Digital Commons Network^™

The Painted City: Public Art, Placemaking, And Communities In The Twin Cities, Lora Marie P. Hlavsa

Geography Honors Projects

Over the last century, mural painting has become an increasingly prominent fixture within the urban landscape. Decorating the walls of urban streets throughout American cities, mural paintings can be considered powerful tools within urban communities because of their ability to create place through inspiring meaningful relationships between populations and space, represent marginalized populations and provide a means for expression for communities. Using the case studies of Northeast Minneapolis, the West Side of Saint Paul, and Lake Street, this paper examines the purpose of mural artwork within urban communities, focusing on spatial and contextual analysis to determine the impact of this …

Acting To Address The Ocean-Related Impacts Of Climate Change On Human And National Security, With Recommendations For Priority Actions Drawn From The Discussions Of The Global Conference On Oceans, Climate And Security At The University Of Massachusetts Boston, Robbin Peach, Felix Dodds, Michael Strauss, Collaborative Institute For Oceans, Climate And Security, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Collaborative Institute for Oceans, Climate and Security Publications

In the course of the past calendar year the United States has been struck by a series of droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, wildfires, and floods whose size and path of resulting damage defy previously established patterns. The U.S. thus joins nations on every continent that have increasingly experienced extreme and extremely damaging weather events over the past two decades.

At the same time, the world’s oceans have been exhibiting a less-visible but equally dangerous sequence of temperature rise, acidification increase, fish kills, coastal erosion, salinity shifts, algae blooms, and steady decreases in commercially available fish and shellfish species.

Those impacts …

Local Food And Power Dynamics In Southeast Grand Rapids, Michigan, Christina Mello

Anthropology ETDs

Various types of food security' projects essentially deliver little in the way of real opportunities for local food security among Southeast residents in Grand Rapids, MI. Nonetheless, developers justifying their gentrifying efforts are increasingly funded through large grants and public dollars by actually purporting themselves to seek solutions to reducing food insecurity in these Southeast neighborhoods. 'Community,' 'local,' 'sustainability,' and 'social justice' are common terms marketed as values to promote urban redevelopment, food security initiatives, and to sell local food. Food growers and activists challenge how these terms are defined and used for profiteering. Thus, there are competing value systems …

Living Cities: The Integration Initiative In Cleveland, Ohio- Greater University Circle Community Wealth Building Initiative: A Report Of System Changes And Their Outcome Measures Year 2, Ziona Austrian, Kathryn Hexter, Serineh Baboomian, Candi Clouse

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Achieving Justice Through Public Participation: Measuring The Effectiveness Of New York's Enhanced Public Participation Plan For Environmental Justice Communities, Alma L. Lowry

Social Science - Dissertations

Public participation is at the heart of democracy and of the environmental justice movement. Most state-level environmental justice policies and regulations focus on improving public participation within administrative processes to ensure that communities have a voice in the environmental decisions that affect them. New York has adopted an environmental justice policy that follows this model and requires enhanced notice, accessible comment opportunities, and improved access to technical information for new major environmental permits issued to facilities proposed in low-income or minority communities. However, New York's policy, like other state participation-focused environmental justice policies, has yet to be evaluated.

To address …

A New Commons: Considering Community-Based Co-Management For Sustainable Fisheries, Charlotte L. Dohrn

Pomona Senior Theses

Commercial fisheries on the West Coast are traditionally managed under large-scale management and conservation plans implemented by state and federal agencies. This scale of management can present obstacles for fishing communities. This thesis examines emerging cases of attempts to define and implement sustainable management of commercial fisheries under a community-based co-management model. In Port Orford, Sitka, San Diego and Santa Barbara, preliminary community-based co-management models are enabling fishing communities to pursue social sustainability through preserving access, participating in local science, and direct marketing for fish products. These communities are actively reshaping traditional models of conceptualizing and managing common-pool resources like …

The Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative: A Community-Based Approach To Improving Educational Opportunity & Achievement, Sonya D. Horsford, Carrie Sampson

