Human Geography Commons^™

Unbundling Property In Boston’S Urban Food Commons, Oona Morrow, Deborah Martin

Geography

Households and community organizations are involved in the creation, use, care, and management of urban spaces, including through food practices such as planting, foraging, harvesting, weeding and pruning at the ambiguous edges of public and private property. Drawing on case studies in Boston, Massachusetts, we examine how commons are articulated through these practices, particularly in relation to multiple dimensions of property rights. Specifically, we ask how food practices can open urban spaces to negotiations around access, responsibility, care, and ownership, especially when (property) ownership is not an end-goal, but a circumstance shaping other practices. Using interviews and participant observation of …

Reconciling The Dissonance Between Historic Preservation And Virtual Reality Through A Place-Based Virtual Heritage System., Danny J. Bonenberger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study explores a problematic disconnect associated with virtual heritage and the immersive 3D computer modeling of cultural heritage. The products of virtual heritage often fail to adhere to long-standing principles and recent international conventions associated with historic preservation, heritage recording, designation, and interpretation. By drawing upon the geographic concepts of space, landscape, and place, along with advances in Geographic Information Systems, first-person serious games, and head-mounted Virtual Reality platforms this study envisions, designs, implements, and evaluates a virtual heritage system that seeks to reconcile the dissonance between Virtual Reality and historic preservation. Finally, the dissertation examines the contributions and …

The Archaeology Of The Postindustrial: Spatial Data Infrastructures For Studying The Past In The Present, Daniel Trepal

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Postindustrial urban landscapes are large-scale, complex manifestations of the past in the present in the form of industrial ruins and archaeological sites, decaying infrastructure, and adaptive reuse; ongoing processes of postindustrial redevelopment often conspire to conceal the toxic consequences of long-term industrial activity. Understanding these phenomena is an essential step in building a sustainable future; despite this, the study of the postindustrial is still new, and requires interdisciplinary connections that remain either unexplored or underexplored. Archaeologists have begun to turn their attention to the modern industrial era and beyond. This focus carries the potential to deliver new understandings of the …

Conceptualizing Youth Participation In Children’S Health Research: Insights From A Youth-Driven Process For Developing A Youth Advisory Council, Mohammad El-Bagdady, Krishna Arunkumar, Drew Bowman, Stephanie Coen, Christina Ergler, Jason Gilliland, Ahad Mahmood, Suraj Paul

Geography & Environment Publications

Given the power asymmetries between adults and young people, youth involvement in research is often at risk of tokenism. While many disciplines have seen a shift from conducting research on youth to conducting research with and for youth, engaging children and teens in research remains fraught with conceptual, methodological, and practical challenges. Arnstein’s foundational Ladder of Participation has been adapted in novel ways in youth research, but in this paper, we present a new rendering: a ‘rope ladder.’ This concept came out of our youth-driven planning process to develop a Youth Advisory Council for the Human Environments Analysis Laboratory, an …

No. 18: Gender Inequality, Poverty And Urban Household Food Security In Cape Town, Mary Caesar, Liam Riley

Hungry Cities Partnership

This discussion paper aims to advance our understanding of the gendered nature of urban household food security and how it is shaped by the relationships between internal household gender dynamics and external social factors of gender- and race-based inequalities. The manifestation of the gender inequalityfood security nexus at the household level is most evident in the different food-related roles and responsibilities adopted by women and men. These differences typically centre on tasks such as growing, purchasing, and preparing food as well as household members who undertake none of these responsibilities. Other gender-based household food security determinants include the gender of …

No. 19: Food Insecurity And Alternative Food Networks In Cities Of The Global South, Gareth Haysom

Hungry Cities Partnership

Using the concept of Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), this discussion paper interrogates these networks and asks how they manifest in the context of food insecurity in cities of the global South. AFNs evident in Northern cities generally present a perspective of the food system that prioritises sustainability and a deep green and often local ethic, embodying aspirations of food system change. In Southern cities, food system engagement is less about engagement for change, but rather to enable food access. Traditional value chain parlance sees a value chain extending from producer to consumer. Drawing on research from food security studies carried …

No. 20: Cross-Platform Food Shopping And Household Food Access In Nanjing, China, Cameron Mccordic, Zhenzhong Si, Taiyang Zhong

Hungry Cities Partnership

Modern urban food systems have evolved into international, multi-scalar and complex networks. The historical evolution of the food system in Nanjing, China, exemplifies this complexity. Nanjing’s food system has undergone successive waves of modernization, bringing changes in consumer food sourcing behaviour along with it. Using household survey data, this investigation assesses the cross-platform food sourcing behaviour of households in Nanjing to untangle some of the complex relationships linking food retailers to consumers in the city. The findings indicate that the surveyed households largely prefer purchasing fresh food from wet markets over prepared food from fast food retailers, restaurants and online …

No. 21: Urban Informal Food Deserts In Windhoek, Namibia, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

Informal settlements in rapidly-growing African cities are urban and peri-urban spaces with high rates of formal unemployment, poverty, poor health outcomes, limited service provision and chronic food insecurity. Traditional concepts of food deserts developed to describe North American and European cities do not accurately capture the realities of food inaccessibility in Africa’s urban informal food deserts. This paper focuses on a case study of informal settlements in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, to shed further light on the relationship between informality and food deserts in African cities. The data for the paper was collected in 2016 and involved a survey of …

No. 16: Cheap Industrial Food And The Urban Margins, Tony Weis, Marylynn Steckley, Bruce Frayne

Hungry Cities Partnership

From the middle of the 20th century onwards, the productivity gains associated with high-input, high-yield monocultures and livestock operations have become increasingly central to global food security and to dynamics of urbanization across the global south. On one hand, competition has deflated prices and helped undermine the viability of small farm livelihoods in many places. On the other hand, rising flows of cheap food have effectively subsidized urban migration in impoverished urban and peri-urban settings. But this cheapness is highly deceptive, as it hinges on the failure to account for an array of biological and physical costs – which can …

No. 17: Revisiting Africa's Supermarket Revolution, Jonathan Crush, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence N. Kazembe, Jeremy Wagner

Hungry Cities Partnership

Africa is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate and food systems are undergoing rapid transformation. This transformation is being driven in part by a global supermarket revolution. However, the idea of an inexorable supermarket revolution on the continent has recently been contested. This paper examines the role of supermarkets in Namibia’s capital city Windhoek to test the applicability of the model. The paper is based on (a) a review of the literature on South African supermarket expansion; (b) a survey of the food purchasing behaviour of a representative sample of 875 households in Windhoek; and (c) a comprehensive product inventory of …

No.03: Devising Urban Food Security Policy For African Cities, James Sgro

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Informal food services are one of the few options for financially disadvantaged families. Food access policy needs to be created in partnership with informal economy actors to ensure that those who rely on informal systems are not ignored.

■ As household size increases, the likelihood of food insecurity grows exponentially. Adequate social protection programs are required to support household dependants including children and the aged and improve food security.

■ Secondary school completion is a specific milestone that significantly increases one’s food security outlook. Free primary and secondary school policies could return dividends in terms of nation-wide food security, …

No.01: The Sdgs, Food Security And Urbanization In The Global South, David Celis Parra, Krista Dinsmore, Nicole Fassina, Charlene Keizer

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Urban food insecurity is distinct from that experienced in rural areas and must be addressed through a different set of policies.

■ While supermarkets are increasingly prevalent in urban centres of the Global South, the informal economy and state food distribution programs continue to play an important role in meeting food security needs of the urban poor.

■ The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, as part of a new in-ternational directive, recommends that governments aim to improve food security and nutrition over the next 15 years in response to the global challenge of fostering sustainability.

■ SDG …

No.02: An Urban Perspective On Food Security In The Global South, Michael Chong, Lucy Hinton, Jeremy Wagner, Amy Zavits

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Food insecurity challenges in the Global South are changing as a result of rapid urbanization and the globalization of food supply chains.

■ Urban food insecurity is not distinct from rural food security challenges and policy seeking to address either should adopt a systems approach that strengthens their interdependence. There is an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of rural food security programming while concurrently addressing the growing food security needs of vulnerable urban populations.

■ This brief recommends that food security policy should prioritize intra-urban stages of informal food value chains and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their …

Corporate Urbanization: Between The Future And Survival In Lebanon, Deen S. Sharp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

If you look today at the skyline of downtowns throughout the Middle East and beyond, the joint-stock corporation has transformed the urban landscape. The corporation makes itself present through the proliferation of its urban mega-projects, including skyscrapers, downtown developments and gated communities; retail malls and artificial islands; airports and ports; and highways. Built into these corporate urban structures are edifices of politics, ideology and certain forms of socio-spatial and temporal organization. The corporation, however, has largely escaped critical scholarly analysis in Geography and/or Urban and Middle East Studies. In this thesis, I argue that the corporation is far more than …

Ya No Tengo Vecinos: Local Understandings Of Neighborhood Change In Cusco, Peru, Kalyn Mae Finnell

Architecture and Planning ETDs

This thesis involves the San Blas neighborhood in the Historic Center of Cusco, Peru. It aims to better understand local effects of the changes that San Blas has undergone since the 1990s and to explore possibilities related to improving the qualities of life of long-term residents (vecinos) who have lived in San Blas for at least two generations. It has two principal objectives: 1) Make recommendations to present to various public and private entities who have a presence and influence over the San Blas neighborhood to improve the likelihood that vecino demands are heard, 2) Illuminate the ways that vecinos …

Youth And The City: Reflective Photography As A Tool Of Urban Voice, Roman Gerodimos

Journal of Media Literacy Education

YYoung people’s engagement with urban public space has been facing a number of obstacles that reflect a lack of understanding of their needs, values and priorities. The emergence of digital devices and social media as integral elements of youth culture adds further urgency to the need to understand how young people themselves visually articulate their perceptions of life in the city. Bringing together elements from urban studies, youth studies and digital media literacy, this paper puts forward a pedagogic and research approach that aims to facilitate youth engagement with urban landscapes and the community. Participatory photography was used a tool …

Equitable Sustainable Development In Small American Cities: The Northend Greenway And The Path Forward, Amelia Morrison

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

As global climate change prompts a demand for “green” urban development, the representation of sustainability as a panacea to all environmental, economic, and social issues has been increasingly challenged by social justice advocates. In particular, critics of the social component of this supposedly balanced sustainability model have characterized holistic sustainability rhetoric as an appropriation of equity discourse to serve the interests of a narrow set of affluent consumers. The ongoing question of who benefits from sustainable development has revealed highly problematic patterns of displacement and gentrification that fall disproportionately on low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. This tension is examined …

Creating Web Maps Of Forest Restoration Plots At Iracambi Atlantic Rainforest Research Center, Minas Gerais, Brazil, Daniel Lassila

Sustainability and Social Justice

The purpose of this report is to provide a detailed account, discussion, and analysis of my internship at Iracambi Atlantic Rainforest Research Center in Minas Gerais, Brazil during the summer of 2017, where I worked under the direction of GIS Supervisor Mr. Cliff Jones. The central focus of my work dealt with consolidating existing GIS data on the organization’s rainforest restoration effort into a single normalized database - based on the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact, creating a structure for future forest restoration volunteers including enabling offline field collection using Collector for ArcGIS, then creating an ArcGIS Online web map based …

The Effects Of Crystal Bridges In Downtown Revitalization Of Bentonville, Arkansas In The Last Decade, Korab Vranovci

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bentonville started the process of downtown revitalization in 2007 after they passed a bond measure. However, research on the impacts of the revitalization and the factors associated with it is limited or focused for the private sector. This study identified Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as a catalyst for the process of downtown revitalization and aimed to fill the gap in urban development and economic opportunities that arose due to the museum.

Using the “Monitoring annual urban changes in a rapidly growing portion of Northwest Arkansas with a 20-year Landsat records” (Reynolds, Liang, Li, & Dennis, 2017) it is …

"From The Neighborhood Up!": Neighborhood Sustainability Certification Frameworks And The New Urban Politics Of Scale, Alex J. Ramiller

Geography Honors Projects

Urban sustainability goals are closely tied to the current political context, in which the imperative to attract highly mobile global capital frequently steers the objectives of local government. In this paper, I argue for the incorporation of the neighborhood scale into contemporary understandings of “local” or “urban” sustainability policy, emphasizing the potential for multi-scalar certification frameworks to subvert the predominant global-local relationship. By shifting the conceptualization and implementation of sustainability from globally dependent urban regimes to a diverse array of discrete urban communities, neighborhood-scale initiatives are able to draw greater attention to issues of social equity, environmental justice, and spatially …

"Homosexuals Are Revolting": Stonewall, 1969, Erin Siodmak

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

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.

No. 14: The Impact Of Proximity To Wet Markets And Supermarkets On Household Dietary Diversity In Nanjing City, China, Taiyang Zhong, Zhenzhong Si, Jonathan Crush, Zhiying Zu, Xianjin Huang, Steffanie Scott, Shuangshuang Tang, Xiang Zhang

Hungry Cities Partnership

Existing studies suggest that despite the proliferation of supermarkets, traditional wet markets have persisted in many countries and have been playing an important role in people’s daily food access. Yet, studies investigating the issue of food access and its influences on food security have mainly focused on food deserts and the proximity to supermarkets, with limited focus on wet markets and other food outlets. This study investigates the influence of the proximity to wet markets and supermarkets on urban household dietary diversity in Nanjing. Based on the data collected through a citywide survey in 2015 and the map data of …

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 …

An Investigation Of The Performance Of Urban Rail Transit Systems On The Corridor Level: A Comparative Analysis In The American West, Daniel Zimny-Schmitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1980s, significant investments have been made in urban rail transit across the United States, particularly using light rail technology. Most of these light rail systems have been built in Sunbelt cities which no longer had legacy rail systems. As a result, they were constructed using a building blocks approach, being funded corridor by corridor. Most research, however, on urban rail performance has taken place at the system-wide level, leaving a significant gap at the level of the transit corridor. This research examined nineteen urban rail corridors in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Portland. A performance score was constructed …

No. 09: The State Of Household Food Security In Nanjing, China, Zhenzhong Si, Taiyang Zhong

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report on the state of food security in Nanjing, China, is based on a 2015 city-wide survey conducted by Nanjing University and the Hungry Cities Partnership. The research found that most of the city’s residents are food secure, with access to desirable foods and high dietary diversity throughout the year. Nanjing has a high level of economic development, low unemployment, and spatially dense food supply networks. However, a high average level of food security obscures the finding that about one household in five is food insecure according to the Household Food Insecurity Access Prevalence indicator. Female-centred households, households that …

No. 10: The State Of Household Food Security In Maputo, Mozambique, Inês Raimundo, Cameron Mccordic, Abel Chikanda

Hungry Cities Partnership

The Hungry Cities Partnership aims to promote inclusive growth in urban food systems in Maputo and other cities of the Global South. The production of new empirical knowledge about the levels of household food security and the various facets of the urban food system is a core component of this effort. This report presents and analyses findings from a city-wide survey of 2,071 households that found that most Maputo households are food insecure and that more than a third can be categorized as severely food insecure. Dietary diversity in the city is extremely low and almost half of households had …

No. 13: The State Of Household Food Security In Mexico City, Mexico, Guénola Capron, Salomón Gonzalez Arellano, Jeremy Wagner, Cameron Mccordic

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report presents and analyzes the findings of a household food security survey conducted by Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana as part of the Hungry Cities Partnership in Mexico City from January 10-19, 2016. It is a supplement to HCP Report No. 7: The Urban Food System of Mexico City, Mexico (Capron et al 2017). HCP Report No. 7 discusses the history, demography and economy of Mexico City, and contains an overview of the existing literature on its changing food system. This report provides a foundation for future research of Mexico City’s food system, its food security and informal sector. It also …

No. 12: The State Of Household Food Security In Cape Town, South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Mary Caesar, Gareth Haysom

Hungry Cities Partnership

This research report presents and analyzes the findings of a household food secu-rity survey conducted in the City of Cape Town, South Africa, by the Hun-gry Cities Partnership (HCP) and the African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN) in 2013 and 2014. It is a supplement to, and should be read in con-junction with, AFSUN Urban Food Series No. 11: The State of Urban Food Insecurity in Cape Town (Battersby 2011) and HCP Report No. 3: The Urban Food System of Cape Town, South Africa (Crush et al 2017).

The AFSUN report examines the results of a food security survey conducted …

No. 15: The Food Security Implications Of Gendered Access To Education And Employment In Maputo, Cameron Mccordic, Liam Riley, Inês Raimundo

Hungry Cities Partnership

The multiple linkages between gender and household food security in cities have been observed in diverse settings, at multiple scales, and through a variety of disciplinary lenses. The Hungry Cities Partnership is rooted in the importance of inclusive growth of cities, which includes a fundamental concern with genderbased injustices that reduce inclusivity, sustainability and food security by underpinning structural poverty. This discussion paper is motivated by the gap in policy-ready quantitative data needed to identify the ways in which gender inequality, food insecurity, and public policy are interconnected. Analysis of the 2014 survey of household food security in Maputo identified …