Infrastructure Commons^™

Resilient Cities And The Housing Trust, Marc L. Roark, Lorna Fox O'Mahony

Arkansas Law Review

In the 1970’s, cities across the United States faced new obstacles due to the deterioration of public infrastructure. Public housing projects that were built through federal housing initiatives were reaching the end of their lives after less than twenty years of being in service. Over the last forty years, cities in the United States have turned increasingly to housing trust funds to address the conjoined problems of the withdrawal of federal resources dedicated to affordable housing provision, and insufficient

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Legal, Policy, And Environmental Scholars Discuss Global Food Systems At Indiana Law Symposium, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Indiana University Maurer School of Law and its Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies are hosting scholars from around the country Friday and Saturday (Jan. 19-20) for an interdisciplinary discussion on one of the world’s most prevalent problems—food insecurity.

Data from the World Bank estimate more than 780 million people around the world suffered from chronic hunger in 2022. As climate change affects agricultural production and water accessibility, the problem could worsen in coming years.

“A Fragile Framework: How Global Food Systems Intersect with the International Legal Order, the Environment, and the World’s Populations” will bring together legal, policy, …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Exploring Local Elected Officials' Capacity To Govern Effectively, Mario King

Dissertations

A successful local government exemplifies inclusivity, innovation, and deliberate decision-making, all advancing responsible management of taxpayers' resources. In this qualitative investigation, a phenomenological approach is employed to delve into the lived experiences of local elected officials. The aim of this study was to gain insights into the capacity of these local elected officials for success in governance. Subsequently, the insights from these local elected officials' experiences are harnessed to evaluate their influence and impact on municipal performance.

The management of municipal performance encompasses the provision of social services, the maintenance of fiscal operations, and adherence to statutory obligations (Avellaneda, 2008). …

Draft State Legislation: "Cycle-Based Adoption Of The International Code Council’S Model Building And Energy Conservation Codes", Hailey M. Mattingly

Commonwealth Policy Papers

This draft state legislation crafted with nonprofit partners is created in order to update building codes across the Commonwealth of Kentucky with uniform professional standards also adopted by surrounding states which are provided by the ICC, in order to improve resilience to natural disasters. This bill draft is accompanied with a short brief published in the same volume.

Maximize “West End Opportunity” In America: Alternative Policy Options To Address Perceived Drawbacks Of Tax Increment Financing (Tif) & Opportunity Zones, Justin Avert, Samuel C Kessler

Commonwealth Policy Papers

In March 2021, the Kentucky General Assembly passed House Bill 321 (Acts Chapter 203) authorizing the creation of a tax increment finance (TIF) district within the West End of Louisville. Designed to spur community-wide economic development, it set up a public-private nonprofit partnership. Known as the West End Opportunity Partnership (WEOP), this 21-seat board include community representatives and has sole control over any fund disbursement. Funds can be used towards a broad array of investments including small business loans, financing affordable housing units, home improvements, etc.

Residents within the district have expressed opposition to the TIF, skepticism towards the board …

Executive Order On The Safe, Secure, And Trustworthy Development And Use Of Artificial Intelligence, Joseph R. Biden

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Section 1. Purpose. Artificial intelligence (AI) holds extraordinary potential for both promise and peril. Responsible AI use has the potential to help solve urgent challenges while making our world more prosperous, productive, innovative, and secure. At the same time, irresponsible use could exacerbate societal harms such as fraud, discrimination, bias, and disinformation; displace and disempower workers; stifle competition; and pose risks to national security. Harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks. This endeavor demands a society-wide effort that includes government, the private sector, academia, and civil society.

My Administration places the highest urgency …

Aclp - State Broadband Profile - Tennessee (July 2023), New York Law School

Reports and Resources

No abstract provided.

The Dormant Commerce Clause As A Way To Combat The Anti-Competitive, Anti-Transmission-Development Effects Of State Right Of First Refusal Laws For Electricity Transmission Construction, Walker Mogen

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

To quickly decarbonize the electricity grid, new sources of renewable energy have to be connected to the grid. To connect these sources of energy to the grid, the rate of construction of new electricity infrastructure must increase quickly. The process to construct new electricity transmission infrastructure, however, is filled with chokepoints that slow its construction. State right of first refusal laws for transmission construction are one the things slowing the build out of the grid. These laws limit which companies can construct new transmission infrastructure to utilities and other companies already operating transmission infrastructure in a state. This Note, using …

Governing Smart Cities As Knowledge Commons - Introduction, Chapter 1 & Conclusion, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Madelyn Sanfilippo

Book Chapters

Smart city technology has its value and its place; it isn’t automatically or universally harmful. Urban challenges and opportunities addressed via smart technology demand systematic study, examining general patterns and local variations as smart city practices unfold around the world. Smart cities are complex blends of community governance institutions, social dilemmas that cities face, and dynamic relationships among information and data, technology, and human lives. Some of those blends are more typical and common. Some are more nuanced in specific contexts. This volume uses the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to sort out relevant and important distinctions. The framework grounds …

Aclp - Updated Estimates Of State Bead Allocations - As Of January 2023, New York Law School

Reports and Resources

No abstract provided.

