Digital Commons Network^™

The Un-Exceptional Bomb: Settler Nuclearism, Feminism, And Atomic Tourism In New Mexico, Eileen Clare Shaughnessy

American Studies ETDs

New Mexico's atomic tourism acts to render the atomic bomb simultaneously so exceptional that it is viewed as the pinnacle of Western intelligence, and yet also so un-exceptional that it is banal, as typified by kitschy atomic souvenirs. A primary way in which New Mexico's atomic tourist sites accomplish this paradoxical narrative is through gendered and racialized discourses in exhibits, gift shops, and on-site narratives. The racialized trope of the "vanishing Native" functions in these spaces to shore up the colonialist progress narrative in which white Western science and Manifest Destiny inevitably result in the creation of the "exceptional" bomb …

Testimony Before The Committee On Energy And Commerce, Subcommittee On Environment And Economics, U.S. House Of Representatives, Hearing On Constitutional Considerations: States Vs. Federal Environmental Policy Implementation July 11, 2014, Rena I. Steinzor

Congressional Testimony

No abstract provided.

"Wake Up The Knowledge That You Have": An Assessment Of Community Food Security In Fellsmere, Florida, Susan Marie Tyler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the global industrial agricultural system many people lack access to high-quality nutritious foods and food production techniques are often inefficient and reliant on harsh chemical inputs. While numerous strategies exist to address the disparities present in the global food system, increasingly researchers and practitioners are looking to local food systems for solutions to strengthen community food security (CFS). CFS emphasizes small-scale production strategies such as farmer's markets, community gardens, and consumer supported agriculture. As these efforts evolve, research is needed to understand how these strategies affect communities. To explore a local CFS initiative, qualitative data were collected from community …

Assessing The Environmental Justice Implications Of Flood Hazards In Miami, Florida, Marilyn Christina Montgomery

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While environmental justice (EJ) research in the U.S. has traditionally focused on inequities in the distribution of technological hazards, the disproportionate impacts of Hurricane Katrina on racial minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged households have prompted researchers to investigate the EJ implications of natural hazards such as flooding. Recent EJ research has also emphasized the need to examine social inequities in access to environmental amenities. Unlike technological hazards such as air pollution and toxic waste sites, areas exposed to natural hazards such as hurricanes and floods have indivisible amenities associated with them. Coastal property owners are exposed to flood hazards, but also …

Democratizing Public Health: Citizen Empowerment Through The Biothriller Genre, Robert A. Deleo

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Preparedness—the process of readying for emerging threats—is central to contemporary public health, which strives to anticipate potential problems instead of reacting to medical disasters. However, this concept resonates little outside of elite policymaker circles. Instead, many Americans assume policymaking is an inherently reactive process that rewards politicians for “fixing” existing problems. For example, while the prospect of a pandemic influenza outbreak represents one of American’s most pressing concerns, surveys report pervasive public ignorance about many aspects of preparedness and public health, including disease transmission, prevention practices, and the relationship between zoological and human diseases. For many Americans, it seems, exposure …

A Tale Of Two Cities: The Need For Greater Federal Involvement To Ensure Proper Notification, Medical Monitoring And Treatment, And Successful Relocation For Tallevast, Florida And Other Environmental Justice Communities, Sabrina R. Collins

Student Works

This article explores the environmental justice battles being waged in two Florida communities. The first is in Pensacola at the site of the infamous “Mount Dioxin” and the second is in Tallevast. The article further examines the treatment of the two communities by the local, state and federal governments. Further insight is also provided regarding the affected communities. The article offers suggestions for fair and effective treatment of environmental justice communities.

The New Racial Justice: Moving Beyond The Equal Protection Clause To Achieve Equal Protection, Emily Chiang

Florida State University Law Review

Since handing down Washington v. Davis and Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development, the United States Supreme Court has significantly curtailed the ability of plaintiffs to bring disparate impact claims under the Equal Protection Clause. Many academics continue to talk about the standards governing intent and disparate impact. Some recent scholarship recognizes that reformers on the ground have shifted away from equality-based claims altogether. This Article contends that civil rights advocates replaced the old equal protection framework some time ago and that they did so deliberately and with great success. It expands upon and refines the strategy shift some …

Foreword, Laura Zippel

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

This issue is dedicated to an unusual subject and scope for The Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy. Instead of our customary focus on the Pacific Northwest, this book considers issues of international environmental justice. The articles published herein arose out of a symposium sponsored by the Journal at the University of Washington, titled Climate-Migration: Food Security, Land Tenure and Gender. The purpose of the symposium was to encourage the interdisciplinary discourse on the human and environmental impacts of climate change worldwide, specifically focusing on disproportionately affected groups. The book features unique articles from authors personally qualified to …

Climate Justice Advocacy, Mary Finley-Brook

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

Creating international policy to combat climate change is one of the biggest public diplomacy challenges of our time. With slow progress in “state-led” forums such as the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), advocacy coalitions of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are pressuring decision-makers and working to build global awareness. The power of NGOs is soft since state actors set emissions targets; nonetheless, climate justice organizations persistently broadcast several important messages, including: 1) industrialized nations along with private sector polluters have an obligation to remedy ecological debt; 2) low-income and marginalized populations …

