs of local elections on road maintenance. Local elections have cost medium-large U.S. cities over $185.5 million from ...

Public Transportation Accessibility, Proximity To New York City, And Residential Property Values In New Jersey, Sangwan Lee, Michael Smart

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

In recent years as housing with better transit accessibility has become unaffordable to many households in many regions globally, the call to study the connection between transit and property values has shifted to concern itself with the negative consequences of transit access being capitalized into property values. The primary purpose of this research is to define the effect of station proximity and other characteristics on housing prices and provide evidence if there is displacement in the area with better accessibility to transit. The outcome reveals that locational factors are associated with housing prices. Inherent housing features, the number of beds ...

Webinar: Natural Pozzolans In The Pacific Northwest And Their Beneficial Uses, Matthew D. Sleep

TREC Webinar Series

The eruption of Mt. Mazama approximately 7,700 years ago created what is now known as Crater Lake. This eruption blanketed the Pacific Northwest with volcanic ash. This volcanic ash has been collected from several locations in Southern Oregon near the Oregon Institute of Technology campus. This volcanic ash has been tested and shown to have properties beneficial of a natural pozzolan. This seminar will present the results of a significant laboratory program to determine the natural pozzolanic capabilities of Mt. Mazama volcanic ash. In addition, information will be presented on a field application using the material to create ADA ...

Webinar: Connected Vehicle System Design For Signalized Arterials, Xianfeng Terry Yang

TREC Webinar Series

It can be expected that connected vehicles (CVs) systems will soon go beyond testbed and appear in real-world applications. To accommodate a large number of connected vehicles on the roads, traffic signal control systems on signalized arterials would require supports of various components such as roadside infrastructure, vehicle on-board devices, an effective communication network, and optimal control algorithms. In this project, we aim to establish a real-time and adaptive system for supporting the operations of CV-based traffic signal control functions. The proposed system will prioritize the communication needs of different types of CVs and best utilize the capacity of the ...

Ecosystem Services Of Urban Tree Canopy For The Mitigation Of Climate Change: Measuring Carbon Sequestration And Understory Temperature Reduction Of Knoxville’S Urban Forest, Tyler Hounshell

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee

In the future, the city of Knoxville, Tennessee will be impacted by climate warming due to anthropogenic climate change. Yet, the ecosystem services provided by urban tree canopy in Knoxville’s urban forest can help mitigate the effects of climate warming. In addition to improving air quality, regulating water flow, and reducing noise pollution, Knoxville’s urban forest serves as a carbon sink and sequesters carbon dioxide on an annual basis. Utilizing methods for calculating carbon sequestration by trees in urban and suburban settings developed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the sequestration potential and its uncertainty is calculated ...

Pitching Change: Micro-Community Of Higher Learning, Christopher Chaphe

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Being around sports growing up has given me some experiences that have shaped who I am today. Playing and watching sports is a common activity amongst my friends and family. These events spark engagement and camaraderie between us. The stadium in which these sports are played within are a key component to this engagement. They bring people together to enjoy and root on your favorite teams along side thousands of other fans.

Stadiums today are becoming a remarkable instrument to generate communal spirit besides marketing, recruiting and hosting games for universities. The iconic design of these stadiums has become more ...

From Economic Slowdown To Recession, Iryna Demko, Iryna Lendel, Merissa Piazza

Urban Publications

The most recent recession, known as the “Great Recession,” began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. The recession affected the entire U.S., but its impacts were not uniform. Unfortunately, Ohio was a primary example of the recession’s iniquities as the recession lasted five months longer here compared to the rest of the nation. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we face further uncertainty and another recession with economic activity contracting “sharply and abruptly” across the entire U.S. This research brief examines the state of the economy in the U.S. and Northeast Ohio pre-pandemic (2019) and ...

Building Connections: Hadc And The Jordan Heights Community, Andrea Wittchen, Connor Burbridge, Leah Charash, Nadine Clopton, Emma Coppock, Chloe Goldstein, Miah Hornyak, Jessica Levy, Mahdis Modaresi, Juwan Morrow, Madeleine Pasda, Colleen Shea

Environmental Policy Design

No abstract provided.

Discovering Synergies Among Sustainable Rating Systems In Green Roof Analysis, Kanaan Hardaway

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

As awareness has grown of the impacts the built environment has on the natural environment and the human psyche, methods to create more sustainable living environment have been developed. Green infrastructure is well-known for its environmental benefits. Emerging literature suggests green infrastructure have aesthetic qualities conducive to mental restoration, as well. To analyze the multi-benefits of green infrastructure, a green roof is studied for its aesthetic qualities and its impact on LEED, SITES, and WELL certification. A questionnaire was administered to individuals on the University of Arkansas campus to quantify human perceptions and attitudes toward a green roof on a ...