Recommendations For Sustainable Tourism In Patagonia: An Exploratory Analysis Of Sustainable Tourism In Costa Rica, The Nordic Region, And Thailand’S Communities, Julia K. Lowery

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores different levels of governance and its role towards actualizing sustainable tourism in Patagonia. With the growing threat of climate change, international destinations such as Patagonia are looking to continue building their tourism industries in a sustainable way. Through analyzing case studies of national governance in Costa Rica, multi-national governance in the Nordic region, and community-based tourism in Thailand, we can better understand how each form of governance has the potential to create a sustainable tourism industry. With this understanding of successful governance in my case studies, as well as understanding the historical and political forces that have …

Aclp - Broadband Planning Tool Kit - October 2022, New York Law School

Reports and Resources

This Tool Kit provides state and local policymakers with a range of resources and analyses for use during broadband planning. The Tool Kit focuses on the array of grant and other funding opportunities available to states and localities as a result of the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act, as well as other pandemic-era stimulus programs. However, the Tool Kit is also useful for broadband planning outside of these specific funding programs. Indeed, the Tool Kit offers foundational planning resources that can be used now and in the future by officials, ISPs, and other stakeholders in the broadband space.

Municipal Fiber In The United States: A Financial Assessment, Christopher S. Yoo, Jesse Lambert, Timothy P. Pfenninger

All Faculty Scholarship

Despite growing interest in broadband provided by municipally owned and operated fiber-to-the-home networks, the academic literature has yet to undertake a systematic assessment of these projects’ financial performance. To fill this gap, we utilize municipalities’ official reports to offer an empirical evaluation of the financial performance of every municipal fiber project in the U.S. operating in 2010 through 2019. An analysis of the actual performance of the resulting fifteen-project panel dataset reveals that none of the projects generated sufficient nominal cash flow in the short run to maintain solvency without infusions of additional cash from outside sources or debt relief. …

The Kind Of Solution A Smart City Is: Knowledge Commons And Postindustrial Pittsburgh, Michael J. Madison

Book Chapters

This case study brings new attention to a critical but under-appreciated dimension of so-called “smart” cities: how smart city governance builds and relies on institutionalized sharing of data, information, and other forms of knowledge across all sectors of public administration. Those smart city practices are referred to here as knowledge commons and systematized using the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) research framework. That framework extends and modifies Ostrom’s research tradition as to community-based resource governance. As with other GKC-focused research, this work relies on a qualitative case study. It draws a detailed, context-specific portrait of a smart city as knowledge commons …

Undersea Cables: The Ultimate Geopolitical Chokepoint, Bert Chapman

FORCES Initiative: Strategy, Security, and Social Systems

This work provides historical and contemporary overviews of this critical geopolitical problem, describes the policy actors addressing this in the U.S. and selected other countries, and provides maps and information on many undersea cable work routes. These cables are chokepoints with one dictionary defining chokepoints as “a strategic narrow route providing passage through or to another region."

Covid-19 Sewage Testing As A Police Surveillance Infrastructure, Elizabeth E. Joh

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

This essay argues that sewage testing will outlive the pandemic and become a part of a general policing surveillance infrastructure. We risk adopting this surveillance method without taking care to assess the legal and policy questions raised by its use. Wastewater can provide early clues not just for COVID-19 outbreaks, but also for the presence (and assumed use) of opioids, methamphetamines, and other illegal drugs. Sewage testing at the University of California, San Diego, recently led to an alert that an infected person was “someone who used a restroom [at a specified residence hall] from 6 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. …

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

Paradox In The Bayou: Development And Displacement In America’S Wetlands, Allison Oliver Haertling

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The bayou communities situated at the southern ends of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana possess a rich and uniquely diverse cultural heritage. However, economic factors, combined with environmental issues such as land loss from oil and gas dredging, subsidence, and rising seas, have spurred significant migration “up the bayou” in recent decades, threatening the loss of these cultures and leaving behind a population that is growing increasingly more vulnerable. This study investigates the current and anticipated social, physical and fiscal impacts of persistent land loss and population decline on lower Terrebonne Parish, as well as planning strategies for maintaining existing infrastructure and …

Before Disaster Strikes: Preparing America To Be Disaster Resilient, Cole Hoyt

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Major natural disasters in the United States are occurring more frequently and are causing more damage and destruction than ever before in the nation’s history. With the increased number and intensity of natural disasters, America’s failing infrastructure and current resiliency plan are inadequate to successfully prepare and respond to such catastrophic events. As a direct result, natural disasters in the United States cause scores of deaths and injuries, inflict billions of dollars’ worth of damage per disaster, and make it increasingly more difficult for Americans to recover and return to a sense of normalcy.

