Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Spectral Urbanism: Modern Ghost Cities, Rare Earths, And Political Time At The Limits Of Materialism, Linsey Ly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Contemporary urbanization in China is marked by speed, repetition, and similitude, key features of what I call spectral urbanism that also attends to the presence or absence, to recursivity and deferral. The mass development of empty, outmoded, and seemingly abandoned modern ghost cities in China’s borderlands come to be used as evidence of an interruption or lack in the veneer of Chinese modernity. The contours and quality of stalled development are measured, read in objects of the built environment that have yet to fulfill their anticipated function: vacant buildings, quiet roads that lead no one to empty parks, homes which …

Inevitable Associations: Art, Institution, And Cultural Intersection In Los Angeles, 1973–1988, Liz Hirsch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Inevitable Associations: Art, Institution, and Cultural Intersection in Los Angeles, 1973-1988 considers alternative institutions and cultural intersections in bicentennial-era Los Angeles. I look at the spatial, social, and artistic convergence of Los Angeles artists rarely seen as allied, through close examination of alternative cultural infrastructure that came out of a federal jobs program called the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) and cohered around a building located at 240 South Broadway in downtown. I use the model of association—alliance through shared purpose—to demonstrate moments of convergence and interconnection. Through an analysis of the formation of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), …

Environmental Cues And The Sociospatial Imaginary: An Examination Of Spatial Perception And Meaning-Making In A Gentrifying Neighborhood, Todd Levon Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What could be more ordinary or pedestrian than two people walking down an urban street and talking about what we see and what we make of it? Yet this simple, quotidian act of walking a street—seeing, perceiving and experiencing physical spaces, places and objects—and making meaning of what is encountered, is the basis of my dissertation. It is also my basis for claiming that I have learned a great deal—and much unexpectedly—about how differently different people see and interpret the urban streetscape. What are the various environmental cues that stand out to different individuals? What are the psychosocial imaginaries that …

Young Children's Play In High-Rise Housing: A Window Into The Changing Lives Of Urban Middle-Class Families In Pune Metropolitan Area, Sruthi Atmakur-Javdekar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to identify the combinations of spatial arrangements and physical features that influence young children’s access to play and the quality of their play opportunities in a heterogeneous sample of high-rise housing in India. Using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model of Human Development as a framework, the study examines two large umbrellas that contribute to young children’s play opportunities in high-rise housing developments: (1) The play environment that is made available for children by developers and design professionals; and (2) Parents’ and caregivers’ ways of using the designated and undesignated spaces based on their own play values and beliefs. A …

Testing Reliability Of Biophilic Design Matrix Within Urban Residential Playrooms, Ellen Marte

Theses and Dissertations

Biophilic interior design in urban playrooms has been greatly understudied. We measured inter-rater reliability of the Biophilic Interior Design Matrix (BID-M) and matrix items by quantitatively coding images of 45 New York City residential playrooms. Findings suggest that the BID-M needs to be modified to better assess urban playrooms.

Community Building At Amalgamated Housing Co-Operative, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

Amalgamated Housing Co-operative is located north of the Jerome Park Reservoir in The Bronx. Sponsored by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union (A.C.W.U.), this development opened in 1927 under the New York State Limited Dividend Housing Law of 1926.1 Built as affordable housing for moderate-income workers, the limited dividend housing legislation granted tax exemptions to the co-operative for a period of 20 years. Its residents were "co-operators," not tenants, who would own shares for their apartments in the development. Now in its ninth decade of operation, the Amalgamated is the oldest limited dividend housing development in the country and has been …

Beyond The Market: A “Public-Commons-Partnership” For Housing, Arielle Lawson

Publications and Research

The commodification of housing has led to new levels of unaffordability for tenants all over the country. With skyrocketing rents and an explosion of homelessness, we are faced with the glaring failures of our capitalist housing system to meet people’s most basic human needs. Recognizing the inherent limitations of “affordable housing” within a profit-driven system, we need a paradigm shift around housing that can change the terms of the debate, and advance a real alternative to the speculative market. A growing housing justice movement — combined with a renewed politicization of tenants — is leading the way. From new rent …

