Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Fifty Years Of Weathering The Storm: Are The Louisiana Gulf Coastal Parishes Prepared For Another Major Hurricane?, Danielle L. Boudreau

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study examines ten major storms that have affected Louisiana in the last fifty years, beginning with Hurricane Betsy in 1965. The goal is to determine if the nine coastal parishes are prepared adequately for another major hurricane impact. It examines storms that have affected the state physically, in terms of property and ecological damages. It also considers storms that provided non-physical influences, by way of mitigation policy changes and social, economical, ecological, and political policy alterations. The main focus is on the transformations, if any, of social vulnerability in light of emergency preparedness in the areas impacted, particularly along …

Bilingual Typography: Study Of The Linguistic Landscape Of Jeddah, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Abstract: With the rise of globalization and the spread of Western culture across the globe, the use of English as an “international” language is often represented in bilingual and multilingual typographic signage. Throughout the Middle East North Africa and the Gulf region, the integration of Arabic and Latin letterforms is commonly viewed within the signage of storefronts, street signs, advertising billboards, and informational materials. This paper explores the use of bilingual/multilingual typography within the linguistic landscape of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

How The City Grows: Urban Growth And Challenges To Sustainable Development In Doha, Qatar, Andrew M. Gardner

All Faculty Scholarship

This book chapter considers how sustainable development fits in the social, political, and cultural context of contemporary Doha, Qatar. After a review of sustainable development and urban development in Qatar, this chapter makes several contentions. First, it contends that sustainable development poses a challenge to the political stability of a society that distributes state-controlled wealth to its citizenry through urban development. Second, it points to the fact that Qatar's tribal/authoritarian political regime is antithetical to some of the bottom-up democratic principles thought to underpin sustainable development. Finally, it suggest that the consignment of sustainable development efforts to the spatial discourse …

New Orleans Producers: Directing The Regional Food System One Informal Contract At A Time, Emily Nichols

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Large corporations largely control food production and distribution in the global food system and have generated a desire for locally produced food. Although small independent producers still contribute to regional food systems, there is little understanding about how they distribute and market their products. This thesis uses both semistructured interviews to investigate the distribution practices of urban, family, and regional producers in the New Orleans region and discourse analysis to disclose how localist discourse shapes producers marketing practices. The discourse analysis discovered that the web presence of local New Orleans restaurants, farmers, and Crescent City Farmers Market targeted concepts that …

Theorising The ‘Fifth Migration’ In The United States: Understanding Lifestyle Migration From An Integrated Approach, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

This chapter is an empirically-informed discussion of relevant social theory for examining the phenomenon of lifestyle migration in the United States in both rural and urban settings. Specifically, the chapter explores key explanatory models born of research into so-called non-economic migration occurring since the early twentieth century—models that may be characterized as primarily either production or consumption oriented in their emphasis—as a context for outlining an integrated approach. The author then highlights changes in how some Americans appear to calculate personal and collective quality of life as engendered by an emerging economic order—based on principles of flexibility and contingency—whose affects …

Moving Motherly: Raising Children In The Low-Wage Hospitality Industry, Anna E. Hackman

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the hospitality industry, women with children are in a unique position. Government deregulation of corporate labor practices, the exit of manufacturing overseas, and the rise of the service sector economy in the United States has contributed to the development of a surplus, low-wage labor force. Tourism is one subset of this labor force that deserves further attention. Although there is substantial literature on the structure of low-wage labor in tourism economies (Herod and Aguiar, 2006), as well as the impacts on work-family balance (Liladrie, 2009), a less explored topic is the impacts hospitality labor has on mothering. The purpose …

Imagining Possibilities For Healthy Appalachian Communities In An Emerging Postindustrial Landscape, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

This paper explores how community might be re-imagined to promote incipient social and economic agendas born increasingly of broad-minded citizen initiatives within the Appalachian region aimed at what is generally understood as “development,” but of a form distinct from the prevailing models of a more industrial age. I would like to ask whether a city like Huntington, West Virginia can emerge as a progressive example of what we might term postindustrial, urban regeneration and perhaps what we might call community healing—specifically through grassroots movement now finding local governmental support in collective attempts to transform this place from one defined primarily …

Movement As A Means Of Social (Re)Production: Using Gis To Measure Social Integration Across Urban Landscapes, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Kristin Landau

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This paper contributes to the archaeological study of movement in urban environments where built forms and natural features worked together to play a key role in structuring human mobility.We propose an analytical method using least cost analysis in a Geographic Information System (GIS) to empirically measure social integration. The method defines mobility as the potential for pedestrian movement, and identifies locations where people were most likely to walk to or through in a landscape. The calculated mobility data are then employed to identify with whom people were most likely to interact and the degree to which they were socially connected …

Nature And The City, Robert Rotenberg

Robert Rotenberg

No abstract provided.

People, Plants, And Fungi: Examining The Ecological And Social Landscapes Of The Swan Creek Park Food Forest, Renee Meschi

Summer Research

This summer, I researched the plants, fungi, and people of Tacoma’s Swan Creek Park Food Forest (SCPFF) in order to allow the site to tell its own story through the histories in which the local plants and people are both rooted. My overall goal was to unearth the submerged influences that have shaped the SCPFF which, in their exposure, can create an approach to sustainable community building that is inclusive of multiple cultural identities, as well as respectful of the sovereignty of those identities.

I began my investigation with plants and fungi that are indigenous to the area, with a …

Sustainability Policy’S Inherent Dilemmas – Exemplified Via Critical Examination Of The Las Vegas Metropolitan Sustainability Campaign, Kathryn A. Zimmerman

All Master's Theses

In response to a dual problem of critical water scarcity and rapid population growth, leaders of metropolitan Las Vegas implemented a region-wide, internationally marketed sustainability campaign. Preliminary studies found that, while sustainability policy attains its rhetorical goals, solutions initiated not only perpetuate but also purposefully expand the original dual problem to justify continuous water resource acquisitions. To examine this sustainability conundrum constructed by leadership—problem-perpetuation rather than problem-resolution—a critical examination in resource management asked two basic questions: what is being sustained and by what means? Via this inquiry, specific processes by which leaders perpetuate problems can be identified; and, so-informed, new …

Globalizing Havana: World Heritage And Urban Development In Late Socialist Cuba (In Process), Matthew Hill

Matthew J. Hill

No abstract provided.