The Corporation, New Governance, And The Power Of The Publicization Narrative, Fenner Stewart

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The Corporation, New Governance, and the Power of the Publicization Narrative" takes a critical look at the idea of publicization and how it plays out within new governance. Publicization is a vague, but powerful, notion that the delegation of public power to for-profit agents-what John Braithwaite calls the 'privatization of the public" - will lead to such agents exercising this power as idealized public servants-what Braithwaite calls the "publicization of the private." This article argues that publicization of the private is a dangerous metaphor, which offers a romanticized picture of functionally efficient, decentered actors acting with the integrity of public …

Organic Is More Of An American Term--We Are Traditional Farmers': Discourses Of Place-Based Organic Farming, Community, Heritage, And Sustainability, Jeffrey Hoffmann

Communication ETDs

The following study looks at how traditional, organic, cooperative farmers who are starting a new farming cooperative in the Albuquerque South Valley in New Mexico communicate about their farming as a set of (sustainable) cultural practices. The study draws on environmental communication theories, the theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning, and Actor Network Theory to construct a communication-based framework through which to view farmers stories about sustainability and visions for the future of their farming cooperative. This framework is productive, showing how some Nuevo Mexicano farmers (and others) orient toward farming, sustenance, and human-nature relationships through community, family, heritage, …

Resilient And Regenerative Design In New Orleans: The Case Of The Make It Right Project, Amy Oliver, Isabelle Thomas, Michelle M. Thompson

Planning and Urban Studies Faculty Publications

According to Swiss Re, there are currently approximately 180 urban disasters globally per year. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the vulnerability of cities and the ability of humans to exacerbate the magnitude and intensity of man-made and/or natural hazards. The changes produced after a disaster can imply multiple adverse impacts including health risks, disruption to energy and water supply, and ecological imbalances. Post-disaster reconstruction, in this context, provides not only the necessity for a community to return to its pre-disaster state, but as Burby states, a “window of opportunity” to enhance resilience, and, in essence, to ‘regenerate’. These ‘windows of opportunity’ allow …

Justice, Community And Leadership, Saint Mary's College Of California

Undergraduate Academic Catalog

No abstract provided.

Politics, Saint Mary's College Of California

Undergraduate Academic Catalog

No abstract provided.

Accessibility-Based Transportation Planning: Literature And Applications For Shrinking Cities, Joanna Ganning

TREC Final Reports

For 15 years, scholars have claimed that accessibility-based transportation planning was at the brink of becoming a new paradigm, and yet this hope remains unrealized. Its implementation may lag due to vague definitions when compared to mobility, or because those who would benefit from accessibility-based planning lack political power to rally its support. Possibly, the lag in implementation reflects the missing linkages between theory and application for many contexts. This literature review synthesizes knowledge regarding the applications for accessibility-based transportation planning for shrinking cities along the themes of environmental, social, and economic sustainability. While residents in shrinking cities might especially …

Assessing Transit Fare Equity In Utah Using A Geographic Information System, Steven Farber, Keith Batholomew, Xiao Li, Antonio Paez, Khandker M. Nurul Habib

TREC Final Reports

The goal of this study is to develop and apply a new method for assessing social equity impacts of distance-based public transit fares. Shifting to a distance-based fare structure can disproportionately favor or penalize different subgroups of a population based on variations in settlement patterns, travel needs, and most importantly, transit use. According to federal law, such disparities must be evaluated by the transit agency, but the area-based techniques identified by the Federal Transit Authority for assessing discrimination fail to account for disparities in distances travelled by transit users. This means that transit agencies currently lack guidelines for assessing the …

What Can Urbanism Be? Problematizing The Design Of Cities, Aseem Inam

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In this paper, I highlight a number of different ways of defining and describing the field conventionally known as urban design, which I problematize by broadening, deepening, and calling urbanism and which I re-define as city-design-and-building processes and their spatial products. These ways include morphological definitions, as a default focus, as the keeper of the public realm, through lists of categories, as a map of bodies of knowledge, as a field of research, as different modes of practice, via models for understanding and making cities, and practical “how-to” approaches such as best practices. I describe and critique each of these …

Cultivating Common Ground? A Case Study Of A Community Garden Organization In Northeast Portland, Oregon, Bryan James Zinschlag

Dissertations and Theses

When it comes to the topic of environmental sustainability, most of us will readily agree that we face a litany of local and global environmental threats in the twenty-first century. As such, we would largely agree that the need to address climate change and other issues is urgent. Where this agreement tends to end, however, is on the question of whether this urgency is so great that we need not address issues of inequality and environmental justice when organizing sustainability efforts. Some are convinced that, because sustainability efforts are "saving the world for everyone", so to speak, issues of environmental …

Participation, Information, Values, And Community Interests Within Health Impact Assessments, Nicole Iroz-Elardo

Dissertations and Theses

Health impact assessment (HIA) has emerged in the U.S. as one promising process to increase social and environmental justice through addressing health equity issues within planning. HIA practice is guided by values such as democracy and equity and grounded in broad social determinants of health. The most readily applied definition of democracy is problematic because it implies an element of direct, participatory engagement with the public. This is at odds with HIA practice that largely relies on stakeholder engagement strategies.