Fortifying Lower Manhattan's Shoreline, Krystel Campuzano, Mathlyn Mckie

Publications and Research

Lower Manhattan comprises less than 1% of the entire city’s land area, but generates almost 10% of the city’s total economic output, as measured by Gross City Product, and is the location of over 10% of all New York City jobs. Workers in Lower Manhattan come from all parts of the city. The District’s growth is supported by excellent access to transit, with 19 out of 25 subway lines and 26 ferry lines passing through the District. Any climate impacts in the District will resonate across the city as a whole and beyond. Because Lower Manhattan is a critical economic, …

Housing Along The Brooklyn Waterfront: A Story Of Shipping, Industry, And Immigrants, Kurt C. Schlichting

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Public Land Revisited: Municipalization And Privatization In Newark And New York City, Samuel Stein, Oksana Mironova

Publications and Research

Public land plays a central role in contemporary urban planning struggles. Using a comparative case study approach focused on the north-eastern US cities of Newark and New York City, we uncover patterns of land acquisition and dispossession that fit five broad and often overlapping periods in planning history: City Beautiful, metropolitan reorganization, deindustrialization, and devaluation, followed by hyper-commodification in New York City and redevelopment amidst disinvestment in Newark. Through this periodization, we find that accumulation and alienation of urban public land has largely taken place through two modes of municipalization (targeted and reactive) and two modes of privatization (community-led and …

Nimby: Not In My Backyard, Ariama Long

Capstones

Ariama Long talks to residents in Flatbush, Brooklyn who are clashing with developers over a hotel that houses homeless people. A hotel development has seemingly split the neighborhood. It’s community versus developer and neighbor versus neighbor.

Resilient Kalinago Initiative, Yesenia Ward, Cellia Ait-Ouaret, Danie Occeus

Publications and Research

The Kalinago are the Indigenous people of Dominica.Hurricane Maria hit the people particularly hard, losing up to 90% of their homes and community fabric. The people also suffered before the storms. Discrimination, little government aid, no electrical grid, isolation in their mountainous territory, limited social services, and economic mobility. The people have grown up relaying on themselves and their neighbors. With most of the housing stock gone, new building strategies need to be implemented. The goal is to make the territory self-sufficient, and a working expo society about sustainable living and resilience. The territory will undergo a master plan which …

Power Outage Preparedness And Concern Among Vulnerable New York City Residents, Christine Dominianni, Munerah Ahmed, Sarah Johnson, Micheline Blum, Kazuhiko Ito, Kathryn Lane

Publications and Research

Power outages can impact health, and certain populations may be more at risk. Personal preparedness may reduce impacts, but information on power outage preparedness and risk perception among vulnerable populations is limited. We examined power outage preparedness and concern among New York City residents, including vulnerable populations defined as older adults (≥ 65 years), and respondents with household members who require assistance with daily activities or depend on electric medical devices. A random sample telephone survey was conducted during November–December 2016. Preparedness was defined as having a three-day supply of drinking water, non-perishable food, and a working flashlight. Among all …

A Worldwide Model For Boundaries Of Urban Settlements, Erneson A. Oliveira, Vasco Furtado, José S. Andrade, Hernan A. Makse

Publications and Research

The shape of urban settlements plays a fundamental role in their sustainable planning. Properly defining the boundaries of cities is challenging and remains an open problem in the science of cities. Here, we propose a worldwide model to define urban settlements beyond their administrative boundaries through a bottom-up approach that takes into account geographical biases intrinsically associated with most societies around the world, and reflected in their different regional growing dynamics. The generality of the model allows one to study the scaling laws of cities at all geographical levels: countries, continents and the entire world. Our definition of cities is …

“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales

Theses and Dissertations

After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.

Solar And Rain Catching Canopy. Urban Oasis, Afolabi Ibitoye, Langston Clark, Elena Zimareva, Evan Banks, Alexander Aptekar

Publications and Research

The Urban Oasis is designed to work within existing “pocket parks” in New York City as a combined rainwater collector, personal electronics charging station and resting designation for New Yorkers. Intended to not only lessen the demand on the city power grid by using renewable energy to charge devices, the urban oasis is also intended to mitigate grey water overfill in New York’s combined sewer system and, in general, serve as a model for responsible environmental stewardship in urban areas.

