Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

The Trajectory Of Warwick Junction As A Site Of Inclusivity In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Kara Van Schilfgaarde Van Schilfgaarde

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Warwick Junction, a thriving trading hub in the inner city of Durban, has long been considered one of the best examples of collaborative urban management practices between the local government and informal traders. In a post-apartheid South Africa, there was a national desire to transform the old systems of governance, which in Warwick translated to city government institutions making an effort to include informal traders in the policymaking and management processes. This paper tracks the history of Warwick Junction, using its oppressive past to frame common perspectives of informal trade. It considers the legacy of the post-apartheid era South Africa, …

The Formalities Of Informal Urbanism: Technical And Scholarly Knowledge At Work In Do-It‐Yourself Urban Design, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Among the numerous ways people make illegal or unauthorized alterations to urban space, of particular interest in recent years have been the creative, local, and often anonymous efforts at informal but functional “improvement” to the built environment where the state or property owners have failed to act – practices I call “do-it-yourself urban design.” Authorities, planners, and community members alike rightfully wonder about the meanings of these actions, and the questions they raise about rights, responsibilities, benefits, and consequences. Building from alarger qualitative study on DIY urban design across eleven cities, this paper focuses on the motivations, methods, and self-perceptions …

Community Restoration: A Snapshot On How It Is Obtained And What Are The Effects?, Robert A. Bright, Wayne P. Carlton, Jordan L. Carrethers

Black Issues Conference

Community Restoration: A snapshot on how it is obtained and what are the effects?

The presentation examines some of the factors to a successful community restoration and what are the end results of a restored community especially when we participate in the process.

Alley Allies, Scotty Ellis, Katie Hughes, Derek Dauphin, Sarah Isbitz, Shavon Caldwell, Liz Paterson

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

This is the guiding document for the project and sets the stage for the potential of alley re-use in the Foster Corridor. It includes: A 2020 vision statement; a project overview; context regarding the importance of alley revitalization; and our recommendations. The intended audience for this document is the leadership of the project, the non-profits and other organizations who will be involved in the project’s implementation, and the City agencies who will play a critical role in facilitating the successful repurposing of these alleys.

This document describes the development of the project during the planning phase, including the public engagement …

Social Change, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

Rights of Adolescent Girls in India: A critical Look at Laws and Policies by Saumya Uma is timely publication about the most neglected segment of our society namely adolescent girls. Perceived as burden by their parents, neglected by policy makers, subordinated by patriarchal system, crushed before they bloom due to omnipresent misogyny; adolescent girls in India have to tread tight rope walk. The author rightly avers that in India experiences of adolescence for girls are greatly different from that for boys. For boys, adolescence is marked by greater autonomy in decision making about career, financial independence, enhanced status and expanded …

Who We Are: Incarcerated Students And The New Prison Literature, 1995-2010, Reilly Hannah N. Lorastein

Honors Projects

This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring …

People And Place: Understanding The Processes, Outcomes And Impacts Of Interventions Of The Fairmount Corridor Initiative, Center For Social Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Through a 5 year grant, the Center for Social Policy (CSP) serves as a strategic learning and evaluation partner to The Boston Foundation (TBF). TBF’s investment and people and place-based initiatives seek to make sustainable, positive change through community and economic development in neighborhoods along the Fairmount-Indigo transit line in Boston. From 2010-2012, the Center team worked closely with Mattapan United and Millennium 10 (in Codman Square/Four Corners) to identify community priorities for neighborhood change. From 2013-2015, the Center team is evaluating these neighborhood change efforts, as well as other initiatives aimed at increasing economic well-being for neighborhood residents. The …

Interview Of Helen Gidjunis, Helen Gidjunis, Paula Gidjunis

All Oral Histories

Interview topic: Mrs. Helen Gidjunis is a life-long resident of Philadelphia. The majority of her life she spent growing up in the shadow of La Salle College – now University. She moved to Uber Street in 1934, while La Salle’s groundbreaking occurred on February 29, 1928 at its fourth and current location at 20^th Street and Olney Avenue. She has observed the neighborhood change for seventy-nine years. When she married in 1949, she moved one street west to 20^th Street. She has been her block captain for many years and still retains that position and as such has …

Participatory Visual & Digital Methods, Aline Gubrium, Krista Harper

Krista M. Harper

Table of contents and introduction of Participatory Visual and Digital Methods by Aline Gubrium and Krista Harper. Available in paperback, hardcover, and e-book editions from Left Coast Press .

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 …

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 …

Neighborhood Identity And Sustainability: A Comparison Study Of Two Neighborhoods In Portland, Oregon, Zachary Lawrence Hathaway

Dissertations and Theses

Anthropogenic impact on the environment, mainly resource depletion and pollution, is limiting the potential for future generations to have the same resources that previous generations have enjoyed. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of our time will be curtailing our own personal impacts on the environment. To do this, we must adopt more sustainable lifestyles at home. This research sought to understand how neighborhood identity affects sustainability at the household level. In the summer of 2012, residents of two neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon completed 314 self-report, web-based surveys. The neighborhoods selected for this research were demographically similar, but one projected …

Defining Safety For Universities: The Slippery Conceptual Slope, Pam Jenkins

DRU Workshop 2013 Presentations – Disaster Resistant University Workshop: Linking Mitigation and Resilience

In this presentation, we address the issue of the fragility of campus safety. The uniqueness of a college campus creates a context for safety that requires an intentional and specific understanding. Campus life for many is no longer (or perhaps never was) ‘an ivory tower’— a place separated and protected from the rest of the community. However, many still have the attitude that a campus is not like the real world in the United States. And in fact, colleges and universities are often much safer and more open than communities around them. Yet, ask any student affairs director or safety …

Population 7 – Lyman Street Art Intervention, Carli Foster, Elizabeth Ann Englebreston, Eric Wojtowicz, Yiwei Huang

Yiwei Huang

POPULATION 7 started as an experiment in the fall of 2011 as an Urban Art Laboratory “Art – Place – Tour” with the vision to make a tangible impact to the culture of public art in Springfield. At first sight art seems to be not existent in the public realm. We are searching for an organic, sustainable concept with the potential to grow from inside to outside. Our goal is to invite to a discussion about public art and art in general that is introduced through minimal but diverse, economical eventually temporary, site-responsive interventions. We see our art as personal …

From Indicators To Action: Evaluating The Usefulness Of Indicators To Move From Regional Climate Change Assessment To Local Adaptation Implementation, Sally Miller

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

As the effects of climate change become increasingly damaging and costly, a public and political consensus is building for planning that will protect private property and public infrastructure. Climate-related planning has primarily focused on mitigation, assessing vulnerability, and building adaptive capacity. Adaptation has not gained substantial ground in the area of implementation. The uncertainty associated with climate change projection and variability has emerged as a dominant barrier to adaptation. However, as knowledge accrues, the global and national science communities have been developing more detailed, fine-scale climate projections. Regional climate assessments are available for the sub-national climate regions in the U.S., …

Contesting The North Williams Traffic Operations And Safety Project, Amy Lubitow, Thaddeus R. Miller

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The North Williams Traffic Safety Operations Project, overseen by the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), was proposed in 2010. With an initial budget of $370,000, the project was designed to reduce conflict between buses, bicycles and motor vehicles on North Williams Avenue and improve the overall safety and accessibility of the street. As is common practice, PBOT’s first step in this project was to organize a stakeholder advisory committee (SAC) of interested business owners, neighborhood association representatives, residents, and key stakeholders living or working along North Williams Avenue who would be tasked with advising the city on the project. However, …