Refugee Housing In Worcester: A Neighborhood Case Study Of Bell Hill, Tyler Seth Maren

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This paper examines refugee resettlement practices at the neighborhood level, asking what neighborhood characteristics are conducive to achieving positive integration and housing stability outcomes. Using data from a quantitative study of refugee resettlement case files from Ascentria Care Alliance as a foundation, this research takes the form of an analysis of the Bell Hill neighborhood in Worcester, MA, a major resettlement destination. Using Ascentria data, secondary data sources such as US Census data and the Worcester Assessor’s Database, and site visits, this paper constructs a profile of Bell Hill along four major dimensions: community characteristics, housing, social infrastructure, and ...

Redesigning Our Conception Of Local Food Utilizing A Value-Based Approach, Heather Riesenberg

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

The goal of this study was to design a new method of evaluating and building local food systems which is based on a new conception of how we view local food. Beginning with a review of the current literature on how local food is defined and its apparent goals, I begin to pick apart the dated idea that local needs not be more complex than the 400-mile limit offered by the USDA. Utilizing the literature review, I bring together a host of values that local food seems to (want to) embody and use these to form a pathway toward the ...

Reconciliation And Resistance From The Ground Up: The Power Of Affect In Chicago's Community Gardens, Olivia Lee

2020 JHU Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium

Chicago is the second city -- after Milwaukee in segregation. In the impoverished, primarily black neighborhoods on the South Side of the city, community gardens are a spatial break with and grassroots activism against the grim landscape of economic, structural, and physical violence. But what is the gardens' social valence when they seem unable to countervail the corrupt city politics, not to mention domestic and global economies which circumscribe the courses of the residents' lives? Drawing on affect theory, I illustrate how the slow and uneventful healing of personal tragedies in Chicago's community gardens is a quiet, nascent resistance against ...

The Impact Of Extreme Heat On Environmental Justice Communities In California: Assessing Equity In Climate Action Plans, Karishma S. Becha

Master's Projects and Capstones

Climate change projections suggest extreme heat events will be more frequent over the next few decades. Extreme heat has both negative environmental and social impacts as it affects energy security, public health by increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses and stresses food and crop supply through prolonged droughts. The impacts of extreme heat will also disproportionately affect communities of low economic status. Because of this, there is a need for better climate action plans that can adapt to and mitigate the impacts brought upon by extreme heat that does not disproportionately impact vulnerable communities. This research analyzed local government Climate ...

Navigating Neoliberalism: Sounds, Spaces, And Success In Kuala Lumpur's Underground Rap Scene, Helen Gypsy Mcmillian

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia serves as a stronghold of Southeast Asia’s commercially successful hip-hop music industry, and is also home to a thriving underground scene. Concurrent with the growth of hip-hop are the significant urban redevelopments that the city has undergone since the 1990s (Fujita 2010). These notable developments, such as the Petronas Twin Towers and the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, are part of the broader pattern of constructing “global cities” – cities that market distinct urban brand images on a global scale to attract tourism and international investment (Ong 2011). This particular type of urbanism exists within the political economic ...

Bike And Pedestrian Safety Planning: Excelsior/Outer Mission District, Alexandra Lee-Gardner

City and Regional Planning

San Francisco’s Outer Mission and Excelsior districts host a vibrant community of small business owners and residents from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. The neighborhood is known for its diversity and sense of community. However, lack of adequate infrastructure and high-speed roadways has created great safety concerns within the community. In the last five years, the Excelsior/Outer Mission area had 828 collisions, nine of which were fatal (Transbase, n.d.). San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) has identified nearly 14 miles of streets in the project area that are on the City’s high injury network, meaning ...

Potential Of Existing And Proposed Bicycle Facilities To Link Multiple Origin And Destination Needs For Non-Motorized Travel In San Luis Obispo, Sheridan Nansen

City and Regional Planning

The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential of linking multiple origins and destinations for efficient non-motorized travel in San Luis Obispo, California. The city currently has seventy-five miles of bicycle infrastructure with the intention to add thirty-five more miles to create a more functional bicycle network and foster an increase in bicycle trips taken.

Many cities in the United States are following their European counterparts in the push towards more sustainable forms of transportation by promoting bicycling, walking, and the use of public transit. Recently, we have seen an increase in both local and national legislative efforts ...

Red Lines, Class Codes, Highways, And Hipsters: Invisibility Politics And "Racial Progressivism" In Portland, Oregon, Olivia Ilene Fuson

2020 JHU Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium

This analysis of Portland Housing Authority documents, Portland Development Commission Records, historical newspaper articles, and other archival sources unravels the historical origins of racial invisibility politics in Portland, Oregon. As this article reveals, racial dissonance is not a new phenomenon in Portland. Rather, a history of misdirection in the 1940's and class coding during the 1950's has created and perpetuated a divide between rhetoric and reality which continues to impact Portland politics to this day. This divide has subsequently allowed white Portland homeowners and Portland officials to implement racially discriminatory urban land use and housing policies in order ...