Lincy Institute Reports and Briefs

Since the 1980s, the standards and accountability movement in U.S. education has focused heavily on reform at the classroom and school level, with insufficient regard for how social, political, and community contexts impact student learning and achievement (Berliner, 2006; Horsford, 2010; Noguera, 2003; Oakes, 1989; Wells et al., 2004). This emphasis on standardization and high-stakes testing has stigmatized, and in many instances, penalized low-income and historically underserved students and communities through the use of student subgroup and school designations. It also largely has ignored the research literature documenting the significant impact poverty, neighborhood context, and related out-of-school factors such as …

Claiming Citizenship: Las Vegas' Conventional Women's Organizations Establishing Citizenship Through Civic Engagement, Cynthia Cicero

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Many historians of American women portray women's organized civic engagement and work to attain social, economic, and legal equality as feminism. American feminism has been expanded and applied in scholarship. The American feminists of the 1960s wanted to alter the male power structure and redefine conventional notions of womanhood. However, many middle-class women who participated in community and civic organizations valued their roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers, expressing their citizenship and community work as an extension of these roles. Their motivation in pursuing equality was to gain full citizenship status.

In this thesis, I argue that viewing women's civic …

Evaluating Social Sustainability In Plans For Inter-Cultural Cities, Diane Faye Gapas

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, there is an increasing interest and awareness on sustainability and sustainable development. Sustainability is comprised of the three E’s: environment, economy and equity. Of these three, the equity or the social sustainability component is often overlooked. As cities become more global and demographically diverse due to immigration, diversity’s impact to the city should be addressed through policies and plans. The content analysis and evaluation of city plans, policies and urban design examines their response to accommodating and including inter-cultural diversity using identified indicators of social sustainability and equity. This study finds that the length of time a city has …

Perceptions Of The Underrepresentation Of Women In Agriculture And Motives For Movement Into The Industry, Jennifer Long

Honors Projects

In the U.S., agriculture has historically been a male-dominated industry. Women have been underrepresented in agriculture even as they have played important roles on and off the farm. In the last 25 years, however, women have been moving into agriculture and increasing their visibility in positions on and off the farm even in light of structural changes to agriculture and environmental concerns. Learning motives for moves into the industry can help supply information about the changing roles of women in agriculture and help determine whether agricultural trends follow other occupational trends. Giving a voice to women that have been underrepresented …

Public Participation In Transportation Planning: How Does The Level Of Engagement And Deliberation Affect Transportation Decisions In Virginia's Mpos?, Unwanna Dabney

Theses and Dissertations

Federal, state and local laws entitle the public to have an active role in the transportation decision making process. However, it remains difficult to engage the public in the long range planning process. The laws requiring public involvement are intentionally vague and don’t prescribe specific approaches, so there is little consistency in public participation approaches and many state, regional, and local transportation agencies choose to do only what is necessary to meet minimum requirements (PBS&J, 2009). The purpose of this study is to examine public participation in transportation planning with specific focus on how the characteristics of public participation, the …

Home Rule And Environmentalism: The Adoption Of Green Initiatives In U.S. Municipalities, Luke Eastin

2013 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

In recent years there has been a movement in academia from studying environmental policy on the national level to a much narrower examination of local municipalities and their respective green initiatives. The implications of this research reach well beyond the borders of academics and hit squarely municipalities and their corresponding local policy makers. We, as political scientists, must ask what particular characteristics of municipalities play the most significant role in green initiative adoption. Recent urban scholarship has suggested several variables that influence the adoption of environmental policies, but one specific variable, municipality home rule status, has had little to no …

2012 New Hampshire Civic Health Index, Bruce L. Mallory, Quixada Moore-Vissing

Carsey Publications

The 2012 New Hampshire Civic Health Index follows earlier studies, including the New Hampshire Civic Index compiled by the NH Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in 2006 and the 2009 Civic Health Index published by the Carsey Institute in collaboration with the National Conference on Citizenship and Knowledge Networks. This report begins with key findings, a general description of the Granite State, followed by detailed findings from the U.S. Census Current Population Survey and other surveys that illustrate patterns of volunteering and giving, voting and voter registration, civic engagement (both informal and formal), and confidence in public institutions …