The important technical aspects of the canopy specifically analyzed were:

a) how much rainwater could the canopy be expected to …

Progressive Commemoration: Public Statues Of Historical Women In Urban American Cities, Melanie D. Chin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Women who made notable accomplishments are underrepresented in commemoration. Some American cities have brought women to the forefront of becoming visible through commemoration in statues. This thesis compares the commemoration of historical women in four different American cities. Stakeholders hold the key to implementing and changing public policy to increase the visibility of women and people of color in public monuments. Cities which lack representation of women and people of color may learn from and follow the efforts of a leading city to achieve lasting and effective change in representing those who historically been underrepresented.

Where Does Public Land Come From? Municipalization And Privatization Debates, Oksana Mironova, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

This article illuminates contemporary land-use and disposition struggles in New York City by tracing the history of land’s passage between the private and public realms. The authors contend that government and community-controlled nonprofit organizations should govern the disposition of the city’s remaining public land supply, deliberately deploying this scarce resource to promote the well-being of the people and neighborhoods most at risk in a speculation-fueled real-estate environment.

Queer Repurposed Artifacts: The State Of New York City’S Contemporary West Village Bars, Stephanie Debiase

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent years, there has been a shift in queer bar culture in New York City’s West Village, and this thesis aims to explore what these changes are and why they are happening now. How do West Village bars survive when queer populations are forced out? While there are various ways to consider how and what survives in the Village, three variables will be addressed: queer history, or the history queer-identified groups using activism, safety measures, or collaborating with outside sources to secure their rights and overall wellbeing; (post)gentrification, beginning with the 90s when mainstream LGBT groups teamed up with …

Squatters, Shanties, And Technocratic Professionals: Urban Migration And Housing Shortages In Twentieth-Century Chile, Nathan C. Norris

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the struggles of squatters and slum dwellers for housing prior to the 1973 coup in Santiago de Chile, Valparaíso, and surrounding areas, with a focus on the Frei era of the late 1960s. The work argues that severe urban overcrowding generated advocacy for housing during the rise of progressive and leftist politics in Chile. It also explores the dynamics of efforts to promote housing through the lens of the work of professionals in the fields of architecture and urban planning. It argues that Chilean professionals adopted modernist principals in the fields of architecture and planning when promoting …

Essential Methods For Planning Practitioners: Skills And Techniques For Data Analysis, Visualization, And Communication, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Jochen Albrecht

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Progress For Whom, Toward What? Progressive Politics And New York City’S Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

In both its historical Progressive Era roots and its contemporary manifestations, U.S. urban progressivism has evinced a contradictory tendency toward promoting the interests of capital and property while ostensibly protecting labor and tenants, thus producing policies that undermine its central claims. This article interrogates past and present appeals to urban progressive politics, particularly around housing and planning, and offers an in-depth case study of one of the most highly touted examples of the new urban progressivism: New York City’s recently adopted Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. This case serves to identify the ways in which progressive rhetoric can disguise neoliberal policies. …

Never Forgets: Traumatic Trace Within Public Space, Jan Descartes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper will interrogate the ways in which ephemera from events affects the human and non- human environment and how the absence, manipulation or presence of traumatic trace weaves itself into the atmosphere of the past, present and future. It will look at space and the ways that trace manifests itself in hierarchal spaces and Lebbeus Woods’ concept of heterarchial spaces, which are organic and/or horizontally organized. A thread throughout is the question that if trace from trauma can exist in the visual field, i.e. the physical or digital landscape, in a way that maintains a discourse without perpetuating oppression. …

I. M. Pei, William Zeckendorf, And The Architecture Of Urban Renewal, Marci M. Clark

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation reevaluates the practice of design and real estate in the United States through an insufficiently understood case study of the architect-developer team of I. M. Pei and William Zeckendorf and their twelve-year partnership in urban renewal. William Zeckendorf (1905-1976) was the most ambitious real estate developer in the United States in the 1950s, with an outsize personality and larger-than-life plans. Unlike most developers of the era, Zeckendorf believed that quality design and visionary planning were critical to remaking city cores through urban renewal. To accomplish this, he hired I. M. Pei (b. 1917), a talented, young designer out …

