Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Which Came First, People Or Pollution? A Review Of Theory And Evidence From Longitudinal Environmental Justice Studies, Paul Mohai, Robin Saha

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

A considerable number of quantitative analyses have been conducted in the past several decades that demonstrate the existence of racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of a wide variety of environmental hazards. The vast majority of these have been cross-sectional, snapshot studies employing data on hazardous facilities and population characteristics at only one point in time. Although some limited hypotheses can be tested with cross-sectional data, fully understanding how present-day disparities come about requires longitudinal analyses that examine the demographic characteristics of sites at the time of facility siting and track demographic changes after siting. Relatively few such studies …

Gis-Integrated Mathematical Modeling Of Social Phenomena At Macro- And Micro- Levels—A Multivariate Geographically-Weighted Regression Model For Identifying Locations Vulnerable To Hosting Terrorist Safe-Houses: France As Case Study, Elyktra Eisman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adaptability and invisibility are hallmarks of modern terrorism, and keeping pace with its dynamic nature presents a serious challenge for societies throughout the world. Innovations in computer science have incorporated applied mathematics to develop a wide array of predictive models to support the variety of approaches to counterterrorism. Predictive models are usually designed to forecast the location of attacks. Although this may protect individual structures or locations, it does not reduce the threat—it merely changes the target. While predictive models dedicated to events or social relationships receive much attention where the mathematical and social science communities intersect, models dedicated to …

Plugging The Gaps: The North Sea Flood Of 1953 And The Creation Of A National Coastal Warning System, Alexander Hall

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

The North Sea flood of 1953 was the most catastrophic severe weather event to hit the region in the twentieth century, causing widespread fatalities and devastation across north-west Europe. In the UK, the catastrophe highlighted deficiencies in coastal defenses, warning systems, and government disaster management. These shortcomings, combined with the large scale of the floods and the high death toll led to a government inquiry into the floods. The recommendations of this inquiry formed the basis of modern UK flood management and disaster policy. This paper examines the investigation into the North Sea flood of 1953 and highlights an early …

The Politics Of Denying Aid: An Analysis Of Disaster Declaration Turndowns, John T. Gasper

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Federal disaster aid provides resources to affected victims and potential votes for both governors and presidents, but the denial of aid can especially painful for all parties involved. This paper examines whether political factors contribute to which areas are denied federal disaster aid. Analyzing county-level data from 1992 through 2005, I find that political factors do shade a president’s decision to deny aid, but that some of these factors are only present during presidential elections years.

Missed Opportunities: Public Health Disaster Management In Canada, Lisa Gorman, Christopher Stoney

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Three recent Canadian public health crises present an illustration of both the opportunities for reform and the challenges that may impede progress and public health renewal in federalist nations. While the three crises examined exposed serious flaws in emergency preparedness and fuelled demands for vital public health reform, evidence indicates that fundamental challenges have not been addressed and may have even heightened over the last decade given a move to “open federalism” and the significant fiscal impacts of ongoing austerity measures. With future pandemics inevitable, we identify the missed opportunities to optimize Canada’s emergency response capacity and procedures and examine …

Leveraging Disaster: Promoting Social Justice And Holistic Recovery Through Policy Advocacy After Hurricane Katrina, Tanya B. Corbin

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

After disasters, the recovery process is uneven, and often, the social vulnerability of populations before a disaster translates into a lack of access to political power after the event. This study proposes that a large-scale event presents an opportunity to overcome these challenges and improve social, economic, political, and environmental conditions for affected communities during the recovery process by involving advocates for traditionally marginalized community members in the recovery. Using textual analysis to code the testimony of 240 witnesses who testified in 41 congressional hearings held after Hurricane Katrina, witnesses who advocated for policies that addressed social inequities are identified …

Polling In Impossible Conditions: Pre-Election Polling In New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina, Brian J. Brox, J Celeste Lay

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Just months after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, New Orleans held a mayoral election. With so many displaced residents, it was difficult to gauge attitudes, but there are perhaps few more important situations in which the public’s attitudes need to be examined. This paper examines the methodological challenges with survey research in the aftermath of a natural disaster. We conducted a traditional survey just days before the election and attempted to correct for our inability to reach particular segments of the population through post-stratification weights. The results of our poll were relatively accurate for all of the candidates but one – …