The World Health Organization (“WHO”), offers …

Understanding The Revenue Potential Of Tax Compliance Investment, Natasha Sarin, Lawrence H. Summers

All Faculty Scholarship

In a July 2020 report, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that modest investments in the IRS would generate somewhere between $60 and $100 billion in additional revenue over a decade. This is qualitatively correct. But quantitatively, the revenue potential is much more significant than the CBO report suggests. We highlight five reasons for the CBO’s underestimation: 1) the scale of the investment in the IRS contemplated is modest and far short of sufficient even to return the IRS budget to 2011 levels; 2) the CBO contemplates a limited range of interventions, excluding entirely progress on information reporting and technological advancements; …

Mhpaea & Marble Cake: Parity & The Forgotten Frame Of Federalism, Taleed El-Sabawi

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Reviewing Intergovernmental Institutions In Federal Systems: Opportunity For Cooperation, Harrison Schafer

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

This Article surveys intergovernmental institutions across federal states. Generally, these institutions offer meaningful cooperation for the different levels of government when addressing state problems. These institutions, however, often lack political authority to bind institutional members or implement authoritative state actions.

This Article proceeds in two general parts. First, this Article taxonomizes intergovernmental institutions across federal systems. Though few intergovernmental institutions are constitutionally mandated bodies, several federal states have enacted legislation to formalize these institutions while others simply utilize informal arrangements. This taxonomy will primarily discuss contemporary institutions within federal systems and focus exclusively on executive institutions. The taxonomy categorizes these …

Towards An Experimental Testbed To Study Cyber Worm Behaviors In Large Scale Networks, Harish Kunta, Bhavya Induri, Anu G. Bourgeois, David Maimon, Ashwin Ashok

EBCS Presentations

A worm is a malicious agent that propagates across networks of devices creating negative impacts on the devices it is able to reach and infect. Currently, there is very limited information in cybersecurity research regarding worm behavior across real networks of devices, particularly in large scale networks (e.g. campus networks, office networks, IoT etc.). This paper positions an experimental testbed that can be used for studying worm behaviors in large scale networks. In particular, this research aims to setup an infrastructure to empirically study worm generation, propagation, attacks, policies and antidote (intervention) mechanisms through a unified experimental testbed. As a …

Strategic Implications For The United States Of The Belt And Road Initiative In Africa, Alec Monnie

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The belt and road initiative is one of the most significant developments of the twenty-first century, which the United States will need to learn to adapt to. Much of the academic literature regarding the belt and road initiative mentions that Africa is a significant participant in this policy development, but fail to elaborate as to why that is, or what the implications for this are for the United States. This article expands upon the strategic significance of the African continent, and explains the implications thereof for the United States and China. This article argues that the belt and road initiative …

New Standards For An Old Problem: The Role Of The Federal Communications Commission In Fulfilling Space Policy Directive-3, Michael S. Dodge

Space Traffic Management Conference

The recent Space Policy Directive-3, issued on June 18^th, 2018, commands several sectors of the federal executive apparatus to reassess their current and future efforts to address space traffic management and space situational awareness issues. The reasons for this Directive can be boiled down to the belief that the continued use of the orbital realm depends on responsible management, which in turn depends on myriad factors that include the development of new technologies, the refinement of data gathering, and the clarification of governmental operational roles. In particular, the Directive calls for enhanced standardization of safety and best practices, …

The State And Future Of Autonomous Vehicle Regulation In The United States, Nikolay Nyashin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Autonomous vehicle technology is poised to revolutionize transit around the world. There are currently tens of private companies either testing or building autonomous vehicles, including industry juggernauts like Ford and Google. This new mode of transportation falls into a regulatory grey area. Once cars reach full autonomy, governments will have to decide what entities will regulate them, where they will be allowed to drive, who will be responsible for them and a host of other issues. In some municipalities like San Francisco and Phoenix, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are being tested on public streets in real life conditions. Meanwhile, in 2017, …

Environmental Justice Activism Against Freeway Proposals In Contemporary America, Molly Wampler

Summer Research

Transportation infrastructure provides an excellent lens through which to look at environmental justice. There is legislation in place that should prevent or at least draw significant attention to environmental justice, yet new freeways are still being proposed which continue to commit the same environmental injustices as decades past. With grassroots opposition as a primary form of resistance, this paper investigates the tools available to activists, as well as the ones most effective in ensuring success of the movement. I also consider what accounts for the difference in outcomes of resistance movements, why some community movements are successful in stopping a …

Engineering Standards In Highway Design Litigation, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn