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Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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Full-Text Articles in Human Geography

Hybrid Geographies And Nature In The City: A Tale Of Two Greenspaces In Louisville, Ky., Rebecca Dixon Aug 2025

Hybrid Geographies And Nature In The City: A Tale Of Two Greenspaces In Louisville, Ky., Rebecca Dixon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many conservation initiatives position nature and the urban as opposing constructions, which means the possibilities where cities can work with nature are often overlooked. This study uses the lens of relational geographies to examine nature in the city by comparing two greenspaces in the Beargrass Creek watershed in Louisville, Kentucky: Waterfront Botanical Gardens and the Louisville Nature Center. The two organizations are compared by using a combination of content analysis, discourse analysis, and GIS flood analysis methods to determine how their geographical location and history affect the ways in which the dynamic between nature and culture is reproduced. Results show …


Remotely-Sensed Urbanization And Local Perceptions Of Change From 1985-2024 In Southern Indiana., Marlea Ferber Aug 2025

Remotely-Sensed Urbanization And Local Perceptions Of Change From 1985-2024 In Southern Indiana., Marlea Ferber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study is focused on the land cover change of non-built land cover being transformed into built land cover in two counties in Southern Indiana using mixed methods. Remote sensing was used to identify and quantify land cover change, and interviews were used to understand local perceptions of the physical land cover changes. The study area is situated along the rural-urban continuum with Louisville, Kentucky across the Ohio River. It is important to quantify the amount of land change conversion to built settlement as patterns and rate of urbanization help us to better manage transitions along the rural-urban continuum, but …


Contesting The City Through Sustainability Discourse: A Joint Archival And Interview Analysis Of City Planning In Louisville, Kentucky., Calvin Grant May 2025

Contesting The City Through Sustainability Discourse: A Joint Archival And Interview Analysis Of City Planning In Louisville, Kentucky., Calvin Grant

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability is a part of a global discourse cast as a universal, technocratic solution to the climate crisis in need of a receptive public and active local adaptation. In many cases, language espousing sustainable development ideals and policy implementation promotes a perspective of scientific neutrality that overlooks socio-politically grounded discourses. This joint archival and interview-centered discourse analysis demonstrates that official sustainability discourse in Louisville’s Comprehensive Plan 2040 was produced through a carefully moderated consensus among planners and select stakeholders. Such consensus prioritizes the perspectives and agency of policy experts, business leaders, and others who have “recognized speech” of authority, while …


Slum Area Detection In Dhaka City, Bangladesh, Using Satellite Remote Sensing And Deep Learning, Soubhoon Sadeq Shinjini Jan 2025

Slum Area Detection In Dhaka City, Bangladesh, Using Satellite Remote Sensing And Deep Learning, Soubhoon Sadeq Shinjini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dhaka City, a rapidly growing megacity and high-density developing area in Bangladesh, faces numerous urbanization challenges. Among these, informal settlements or slum areas pose serious concerns for authorities and policymakers striving to improve living conditions for slum dwellers. Dhaka City’s slums are characterized by high-density, one- or two-story structures made of low-cost materials, often located adjacent to natural water bodies and lacking basic public infrastructure (Ahmed 2014; Iqbal 2014; Jahan 2012). The need for accurate and up-to-date data on these settlements is crucial for researchers and policymakers, particularly for implementing slum upgradation and resettlement programs. However, traditional field surveys for …


Evidence Of Climatic Influence On Subsistence Strategies At Sage Hen Springs, Nevada, Andrew Rogers Jun 2024

Evidence Of Climatic Influence On Subsistence Strategies At Sage Hen Springs, Nevada, Andrew Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Models of settlement patterns in the northwest Great Basin describe a decrease in residential mobility, intensified use of upland spring ecozones, and an increase in diet breadth during the Middle and Late Archaic. Here, I present data collected from the Sage Hen Springs site in northwestern Nevada during a Phase II testing project conducted by the BLM and an analysis of these data focusing on patterns of subsistence and mobility strategies throughout the Archaic. Results of this analysis support existing models of lifeways in the northwest Great Basin at the small scale and point to climatic factors as influences on …


Paradoxes And Potential Of Tourism Development In Nicaragua, Cody J. Silveira Jun 2024

Paradoxes And Potential Of Tourism Development In Nicaragua, Cody J. Silveira

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation research evaluates the successes and challenges of tourism integration and expansion as both a broad human development strategy and a catalyst for local populations to achieve greater economic and social opportunities. The country of Nicaragua serves as the primary case study for such an evaluation due to its relatively recent promotion and expansion of tourism through government led incentives and oversight. As a case study, Nicaragua is a country whose tourism industry remains nascent, yet commands great economic potential and influence, which can serve as an example for future tourism development initiatives for developing countries in the region …


Understanding The Nuances Of Transit Accessibility: Temporal And Spatial Resolution, And Neoliberalism, Joe Chestnut Jun 2024

Understanding The Nuances Of Transit Accessibility: Temporal And Spatial Resolution, And Neoliberalism, Joe Chestnut

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores accessibility via public transit through several lenses. In doing so, some of the lesser known nuances of accessibility are better understood. These nuances are explored in several ways. First, various demographic variables and their relationship to accessibility to jobs via public transit are modeled at a fine spatial resolution in an exploratory analysis across several cities in the United States. Next, temporal and spatial resolution and their impacts on accessibility to jobs via public transit are analyzed and quantified in several cities across the United States. Finally, the relationship between neoliberalism and public transit accessibility is explored …


Pre-Columbian Soil Management, Settlement, And Land Use In Amazonia: Insights Using Micro-Regional Predictive Modelling In Gurupá, Brazil., Lauren Zacks May 2024

Pre-Columbian Soil Management, Settlement, And Land Use In Amazonia: Insights Using Micro-Regional Predictive Modelling In Gurupá, Brazil., Lauren Zacks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The results of a micro-regional predictive model of terra preta sites in the municipality of Gurupá are presented here. A Maximum Entropy approach was selected and modified to fit a presence-background model, rather than a presence-absence model typical of binary classifications. 13 known terra preta sites were used as input samples for the relative suitability model, with explanatory variables in the respective categories of topography, hydrology, soil type and vegetation index. A 30m spatial resolution DEM served as the basis for the former two categories, while additional TauDEM analysis was performed for the hydrology category. A Sentinel-2A mosaicked quarterly composite …


Restorative Playscape Design: A Phenomenological Approach To Designing Playscapes, Jennifer Bradley May 2023

Restorative Playscape Design: A Phenomenological Approach To Designing Playscapes, Jennifer Bradley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation outlines the development of a phenomenological and restorative approach to playscape design. Restorative Playscape (RPD) is a phenomenologically based approach to designing children’s play environments that involves a process of attending to, noticing, and uncovering natural affordances for play and development, and making enhancements to the environment so that the affordances can experienced in their full potential and capacity to support children’s growth and development. The restorative approach involves the application of three phenomenological methods to identify the affordances of the outdoor play environment: 1) Child Guided Walks- to explore the affective and relational dimension of children’s experience …


Still Got The Blues - No Time But Here, No Place But Now: Geographies Of Art & Activism In The Work Of Clyde Woods., Jake Mace May 2023

Still Got The Blues - No Time But Here, No Place But Now: Geographies Of Art & Activism In The Work Of Clyde Woods., Jake Mace

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The fight against displacement and dispossession in the increasingly inequitable process of reterritorialization is arguably the most pressing struggle of the modern city – and it is articulated through cultural production as much as through political debate and economic development. Yet research that is at the nexus of critical, urban, and cultural studies and which explores the resistant potential of countercultural production rather than the hegemonic impact of mainstream cultural production is underdeveloped. Clyde Woods’s blues epistemology offers a guide to reading cultural production of marginalized groups as maps of meaning that offer alternative visions of the past, the present, …


Land Tenure And The Urban Institutional Politics Of Sustainability: How Sustainability "Lands" In The Relationships Between Global North And South Contexts., Lindsey Connors May 2023

Land Tenure And The Urban Institutional Politics Of Sustainability: How Sustainability "Lands" In The Relationships Between Global North And South Contexts., Lindsey Connors

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability is not simply a moral concept but is essential for human survival, and the tensions inherent in sustainable development bear repercussions that are increasingly placed onto the poor and powerless (Redclift 1987). While sustainability has become a relevant concept for urban knowledge and research especially in the global South, much of our urban sustainability knowledge is shaped by research and typologies from the global North (Nagendra et al. 2018; Parnell & Robinson 2017; Roy 2005). This dissertation considers the spatial transferability of sustainability knowledge from a relational perspective (Massey 2002). Sustainable development can be understood from this perspective as …


Understanding The Impacts Of Urban Agriculture In Gentrifying Neighborhoods In Denver, Kate Johnson Jan 2022