Employment Change Among Hurricane Katrina Evacuees: Impacts Of Race And Place, Sara Chaganti, Jasmine Waddell

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

After disaster-related displacement, finding new employment is critical to displaced individuals’ ability to regain stability for themselves and their families. This paper considers displaced Katrina survivors’ ability to maintain or improve pre-Katrina employment status (full-time vs. part-time vs. unemployed) post-Katrina. Using data from the Displaced New Orleans Residents Pilot Study, we construct a scale of employment change which offers a nuanced look at employment change. We focus specifically on the impact of long-term displacement and race on changes in survivors’ employment status. We find across our analyses that displacement has a negative effect on employment status. And we find that …

Post-Katrina Suppression Of Black Working-Class Political Expression, Taunya L. Banks

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

New Orleans politicians, with the aid of the federal government, used the destruction and displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to implement policies that discouraged low-income and working class black residents from returning to New Orleans. Impacted communities felt the need to revitalize street parades (second-line parades), a traditional communal neighborhood activity, as an instrument of political protest. In response the City used minor municipal ordinances to more vigorously regulate these parades, doubling the fees imposed for street parades and effectively shutting them down. The City’s response raised important constitutional questions about government suppression of speech and freedom of …

Guest Editora' Introduction - The Opportunities And Challenges Of Disaster Recovery, Randolph Burnside, Laura Hatcher

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Who Votes For Mayor? A Psu Pilot Research Report, Jason R. Jurjevich, Phil Keisling, Kevin Christopher Rancik, Carson Gorecki

Center for Public Service Publications and Reports

Phil Keisling is director of the Center for Public Service at Portland State University in Oregon, which recently conducted research on who votes in mayoral elections with Knight Foundation support.

The last 10 to 20 years have been times of revitalization and progress for many of America’s big cities. While there are certainly exceptions, many major city downtowns have been revitalized, often with the money and energy of younger entrepreneurs. Committed and often well-educated “young creatives” have helped turn many urban cores into desirable places to live, work, and raise families.

But as much as younger residents have often played …

Terrorism And Global Domestic Insurgency Nexus: A Case Of Boko Haram Insurgency In Nigeria, Augustine N. Eneanya

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

The paper examines the link between Non-state armed Islamist groups’ terrorism and global domestic insurgency, using Nigeria as a case study. It adopts a combination of deprivation – frustration – aggression theory, social learning and social identity theories as its framework of analysis. The primary focus of inquiry is on secondary data, purposively sampled from books, journals articles, and reports of periodicals, internet and existing statistics. Qualitative research and secondary data analysis method were adopted. Using discourse, descriptive and explanatory techniques, the paper attempts to establish the relationship between Non-state armed Islamist groups’ support and Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. …

Towards Policy Advocacy — Activism, Advocacy And Political Empowerment: An Exploratory Study On Hispanic Environmental Justice Nonprofits, Jo Marie Rios

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Environmental justice groups have incorporated as nonprofit organizations that tend to limit the ability to access the political and policy processes due to the restrictive IRS lobbying codes. Policy advocacy begins to address the roles and tactics that could be utilized by these nonprofits to influence public policy making and includes activities and tactics such as media campaigns, research, educational outreach, activism and political empowerment with the ultimate goal of influencing the initial stages of the policy process. This research uses a multiple streams approach to operationalize the advocacy variables and tactics used by these Hispanic environmental justice nonprofits and …

Extractive Sector Policymaking And Governance In Ghana: A Study Of The Role, Knowledge And Capacity Challenges Of Civil Society Organizations, Emmanuel K. Sakyi, Emmanuel O. Oritsejafor

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

This study describes and examines data on perceptions of role, capacity and knowledge challenges confronting civil society organizations (CSOs) in their attempt to influence extractive industry policymaking and governance in Ghana. Qualitative technique was employed in collecting data for the study. In all, twenty one CSOs were purposively selected and interviewed using issue-driven semi-structured interview technique. The findings of the study reveal that CSOs have good knowledge concerning policymaking and management issues in the extractive sector. It further indicates that Ghanaian CSOs had formed coalitions which gave them a better ‘bargaining power’ to be able to advocate for the ordinary …

Measuring Public Manager Cultural Competence: The Influence Of Public Service Values, Thomas Longoria, Nandhini Rangarajan

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

This study develops a public manager cultural competence instrument. The proposed instrument includes items from existing cultural competence instruments from professional fields (e.g., Nursing, Social Work, and Medicine) and new items developed specifically for measuring public manager cultural competence. We find that self-reported bilingual respondents have higher cross-cultural competence scores on three dimensions (attitudes, skills, knowledge). Minority respondents have higher cross-cultural competence scores on two dimensions (skills, and behavior). Gender and international travel experience do not result in statistically significant differences. Implications for the promotion of cultural competencies in graduate education settings and in public sector organizations are considered and …

Examination Of Organizational Structural Capacity For Change In The Context Of Litigated Reform, Ariel Alvarez, Gautam Nayer

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Increasingly child advocates have become involved with persistent litigation in order to improve the performance of publicly administered state child welfare agencies. However, strategic plans for change are often implemented without sufficient attention given to assessing the level of and strengthening organizational structural capacity to support system-wide change. Using the conceptual foundation of organizational structural capacity by Hall et al. (2003), a two agency case study was conducted examining the structural capacity factors of relationships and networks, infrastructure and process, and planning and development in the context of litigated reform of the Washington State and New Jersey child welfare agencies. …

Editor's Introduction, Andrew I.E. Ewoh

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Towards Policy Advocacy—Activism, Advocacy and Political Empowerment

The Effect Of Community Involvement On Disaster Relief, Ryan M. Brookman

Global Honors Theses

The response to the March 22, 2014 landslide in Oso, Washington offers an opportunity to examine a new approach to disaster relief. This community based participatory research analyzes responses obtained from a focus group composed of Oso residents. While there is much in the literature on responding to the physical community, little has been discussed on responding to the less tangible but equally important social aspect of community. Successfully addressing issues of relief and rebuilding requires both elements of community to be considered. Following the Community-Driven Development model, successfully implemented in the developing world by The World Bank, this paper …

The Port Of Liuzhou: Problems And Prospects, Xifang Wang

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

The poster is a graphic depiction of the problems that rapid economic development created for the Port of Liuzhou. As the industrial economy of Liuzhou City expanded, the port was increasingly unable to keep up with the import and export demands of the Liuzhou foreign trade market. The upgrading of the Port of Liuzhou has become a key factor in supporting the city’s economy and sustaining its growth. This task falls to the Liuzhou Port Administration Office. As is the case everywhere, expansion requires both authorization and the adequate appropriation of funds. Since the port is located in the West …

Liuzhou’S Housing Supply: Affordable Quality Housing For Everyone, Huazhi Zhang

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

Liuzhou is known throughout China, even the world, as a livable industrial city. An adequate supply of quality housing for all citizens is the most essential factor in livability. This is especially true in China where home ownership has been a prerequisite for happiness since ancient times. Because basic housing, as a necessity of life, is now guaranteed by the state, the government must supervise and adjust the housing market. At the same time, experience has shown that adequate housing for different income categories cannot be provided by the government alone. This analysis examines the policies and strategies adopted by …

Antidiscrimination Versus Nondiscrimination: Competing Perspectives On The Voting Rights Act, David Blanding

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

The Voting Rights Act is perhaps the most successful civil rights law ever. Yet while one set of scholars regards the legislation’s success as evidence that it remains necessary and appropriate, another set of scholars regards that success as a sign that the VRA is obsolete and inappropriate. In this article, I argue that disagreement about the VRA stems from two fundamentally different analytical approaches. The antidiscrimination paradigm focuses on how key indicators of political empowerment have progressed since 1965. The nondiscrimination paradigm focuses on how far those indicators are from what would be observed in the absence of racial …

Redistributing Power In Mississippi: The Reversal Of Section 4 Of The Voting Rights Act, Gloria J. Billingsley, Sylvester Murray

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional, essentially defanging preclearance requirements of Section 5 and leaving racial and other previously disenfranchised minorities unprotected. Using social contract theory as the theoretical framework, empirical field study research was used to examine whether the Voting Rights Act has achieved the results in Mississippi that the Supreme Court’s decision to revoke Section 4 has assumed. Data were collected on race-specific voter registration and voting data, measures of vote discrimination, litigations and Mississippi legislative activity regarding voting rights. Findings indicate that the gap between minority and …

Editors’ Introduction: Exploratory Issues On Section 4 Of The U.S. Voting Rights Act Of 1965, Andrew I.E. Ewoh, Sarita Mccoy Gregory

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

No abstract provided.

The Winding Journey To Justice: An Analysis Of The Voting Rights Act On Disenfranchised Populations And Its Impact In The State Of Georgia, Kristie Roberts-Lewis, Lakerri Mack

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

Today, the American landscape is more racially and ethnically diverse, yet minority populations have been and will likely be disenfranchised in the Post-Section 4 era. Minority voter participation Post-VRA has experienced some gains but achieving equality in terms of access and civic participation may be compromised. Hence, section one of this research will provide an introduction and highlight the conceptual framework that guides it. Section II will first provide a historical analysis of the significance of the VRA and its impact on minority voting rights from 1965 to the present. Section III will outline the methodology and theoretical framework that …

Shelby County V. Holder: Nullification, Racial Entitlement, And The Civil Rights Counterrevolution, Albert L. Samuels

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

- 188 - Shelby County v. Holder: Nullification, Racial Entitlement, and the Civil Rights Counterrevolution Albert L. Samuels Southern University The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) which invalidated the “coverage formula” of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 bears an eerie resemblance to the spirit of the Civil Rights Cases (1883). In a tone similar to the one exhibited by the Supreme Court in The Civil Rights Cases, Chief Justice Roberts cited progress achieved in electoral participation and office holding by African Americans as evidence that the special protections that the Voting …

An Intersectional Approach To Criminological Theory: Incorporating The Intersectionality Of Race And Gender Into Agnew's General Strain Theory, Wyatt Brown

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

Mainstream criminological theories often fail to incorporate demographic characteristics (which are robust predictors of criminal behavior). Also, many scholars suggest that theories of criminality need to move beyond sex or race or class etc. and utilize these dynamic characteristics in tandem. This theoretical perspective is often referred to as intersectionality. There is some criminological literature on the individual effects of these demographic characteristics as they represent social status as such they interact to effect experience, agency, and power. This analysis discusses how studying the intersectionality of gender and race may change explanations of criminal behavior. Specifically, how knowledge of gender …

Removing The Rust: Comparative Post-Industrial Revitalization In Buffalo, Cleveland, And Pittsburgh, Scott Nicholas Duryea

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to understand the differences in post-industrial redevelopment among the cities of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. Part of the so-called "rust belt," these three cities experienced industrial decline from the 1960s through the 1980s, largely as a result of the economic globalization of heavy industry. Intensive manufacturing and output had come to a screeching halt, unemployment skyrocketed, outmigration ensued, and each metropolitan area faced formidable challenges to convert to service-oriented industries. Over the past twenty years, these cities, and the regions that encompass them, have begun to redevelop, although unevenly. At a glance, the Pittsburgh region appears to …

Redistributing Power In Mississippi: The Reversal Of Section 4 Of The Voting Rights Act, Gloria J. Billingsley, Sylvester Murray

Sylvester Murray

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional, essentially defanging preclearance requirements of Section 5 and leaving racial and other previously disenfranchised minorities unprotected. Using social contract theory as the theoretical framework, empirical field study research was used to examine whether the Voting Rights Act has achieved the results in Mississippi that the Supreme Court’s decision to revoke Section 4 has assumed. Data were collected on race-specific voter registration and voting data, measures of vote discrimination, litigations and Mississippi legislative activity regarding voting rights. Findings indicate that the gap between minority and …

Increasing Environmental Performance In A Context Of Low Governmental Enforcement: Evidence From China, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

Volunteer Management Practices During Challenging Economic Times, Hillary Knepper, Maria J. D'Agostino, Helisse Levine

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Nonprofit organizations rely upon volunteers to facilitate their missions of meeting critical community needs. Since 2006, on average, 61.9 million Americans or 26.4 percent of the adult population volunteered every year through organizations delivering 8.1 billion hours of service worth approximately $162 billion to America’s communities (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012; Corporation for National and Community Service 2010). Most recent data released by The Bureau of Labor in 2013 further suggest between September 2011 and September 2012 approximately 64.5 million people volunteered via an organization at least once. In light of high unemployment, donor fatigue, and slow economic growth, it …