Age And Lifecycle Patterns Driving U.S. Migration Shifts, Kenneth M. Johnson, Richelle Winkler, Luke T. Rogers

Carsey Publications

Migration—people moving between locations—is now driving much of the demographic change occurring in the United States. In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson, Richelle Winkler, and Luke Rogers share new research on age-related migration patterns to provide a fuller understanding of the complex patterns of demographic change in the United States. Examining four migration age groups, including emerging adults, young adults, family age, and older adults, their analysis of trends over time shows evidence that certain age groups migrate in similar ways. For example, young adult migrants are flowing to large metropolitan areas, while family age migrants are leaving large urban …

Center For Rebuilding Sustainable Communities After Disasters: Partnerships In Teaching And Research, Adenrele Awotona, Center For Rebuilding Sustainable Communities After Disasters, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

CRSCAD assists local, national, and international agencies as well as the victims of disasters to develop practical, sustainable, and long-term solutions to the social, economic, and environmental consequences of disasters.

We also host international conferences and workshops at UMass Boston to provide a space for partners to network, exchange ideas, and share best practices.

Pear Trees On Pear Avenue, Christa Ebert

Capstone and Honors Projects

Residents of the EcoVillage, an area of Cleveland, OH’s Detroit Shoreway neighborhood, requested fragrant fruit trees to be planted in their neighborhood. Pear Avenue, a street within the EcoVillage, was selected as a target area and mapped to determine the health of the street tree canopy and assess if fruit trees can be planted on tree lawns. Through research, other examples of public fruit were retrieved and public participation practices were analyzed.

21st Century Crofting: Strengths And Opportunities For Community Development, Bryan J. Hains, Ronald Hustedde, Kristina G. Ricketts

Community & Leadership Development Faculty Publications

Scotland has one of the most uneven land ownership patterns in the world. In a country of 5.2 million people, about 969 people control 60% of the land. Over 20% of privately owned land in Scotland is held in some form of offshore or beneficial ownership (Committee on the Inquiry of Crofting, 2008). This land ownership pattern has a unique expression in the northern and western parts of the Scottish Highlands and Islands with a 300-year-old system of tenant farmers known as crofters. Unlike other tenant farmers across the world, crofters have gained legal rights to stay on the land …

Cultivating Change: Women Transforming Holland’S Food System, Meg Vandeusen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Women are influential in the production and reproduction of food systems. Historically, domesticity positioned women as gatekeepers to their family’s food consumption; these food practices have in turn informed cultural codes that construct personal identity. Feminist scholars have investigated how cooking and feeding practices affect a woman’s perception of self and interaction with society. Both practices are viewed as a simultaneous burden and pleasure, as an act of victimization and empowerment. These binaries must be deconstructed in order to create change within the food system. The impact of women taking control of the full cycle – gaining knowledge of where …

Department Of Economics Newsletter, V18, Spring 2013, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Economics.

Department of Economics Newsletter

Inside This Issue:
--Scholarship News
--Alumni News
--Alumni Support
--Alumni Notes
--Alumni-in-Residence: Reflections from Jeff Scudder, ‘03
--Alumni Commentaries
--UNI Economics Department: Connections
--Connect With Us!
--Economics Club
--Russia 2012
--Student Writing
--Undergraduate Research Program
--Lawrence M. Jepson International Economics Essay Contest
--Student Activities
--Enhancing the Student Experience
--Commentaries from Faculty
--Balanced Budgets
--Climate Change
--Student Paper: The Effect of Climate Change on the Insurance Industry
--Faculty Notes
--From Our Emeritus Faculty
--Hawaiian Thursday

Co-Management And The Fight For Rural Water Justice: Learning From Costa Rican Asadas, Kristin B. Dobbin

Pitzer Senior Theses

Rural communities have, for much of history, been left with inadequate or no water service. This is because the traditional state/private dichotomy of water provision is inadequate for addressing the unique needs of small, isolated communities. Drawing from the Common-Pool Resource literature, co-management arose in recent decades as a solution to address this pandemic of rural water exclusion. In Costa Rica, co-management takes the form of community water associations known as ASADAS. This thesis explores the successes and challenges of ASADAS through the use of three case study communities. Using interviews, surveys, water sampling and national legislation in addition to …