Understanding The Impacts Of Urban Agriculture In Gentrifying Neighborhoods In Denver, Kate Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Urban Agriculture is prominent in cities across the United States and has been studied in relation to food security, sustainability, and gentrification. Urban agriculture is context specific and can include individual gardens, community gardens, guerilla gardening, and urban farms. Urban agriculture is a product of the community it is based in, depending on politics, history, and social environments. For these reasons, the relationship between urban agriculture and the community is an area where more research is needed. This thesis explores the role visible gardens play in community building, sustainability, and food security in gentrifying neighborhoods in Denver. Through qualitative methods …


Care Infrastructure Accessibility And The Gender Wage Gap – A Way To Improve Women’S Ability To Equitably Engage In The Paid Labor Market?, Julia Schinnenburg Jan 2022

Care Infrastructure Accessibility And The Gender Wage Gap – A Way To Improve Women’S Ability To Equitably Engage In The Paid Labor Market?, Julia Schinnenburg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

World-wide, women are less integrated into the labor force than men and if they are, they earn considerably less on average. This unequal treatment of women results in negative consequences for all members of society, as it harms women’s financial realities and also affects women’s care receivers due to a lack of resources that women can spend on their care giving. The research presented analyses how much the institution of better accessible care infrastructure could improve women’s ability to work for pay and decrease their daily workloads. The extent to which improved care infrastructure accessibility affects women’s lives is determined …


Geovisualization And Open-Source Web Mapping Of Big Origin-Destination Data, A Test Case, Joseph Hiebert Jan 2022

Geovisualization And Open-Source Web Mapping Of Big Origin-Destination Data, A Test Case, Joseph Hiebert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Migration plays a key role in determining the health and success of cities, counties, and countries. It also plays a key role in determining the health and wellbeing of the individuals and families that undergo a migration event. This has led many scholars to map and study global migration patterns to understand how and why people move. While migration data are powerful, the origin-destination (O-D), tabular format of the data can be hard to interpret. To make O-D data more powerful, geographers can lean on computer cartography and new geovisualization techniques to help decision makers make sense of large, complex …


Mobility Of Older Adults In Mexico City: A Mixed Methods Approach, Jessica Villena Sanchez Jan 2022

Mobility Of Older Adults In Mexico City: A Mixed Methods Approach, Jessica Villena Sanchez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation covers the topic of the mobility of older adults in Mexico City using a mixed methods approach. First, I looked at the literature to uncover what is known about elderly mobilities coming from the Global South. Second, I analyzed the 2017 Household Origin Destination Survey to reveal travel behavior patterns and transport mode choice of older adults in Mexico City. Third, I revealed mobility experiences from older adults living in different neighborhoods in Mexico City by conducting twenty two telephone interviews. Lastly, I created joint displays that included both previous results to better understand how the findings from …


A Spatial Analysis Of Supply-Demand Of Public Transportation In Jefferson County, Kentucky., Nastaran Abdoli May 2021

A Spatial Analysis Of Supply-Demand Of Public Transportation In Jefferson County, Kentucky., Nastaran Abdoli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public transportation is important as it serves individuals, especially the transit-dependent population, by providing a basic mobility service to these people and all others who rely on public transportation. This research utilized estimating public transportation demand and supply to analyze the spatial patterns of public transportation in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The study focuses on the transit-dependent population, and it considers indicators of age, poverty status, vehicle ownership, and foreign-born population with less than five years residency in the United States. This study conducted a public transit supply-demand analysis to identify areas with imbalanced supply and demand in Jefferson County at …


Broccoli Over Brownies: Factors Affecting Healthy Food Choices For Low Income Residents Of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Aileen Patricia Profir Jan 2021

Broccoli Over Brownies: Factors Affecting Healthy Food Choices For Low Income Residents Of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Aileen Patricia Profir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The world is on the cusp of a nutritional crisis: malnutrition, in all its forms, now directly affects one in three persons on the planet. Chronic malnutrition is closely associated with a wide range of public health issues such as stunted growth, increased incidence of disease, school or work absences, and obesity. Access to proper nourishment for food insecure individuals is often evaluated as a measure of distance to market, yet a causal relationship between proximity to food resources and improved health outcomes is unclear. Multiple dimensions of food access influence fruit and vegetable consumption for those who are food …


Changing Faces, Changing Places: Understanding Immigration, Housing Market And Native Out-Migration In Established And New Destinations In The United States., Anqi Xu Aug 2020

Changing Faces, Changing Places: Understanding Immigration, Housing Market And Native Out-Migration In Established And New Destinations In The United States., Anqi Xu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation concerns residential incorporation and the socioeconomic impact of immigrants primarily from Latin America and Asia with their rapid geographical dispersal in the U.S. I adopt econometrics methodologies and GIS techniques to examine how immigration affects housing price changes and white out-mobility in established and new destinations, utilizing datasets from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The first part examines the effects of immigration into the U.S. established and new immigrant destinations on housing prices using county-level data that span 2011 to 2017. Using the global and local Moran’s I statistics, I demonstrate …


Geographic Imaginaries Of Urban Spatial Segregation: A Case Study Of The West End Neighborhoods In Louisville, Kentucky., Amber Dock May 2020

Geographic Imaginaries Of Urban Spatial Segregation: A Case Study Of The West End Neighborhoods In Louisville, Kentucky., Amber Dock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to translate the framework of geographic imaginaries into an urban context in order to capture a narrative of how residents conceptualize and experience segregation. This framework is rooted in an investigation of local discourses as they exist within a specific social, political, and historical context. Institutionalized segregation and structural racism are the foundations on which the American urban context studied here was built upon. This study employs multiple methods, including contextualizing the study area, analyzing discursive content, and visualizing the results. The results of these analyses included empirically connecting concentrations of protected classes to …


Urban Informality, Environmental Xenophobia, And Infrastructures Of Citizenship: The Political Lives Of Nicaraguan Migrants In The Informal Settlement Of La Carpio, Costa Rica, Nikolai Alexander Alvarado Jan 2020

Urban Informality, Environmental Xenophobia, And Infrastructures Of Citizenship: The Political Lives Of Nicaraguan Migrants In The Informal Settlement Of La Carpio, Costa Rica, Nikolai Alexander Alvarado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines urban politics, environmental justice, and infrastructure from the vantage point of South-South migration. It focuses on the work of Nicaraguan migrants living in the informal settlement of La Carpio in San José, Costa Rica, as they negotiate rights in the form of urban services. Nicaraguans in La Carpio have organized politically since 1993 to self-install, demand, and negotiate services such as potable water and electricity. In the process, they successfully compel local authorities to allocate these services and grant them an implicit recognition of their right to remain and live a decent life, regardless of their status. …


Urban Green Space: Mitigator Or Multiplier Of Inequality In The Denver Metropolitan Area?, Joshua Charles Baldwin Jan 2020

Urban Green Space: Mitigator Or Multiplier Of Inequality In The Denver Metropolitan Area?, Joshua Charles Baldwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Studies have shown that communities of color and low-income populations are likely to live in neighborhoods that lack access to quality green spaces, unable to directly benefit from the environmental, recreational, and cultural services they provide. The goal of this research was to determine if the green space inequality patterns seen globally and nationally exist in the Denver Metropolitan Area. Using an existing green space dataset, ecosystem services fieldwork, GIS digitizing, and bivariate correlation analysis I uncovered numerous green space inequalities based on proximity, acreage, and quality. Key findings included 1) Lakewood’s Hispanic and less-educated populations have relatively little access …


Communications And Methodologies In Crime Geography: Contemporary Approaches To Disseminating Criminal Incidence And Research, Mitchell Ogden Dec 2019

Communications And Methodologies In Crime Geography: Contemporary Approaches To Disseminating Criminal Incidence And Research, Mitchell Ogden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many tools exist to assist law enforcement agencies in mitigating criminal activity. For centuries, academics used statistics in the study of crime and criminals, and more recently, police departments make use of spatial statistics and geographic information systems in that pursuit. Clustering and hot spot methods of analysis are popular in this application for their relative simplicity of interpretation and ease of process. With recent advancements in geospatial technology, it is easier than ever to publicly share data through visual communication tools like web applications and dashboards. Sharing data and results of analyses boosts transparency and the public image of …


A Shifting Island Landscape: Changes In Land Use And Daily Life In The 19th And 20th Century Village Of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland, Lauren Marie Couey Jan 2018

A Shifting Island Landscape: Changes In Land Use And Daily Life In The 19th And 20th Century Village Of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland, Lauren Marie Couey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates changes to village spatial arrangement and land use patterns in the nineteenth and twentieth century village of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland. To understand how spatial changes within the historic village were shaped by interactions between villagers and outside groups, including landlords and government agencies, a landscape approach was utilized. An examination of historic maps, valuation documents, and Irish Census documents, combined with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey and archaeological excavation, were used to understand how historical pressures impacted island life. Inishark's geographic isolation creates a unique case study to understand the impact of historical pressures on rural Irish …


