Urban Studies Commons^™

Gentrifying While Black: Exploring The Concept Of An African Homeland Through Gentrification In Accra, Ghana, Amaya Davis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

No abstract provided.

Youth Perceptions And Constructions Of Urban Space In Morocco, Hadwynne Gross

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Moroccan urban spaces are influenced by 800 years of history, and in particular, legacies of colonialism. This research seeks to examine urban space in Morocco through the lens of youth between the ages of 18 and 25 in the capital city of Rabat. Inspired by the book The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch, this research uses a variety of qualitative methods, namely a semi- structured interview and two mental mapping exercises, to explore how youth in Rabat perceive the city’s ability to both adhere to its historical roots and adapt to a rapidly changing world. Exploring urban geography …

“¿Te Invité Yo A Vivir Aquí?” … Vivir Contra La Pendiente: Resistencia Entre El Mapa Y El Territorio, El Caso Del Cerro Las Cañas, Darlene Guadalupe Valencia

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the Mega Fire of Valparaíso in 2014, more than 1,000 hectares were burned, leaving 12,500 people not only without their homes, but without their neighborhood. 15 people were killed and more than 500 people were injured. This socio-natural catastrophe was a clear demonstration of the marginality and abandonment in which the peripheral sectors of the urban configuration of the city find themselves. Given that most of the communities that live in these sectors have their homes as a result of “tomas de terrenos”, which is the unauthorized occupation and habitation of land, entails a significant level of vulnerability as …

Murals & Mother Nature: Urban Environmental Art In Lisbon Reveals Great Concern And Appreciation For The Environment, Ana Gunther

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Urban art is a novel dimension of the environmental movement. Utilizing highly trafficked areas, urban art has the potential to spread environmental messages both because of the size of the audience and because of the contrast between nature-centered art and the urban context. The paper discusses 15 environmental urban artworks in Lisbon and conducts a visual and thematic analysis. The analysis revealed five themes present in Lisbon: the power and beauty of nature, connection with nature, environmental loss and degradation, waste management, and climate change. The most prevalent theme in Lisbon was the connection with nature, followed by a tie …

La Autenticidad Y El Yo: Un Análisis Sobre La Experiencia Urbana De Las Mujeres Indígenas En Ecuador, Madison L. Mcclellan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As research on the urban indigenous experience continues to expand, considerations of how indigenous populations understand, express and introspect upon their being indigenous in the city still proves an underexplored topic. The generalizing notion that indigenous persons are staticーin temporal, migratory and identity termsーcategorically conflicts with the growing trends of rural to urban migration patterns. Even more, deep-rooted indigenous-rural associations engender identity disorientations among indigenous women living in the city. The city becomes a space of self-confrontation and re-construction as indigenous women encounter questions of authenticity and shame.

Based in literature on identity, performance, authenticity and shame, this research considers …

La Construcción Del Imaginario De Una Ciudad Multicultural: El Barrio Chino De Buenos Aires Como Exhibición Pública De Cultura, Yiran Lin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En el marco de la globalización, ha surgido una nueva competencia entre las ciudades contemporáneas donde su multiculturalidad se convierte en símbolo de prosperidad. El imaginario urbano se creó en la intersección de los espacios públicos y los espacios sociopolíticos, de las culturas y sus representaciones, de lo ideal y la realidad. Estas dualidades nos hacen preguntarnos: ¿cómo afecta la espacialización pública de la cultura a la comunidad misma y a la sociedad receptora? ¿Quién se incluye en este imaginario y a quién se excluye? En este estudio, examinamos el Barrio Chino de Buenos Aires como caso de estudio de …

La Sostenibilidad De La Reconstrucción 2014-2019 Tras El Gran Incendio En Valparaíso: Una Mirada Desde La Habitabilidad, Resiliencia Y Preparación En La Gestión De Desastres, Dana Kulma

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The beautiful port city of Valparaíso, Chile is home to 42 colorful hills that overlook the Pacific Ocean. This unique city, however, is also home to multiple disasters, including urban and forest fires, tsunamis, landslides and earthquakes. This descriptive study explores the case of the 2014 “mega-fire” that destroyed 3,000 homes and affected the lives of 11,000 residents. Through five semi-structured interviews and the review of several academic and official documents, the present study analyzes the process of post-disaster reconstruction, seeking to understand the habitability and the resiliency of the reconstructed houses and neighborhoods. In order to understand the challenges …