Currents Of Change: An Urban And Environmental History Of The Anacostia River And Near Southeast Waterfront In Washington, D.C., Emily C. Haynes

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes how social and environmental inequalities have interacted throughout Washington, D.C.’s urban and environmental history to shape the Anacostia River and its Near Southeast waterfront into urbanized and industrialized landscapes. Drawing on the principles of environmental justice, urban political ecology, and environmental history, I examine the construction of urban rivers and waterfront space over time. I link the ecological and social decline of the Anacostia River and Near Southeast neighborhood to a broader national pattern of environmental degradation and social inequality along urban rivers that resulted from urban industrialization and federal water management. Finally, I discuss the recent …

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 …

There’S No Place Like Home? Telecommuting As A Viable Commuting Alternative For San Jose Government And Companies To Reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled And Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Jennifer Marie Piozet

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

Historic Waterfront Restoration, Sustainability, And Urban Form: A "Greener" Master Plan For Pier 70 At The San Francisco Waterfront, Sonia Melani Miller

Master's Projects

This study explores the use of green areas as a method for integrating urban space and its applicability to waterfront reclamation, a specialized discipline focusing on the rehabilitation of industrial areas of ports. It also explores the philosophy of resource conservation and the integrative design solutions increasingly employed worldwide in projects of waterfront reclamation.

Maximizing Community Action: An Internship With Be The Change, Rachel Rosenbaum

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

From 3 April 2013 to 28 April 2013, I interned with the Brisbane branch of Be The Change, an organization that promotes ecological, social and spiritual sustainability through their empowering symposiums, in Australia. I focused on creating a tool to help symposium participants take community action after the event. My goal was to create a resource for Be The Change to use across Australia to further its impact, attend a symposium and implement sustainable actions in my everyday life.

In the 140 total hours of work I completed, I helped plan a symposium, participated in workshops and events within the …

Going Green And Staying Sustainable: Community Based Tree-Planting Projects In Mongolia, Rachel Klassen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Community based tree planting projects are abundant in Mongolia and have become a popular form of social movement towards promoting a healthy environment. With so many different varieties of tree planting projects in Mongolia, it is necessary to evaluate how well the different forms of Community-based tree planting projects function. The first research question created to access said Community projects is, are Community based tree planting projects environmentally sustainable? And the second, are Community-based tree planting projects in Mongolia sustainable from an organizational standpoint? To answer these questions interviews, surveys and case studies were given in the three …

Loving Your Neighbor: A Guide To Developing And Sustaining Community Service Projects, Rickey Houston

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A current ministry concern is mobilizing and engaging the congregation in service projects throughout the immediate and surrounding communities to spread the love of Christ and build the kingdom of God. The purpose of this project is to examine and shed light on an approach or approaches to effectively transform service beyond the walls of the congregation to intentional, appropriate, and relevant service within the community. This subject matter has the potential of transforming congregations from a predominant notion of interaction with self to interaction with organizations and individuals who are part of the church's mission field. In addition, there …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 037, Number 29, March 25, 2013, Grand Valley State University

2012-2013, Volume 37

Grand Valley Forum is Grand Valley State's faculty and staff newsletter, published from 1976 to the present.

Lanthorn, Vol. 47, No. 48, February 28, 2013, Grand Valley State University

Volume 47, July 2, 2012 - June 3, 2013

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

An Analytical Study Of Some Ngos’/Npos’ Contributions By Promoting Library Activities At Disadvantageous Areas In Vietnam To Create Potential And Lifelong Learners., Zakir Hossain

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The two key concepts of this paper are the significance of Library and NGO/NPO. The missions of both libraries and NGOs/NPOs increasingly intersect each other. These organizations collaborate to provide essential services that revolve around the creation, dissemination, and storage of information. Besides hundreds of national NGOs/NPOs, 177 (Wikipedia) international non-governmental and non-profit organizations are working for a humanitarian cause, development of education, improvement of the intellectual standard of the people and children in the disadvantageous areas in Vietnam. They attempt to get out of poverty, diseases and illiteracy marking the contribution to the establishment of a united Vietnam with …