Nourishing Nycha: Food Policy As A Tool For Improving The Well-Being Of New York City’S Public Housing Residents, Nevin Cohen, Nicholas Freudenberg, Craig Willingham

Publications and Research

This policy brief examines food environments in New York City public housing. It looks at the food public housing residents buy, prepare and eat and the role food plays in the health, environment and economy of the city’s NYCHA population. Our goal is to contribute new insights into how NYCHA can use food policy and programs to improve the well-being of its residents and make New York City healthier, more self-sufficient, safer and more sustainable.

Building In Public: Critical Reconstruction And The Rebuilding Of Berlin After 1990, Naraelle Hohensee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Reconstructing Berlin’s ruined contours after 1990 was one of the most important ways that reunified Germany made a public display of its relationship to the violence wrought by both the Nazis and East Germany during the twentieth century. By integrating historical forms into new buildings in the city’s commercial center, Berlin’s urban planners hoped to show the world that the nation had transcended totalitarianism and was worthy of a prominent place in the new global order. In order to achieve this vision, they adopted an approach called “Critical Reconstruction,” which required architects to follow rigid design standards based on traditional …

The Limits Of Liberal Planning: The Lindsay Administration's Failed Plan To Control Development On Staten Island, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

Staten Island grew rapidly after the Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened in 1964. Mayor John Lindsay introduced a plan to control and guide development there, and encouraged planned unit development. The Rouse Company, then building Columbia, Maryland, was contracted to plan new communities for the southern third of Staten Island to more than double the borough’s population. State Senator John Marchi introduced legislation for the South Richmond Development Corporation in 1971. The plan called for the city to use eminent domain to buy property and transfer it to the Rouse Company, which would also construct residential towers on landfill in Raritan …

Provisional Capital: National And Urban Identity In The Architecture And Planning Of Bonn, 1949-1979, Samuel L. Sadow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the physical transformation of Bonn in the postwar period, with a particular focus on the 1960s and 1970s, as the city accommodated the West German federal government. Bonn’s long campaign in the 1960s to redraw its municipal borders and the federal government’s construction of several high-rises in the city and its neighbor, Bad Godesberg, were the most concrete markers of Bonn’s evolution as a capital city in this period. The complex political processes and sometimes bitter conflicts behind each of these developments paralleled the gradual and successful entrenchment of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany. At …

The Physical Activity And Redesigned Community Spaces (Parcs) Study: Protocol Of A Natural Experiment To Investigate The Impact Of Citywide Park Redesign And Renovation, Terry T. K. Huang, Katarzyna E. Wyka, Emily Ferris, Jennifer Gardner, Kelly R. Evenson, Devanshi Tripathi, Gabriel Martinez Soto, Matthew S. Cato, Jon Moon, Julia Wagner, Joan M. Dorn, Diane J. Catellier, Lorna E. Thorpe

Publications and Research

Background: The built environment plays a critical role in promoting physical activity and health. The association between parks, as a key attribute of the built environment, and physical activity, however, remains inconclusive. This project leverages a natural experiment opportunity to assess the impact of the Community Parks Initiative (CPI), a citywide park redesign and renovation effort in New York City, on physical activity, park usage, psychosocial and mental health, and community wellbeing.

Methods: The project will use a longitudinal design with matched controls. Thirty intervention park neighborhoods are socio-demographically matched to 20 control park neighborhoods. The study will investigate whether …

Performing Conquest And Resistance In The Streets Of Eighteenth Century Potosí: Identity And Artifice In The Cityscapes Of Gaspar Miguel De Berrío And Melchor Pérez De Holguín, Agnieszka A. Ficek

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the ways in which Potosí's two most influential colonial artists represented the urban dynamics of race, class and labor in their depictions of the Andean 'City of Silver' during the eighteenth century, when silver production, profits and population were dramatically declining.