Digital Commons Network^™

Describe The City You Live In, Jingfei Hu

Masters Theses

I dive into the fields: frequency (sound), wavelengths (light), shapes (conversation): they build connections. What is action without reflection? Now I’m a city drifter. Through art making and dialogue I try to drop the anchor into the futuristic turbulent ocean (of society, speed, and the status quo ). Did I drop it? Not sure. I grew up in the most fast- paced city in China, Shenzhen. I feel pressured there. Do I feel that pressure here? of a precarious, unpredictable future? These questions push me out of the turbulent ocean to grab the present.

There are three stages of time: …

Resitance Art And Urban Space: A Strategic Comparison Of Artistic Urban Space Usage In Buenos Aires And San Francisco, Adeline Rose Schmitz

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the early Twentieth century the Mexican Muralism movement reached two important port cities: San Francisco and Buenos Aires. The artists in these cities quickly adopted the usage of public art as means to insert political dialogue into the everyday life of their citizens. Throughout the years the resistance art in these cities has evolved in parallel, shaped by their dynamic histories of social and political change. This paper critically compares the evolutions of resistance art in Buenos Aires and San Francisco over the past twenty years. It does so by analyzing the public art archives of local collectives in …

Property Pillagers: Effects Of Dirty Urbanism, Chase Wilson, Kayli Clark

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

This podcast dives into American urbanism and its associated development targeting certain minority communities; the ill intentions to disrupt specific neighborhoods led us to refer to the practice as “dirty urbanism”. The pair of I-40 and Jefferson Street in north Nashville, alongside similarly treated areas across the United States, exemplify dirty urbanism. Exercising their raw power and ability to cover up to 90% of the costs, the federal government incentivizes the local governments to construct the highway system: a highway system used as a racially motivated tool to sever black-built urban fabrics. With the highways, vehicular space overrides …

The Rent Is Too Damn High:The Spatial And Longitudinal Dimensions Of Housing Affordability, Kasey Zapatka

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As the housing affordability crisis intensifies, I content that the spatial and longitudinal aspects of housing affordability are important dimensions of affordability. While much has been written about the sources and drivers of this new housing crisis, I investigate the impact of space, gentrification, and the life course on affordability patterns. I specifically address questions about the (1) role of space in shaping affordability patterns, the (2) impact of gentrification on neighborhood and household affordability, and (3) the trajectory of affordability over the life course. Broadly, I find that neighborhoods that are gentrifying in 2013 see increased affordability in 2019, …

The Creation Of The Home: A Sociological And Literary Analysis Of Dominicanidad In Public Spaces Of Washington Heights And Within Dominican Literature, Mádoris Isabel Santana Figuereo

Senior Projects Spring 2023

“The Creation of the Home” is a study that puts in conversation theories within sociology of immigration, culture, nationality, urban studies, gentrification, and literature. These realms of study allow us to capture the trajectories of meaning making by Dominican Immigrants in New York City who lived in the homeland for the majority of their childhood. It shows that even when the physical home is endangered by larger structural forces such as economic precarity, gentrification, and displacement, Dominican immigrants continue to center their identity and cultural markers through symbolic recreations of the home. Dominican literature of the Diaspora shows us that …

Novo: New Wave On A Broken Foundation, Sam Lazarus Shear

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Toward A Reconceptualization Of Gentrification: Assessing Neighborhood Variation By Socioeconomic And Economic Processes, Annette M. Mackay

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The core conceptualization of gentrification is social class ascension. Researchers and the public have often disagreed about how, when, where, and why gentrification occurs. When there is agreement, researchers often add specifications, such as displacement, that further confuse the concept. Reasons for the confusion include non-integrating theoretical dimensions, methods that assume independent effects, and the context of place. The objective of this study is to conceptualize gentrification in a case study city using two key dimensions, socioeconomic and economic processes, in a spatial context. Using principal component analysis to identify the latent constructs that account for change in Pittsburgh, PA, …