This dissertation critically examines the engagement strategies of three transportation planning HIA cases to more fully understand how the HIA …

Wild Nyc: Building Biodiversity In Fresh Kills And City Parks, Melissa Zavala

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an anthropological field study of the work of urban ecological maintenance being conducted in New York City through the analysis of the reclamation and biotic restoration of the Fresh Kills landfill, located in the borough of Staten Island. This landfill was once the largest urban dump in the United States. Its 2,200 acres of trash buried in four mounds have polluted an area historically noted for its natural beauty as a collection of marshes and woodlands bordering the Kill Van Kull, a tidal strait that flows into the New York Harbor. The current plan for park and …

Examining The Priorities Of The Canadian Chairmanship Of The Arctic Council: Current Obstacles In International Law, Policy, And Governance, Emma Barry-Pheby

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Resources, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section lists teaching resources of all types for those who work in outdoor education at the time of publication. Some highlighted items include:

Eco-Warriors: Updated Edition

Rise of the Eco-Warriors: Film Review

Multimodal Transportation Best Practices And Model Element, Kristine M. Williams, Karen E. Seggerman

Transportation Planning, Policy, and Processes (TP3) Final Reports

This report provides guidance in developing a multimodal transportation element of a local government comprehensive plan. Two model elements were developed to address differences in statutory requirements for communities of different sizes and planning context. The first model element includes guidance for large local governments and those within the boundary of a metropolitan planning organization (MPO). The second includes guidance for smaller or more rural communities outside of MPO boundaries. Each model element encourages a range of best practices in multimodal transportation planning as identified through a review of the literature, agency plans, and related documents. The guidance is designed …

Loose Connections, Strong Networks: Self-Enrollment And The Rhetoric Of 350.Org, Daisy Celine Lucile Brightman

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Multimodal Transportation Best Practices And Model Element, Cutr

Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Energy Trade As A Special Sector In The Wto: Unique Features, Unprecedented Challenges And Unresolved Issues, Rafael Leal-Arcas, Ehab S. Abu-Gosh

Indian Journal of International Economic Law

WTO law governs and regulates trade relationships among WTO members. Within the scope of the WTO, energy trade is one of the most significant trade sectors, as it constitutes the largest primary commodity of global trade in terms of volume and value. For decades, the energy trade sector has been treated as a special case because of the unique features attached to the energy sector in general and energy trade in particular. This special treatment should continue due to a combination of crucial factors: firstly, the uniqueness and importance of energy; secondly, the unprecedented challenges and concerns that confront global …

Allen Boulevard Corridor Plan, Anna Wendt, Samantha Petty, Jp Mcneil, Taren Evans, August Benzow, Art Graves

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Allen Boulevard corridor, home to diverse populations and a vibrant commercial district, is a community in transition and a community with potential. While Allen Boulevard possesses unique assets in its present state, it has seen little in the way of localized planning or City programs tailored to the area’s needs. As such, the City of Beaverton partnered with the Portland State University Master of Urban and Regional Planning program to produce a detailed corridor study and planning guide for the area. From that partnership, six graduate students formed a consulting group, InSite Planning, to produce this plan.

This project …

In Harm's Way: How Philadelphia's Urban Renewal Practices Steered Marginal People To Marginal Land, Katera Ya'shea Moore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dumping of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) on marginal communities has been well documented, however environmental justice scholars have rarely written about how marginal groups have come to occupy their landscapes, particularly when natural hazards lie beneath.

This dissertation research focuses on a broad definition of the environment that includes the built, social, and physical. I am interested in extending Logan and Molotch's Growth Machine theory to consider how the political and economic elite guided the urban renewal process to place particular communities on particular landscapes, despite the presence of a flooding hazard. To understand this issue, I examined …

Gresham Opportunity Framework Plan, Belinda Judelman, Carlos Gonzalez, Hayley Pickus, Lori Parks, Mike Simpson, Pamela N. Phan

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Map Gresham project was a five-month long planning process led by Camassia Community Planning (CCP) to create “opportunity maps” and an Opportunity Framework Plan for the City of Gresham, OR. Opportunity mapping is a relatively new planning method for analyzing the spatial distribution of indicators linked to opportunity and determining which populations have access to these factors.

The overarching objective of the Framework Plan is to improve equitable access to opportunities for Gresham’s neighborhoods and diverse populations. We created the plan by putting community at the center and collaborating with local organizations, technical advisors, and City staff. It includes …

Hydrofracking And Enviromental Justice: A Proposal To Lower The Threshold For Evidence Of Discriminatory Impact In Title Vi Complaints, Mfon Etukeren

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.