The World Is Our Playground: Public Art As Intermediary Between The Community And The Urban Environment, Piper Prolago

2020 JHU Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium

The contemporary approach to public art tends to view these projects as fun, but kitschy. While in many instances, art in public spaces may be intended to be primarily entertaining, public art projects also hold the potential to reimagine communities in ways that cannot be tapped without recognizing this possibility. I propose an analysis of public art that considers three aspects: the lusory, the community, and the critical. The need to play is inherent in everyone, the anthropological and psychological foundation of many of our relationships with others. Thus, lusory art in public spaces invites viewers to engage with play ...

Pig Iron To Wrought Iron: Lake Oswego's Transformation From Iron Smelting To The Privatization Of Oswego Lake, Mathew K. Ragsdale

Young Historians Conference

The paper focuses on the interaction between Oregon's public trust doctrine, city ordinances, and private interests surrounding access to Oswego Lake. Areas of study include the early development of Lake Oswego with its prominence in the Oregon iron industry, and its transition from industrial town to weekend retreat to affluent suburb between the late 1800s and mid 1900s. The Lake Oswego Corporation has claimed power over all aspects of the lake, a notion disputed by Oregon's strong public trust doctrine. The city, whose duty is to all residents, has used the lake as a public asset while restricting ...

216— Using Rochester’S Family Public Housing In The “Crescent Of Poverty” As A Catalyst For A Solar Initiative, Christopher Miller

GREAT Day

Both the climate crisis and poverty rates in US cities have increased rapidly, with few solutions. This research examines the relative solar potential in public housing developments in Rochester, NY, specifically in the area of concentrated poverty called the “Crescent of Poverty.” Also examined are societal benefits that an inclusive solar/sustainability movement provides for Rochester. Rochester is a mid-sized, diversely populated city with an overall poverty rate >30% and a childhood poverty rate >50% (Murphy, 2018). These alarming rates have contributed to the creation of the “Crescent of Poverty”, where the majority of family public housing developments are located ...

Social Capital, Civic Capital: Local Churches Organize For Popular Democracy, James V. Spickard

Working Papers & Reports

This paper was to written about 2008 for an edited volume on churches engaged in building community -- a volume that never appeared. It uses the lens of social capital to describe the efforts of church groups in two cities to help poor communities take change of their own destinies. It traces the work of Communities Organized for Public Service ("COPS") and Metro Alliance in San Antonio, Texas to empower people in the city's poorer neighborhoods to demand their fair share of city services. It also describes the work begun at Dolores (Catholic) Mission in East Los Angeles to empower ...

Moving Toward Equitable Transit-Oriented Developments By Integrating Transit And Housing, Hongwei Dong

TREC Friday Seminar Series

Prior studies show that transit-oriented developments (TODs) increase property values and raise property tax revenue. Property owners reap economic benefit from TODs and public officials use it as evidence to justify the high cost of rail transit. However, renters, who rely on transit more than homeowners, may have to pay higher rent to live in TODs. The location affordability index at the neighborhood level suggests that renters can also benefit from TOD by saving money on transportation costs. Recent studies at the individual level, however, found little evidence that living in TODs reduces transportation expenditure. Using rental data scraped from ...

Food-Based Businesses And The Creative Class In New England's Post-Industrial Cities, Francesca Cigliano

Masters Theses

This master’s thesis examines how the density of food-based businesses in New England’s post-industrial urban neighborhoods relates to neighborhood demographic characteristics. The relationship between food-based businesses and demographic change has been examined in larger metropolitan areas like New York City and Chicago and has found that younger, wealthier, and more highly educated residents tend to live where there are greater densities of food businesses. However, there has been little research on the topic in New England’s post-industrial cities that have historically struggled to attract highly sought knowledge workers. I find that food business density and the share ...

"A State Sponsored System Of Segregation": Examining The Contemporary Impact Of Redlining, Caroline Howard

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

The west side of downtown Jacksonville is home to historically black neighborhoods which for over a century were economically thriving. However, if you were to visit those areas today you would be greeted by vacant lots, abandoned buildings and a large homeless population. In the 1930’s predominantly black neighborhoods of Jacksonville were marked as hazardous areas unfit for loans: a process known as redlining. The Economic Innovation Group’s Distressed Community Index will be analyzed to determine if there is a correlation between redlining and the disproportionate economic hardship of historically black areas to predominantly white areas of Jacksonville ...

The End Of Zero Returns And The Last Dollar: Can New York State Create A Collective Store Of Value, Crowdsource Wealth, And Fund Its Colleges And Universities Using Cryptocurrency?, Edward Lehner

Publications and Research

This brief personal statement, citing the previous work of the Bronx Community College Cryptocurrency Research Laboratory (BCC Lab), advocates for a private New York State Money to fund New York State’s public higher education. Attempting to shed most of the academic language and the formalities of research-driven writing, this short statement frames two distinct arguments. The first contention is that New York State residents need a means by which to store value outside of the traditional banking and financial systems due to massive Federal Reserve printing that is centered primarily on rescuing fledgling Wall Street profits and mitigating reckless ...