An Investigation Of The Performance Of Urban Rail Transit Systems On The Corridor Level: A Comparative Analysis In The American West, Daniel Zimny-Schmitt Jan 2018

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 …


Modeling The In-State Geographic Market Changes Of South Dakota Public University Enrollments, 2006 To 2015, John Green Jan 2018

Modeling The In-State Geographic Market Changes Of South Dakota Public University Enrollments, 2006 To 2015, John Green

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The spatial nature of how high school students choose a college has become an integral part of the recruitment process at universities across the country. In South Dakota, the impact of distance on enrollment at state operated institutions influences the geographic footprint of each university. Between 2006 and 2015, the nature of those enrollment numbers and geographic footprints changed within the state, creating enrollment stagnation or decline at state run institutions. This research paper addresses the geographic nature of those enrollment declines, models the college enrollment decision of students in the state, and applies those findings towards potential enrollment projections. …


This Is Just A Phase : The Impact Of Population Structure On Haplotype Phasing And Linkage Disequilibrium Measures At Functional Genetic Sites., Roxanne Kaaren Leiter Dec 2017

This Is Just A Phase : The Impact Of Population Structure On Haplotype Phasing And Linkage Disequilibrium Measures At Functional Genetic Sites., Roxanne Kaaren Leiter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The block-like structure of the human genome has been the subject of many scientific papers and is of practical significance in large-scale genome-wide association studies. How stringent haplotype block boundaries are within and between populations has been the subject of ongoing debate within human population genetics. This thesis will contribute to the description of universal and population-specific haplotype blocks at functional sites, namely across the IL-10 gene family (including IL-10, IL-19, IL-20 and IL-24), which is involved in a number of immune system processes, and MAPKAP-K2, an adjacent and functionally significant kinase gene. Beyond the description of blocks across these …


Moving Mountains : A Study Examining Long-Term Impacts Of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining On Mortality In The Appalachian Region Using Geographic Information Sciences Techniques., James Howard Kent Pugh Dec 2017

Moving Mountains : A Study Examining Long-Term Impacts Of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining On Mortality In The Appalachian Region Using Geographic Information Sciences Techniques., James Howard Kent Pugh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the last hundred years, the Appalachian region has been dominated by the coal industry. It has also been and currently is one of the unhealthiest regions in the United States. Recent scholarship has examined the relationship between coal mining and health and mortality rates in the Appalachian region. The first study incorporates air quality and pollution data to examine if coal mining counties have higher levels of pollution and if this pollution contributes to mortality disadvantage. In the second study, I construct a population-based coal-exposure measure to better evaluate the relationship between coal mining and health I find that …


Russian Real Estate Purchases In Finland, 1990-2016, Mika Hasanen Jan 2017

Russian Real Estate Purchases In Finland, 1990-2016, Mika Hasanen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Foreign real estate ownership has been a frequent topic in the Finnish public discourse in the 2010s. Real estate purchases by Russian citizens have received lots of negative attention. In this thesis, the spatial distribution of real estate bought by Russians was studied. Purchases between January 1990 and August 2016 were mapped and analyzed using Getis-Ord Gi* hot spot analysis. The home addresses of the buyers were also geocoded to find out where the majority of buyers live, and geodetic distances to their properties were calculated. Buildings on these properties were analyzed to examine motives for the purchases.


How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates Aug 2016

How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores a series of events that occurred in the spring of 1876. The relationship between the Indianapolis city government, the Marion County Courts, the Indianapolis Police Department, and the African American community came together to usher in changes never before envisioned. The Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) was formed in 1855, then disbanded 12 months later in a political dispute. From 1857-to-1876, the IPD was all white. These changes took place as the Reconstruction era was coming to a close. The first Ku Klux Klan was at its apex, terrorizing black communities, and Jim Crow was coming into its …


Global Population Distributions And The Environment : Discerning Observed Global And Regional Patterns., Jeremiah J. Nieves May 2016

Global Population Distributions And The Environment : Discerning Observed Global And Regional Patterns., Jeremiah J. Nieves

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Between 1990 to 2015, numerous groups used ancillary data about the environment surrounding populations to more accurately map global populations from standard census data. No comprehensive study has been undertaken to characterize the observed relationships between population density and ancillary data. Better understanding these relationships may produce more accurate population maps, focus resources on new datasets with a high probability of modelling importance, and lead to expanded end-user applications. This study examined these relationships by extracting variable importances from 36 independently run, country-specific population models from the WorldPop project’s population data. Covariate data describing urban/suburban extents were found to be …