La Lucha Por Urbanización: El Derecho De Elegir Donde Y Como Vivir, E. Joella Hartzler

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Despite Chilean government efforts to eradicate campaments, or informal settlements, the number of campamentos has drastically increased in the recent years. These informal settlements originate from the urban migration in 1940-60, but persist today due to the difficulty to access affordable housing and the lack of appeal of social housing projects. To be considered a campamento, there must be eight or more families living on unregulated land without at least one of the three basic services: electricity, potable water, or a sewage system. The department of Housing and Urban Development, the Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo, recently reinforced the efforts …

Perspectives On Community Policing Of Durban Juveniles Living On The Streets, Dena Cheng

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The aim of this project is to critically analyze the structure and performance of the South African Police Service (SAPS) at the nexus of juvenile criminal justice and homelessness. Facing issues of social discord, legitimacy, and patterns of corruption following the era of apartheid, SAPS plays a critical role in both preventing as well as eliminating crime. Therefore, this project focuses on a particularly marginalized community, under-aged street children, since the treatment of youth crime and/or criminality in Durban serves as a microcosm of a larger system of practices implemented by SAPS. Through in-depth interviews with local social workers, a …

“El Dialogo Es Unilateral... No Cambian Una Coma”: La Participación Y Protección De Derechos En El Proyecto Del Hábitat Del Barrio 31 En Buenos Aires, Jacqueline Negro

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación estudia el proyecto de urbanización en el Barrio 31 de la Secretaría de integración social y urbana de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires que empezó en el año 2015. Tiene un enfoque especifico en el proyecto de Hábitat, lo que tiene el objetivo mejorar las situaciones de vivienda en el Barrio. Es constituido de dos equipos: Mejoramiento de Vivienda y Reasentamiento. Este informe analiza la cuestión de la participación de los vecinos en tomar decisiones que afectan a sus viviendas y estilos de vida desde la perspectiva de los derechos humanos internacionales. A través de entrevistas con trabajadores …

Quiscalus Mexicanus Vocalization Pitch And Traffic Noise In Breeding Populations Along The Cinta Costera Highway And In Downtown Gamboa, Panamá, Benjamin P. Gregory

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Urbanization is one of the fastest-growing threats to the biodiversity of the planet, but not all animals are extirpated by the drastic environmental changes of urbanization, and many are even able to thrive in urban landscapes. Behavioral flexibility is often cited as one reason that successful urban animals can so rapidly adapt to a foreign environment with novel stressors. A well-studied example of urban behavioral flexibility is urban-living birds singing with higher-frequency songs in areas with high levels of traffic noise. The present study investigated this trend in Quiscalus mexicanus, an icterid bird with a huge vocal range, highly sexually …

Seeing Every Corner Of Tangier: A Photographic Collection Going Beyond The Media Sphere, Cynthia J. Coleman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Tangier is an iconic city, with an image recognized internationally. Its image is created, not only by the city itself, but by its representation in the media. That said, it is worth considering, how true to Tangier is its image? This study considers this issue by addressing the following question: how does the image of Tangier, as represented in photographs, compare with that portrayed in the media? To accomplish this, a collection of 18 photographs over the area of Tangier, an area of 44 square miles, was taken. The photos were taken to as objectively as possible represent the city …

La Construcción De Espacios Para La Memoria: El Rol De Los Actores En Tres Ex Centros Clandestinos De La Ciudad De Buenos Aires, Quentin Bernhard

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En esta investigación, cuento la historia como espacios de memoria de tres ex centros clandestinos en la ciudad de Buenos Aires y noto aspectos importantes de ellos que me conocí a través de entrevistas con trabajadores en los sitios en visitas ambas formales y informales. Analizo el rol de los actores sociales como el gobierno, el barrio y los visitantes en el funcionamiento de cada sitio, y a partir de eso exploro la identidad única de cada uno y cómo construyen la memoria por medio del espacio de memoria.

Este trabajo se base en parte en la cantidad de obras …

Empleo Regional Y Transporte Público: Un Estudio De Caso Comparado De Accesibilidad Al Transporte De Parques Industriales En El Gran Buenos Aires Basado En La Medida De Sistema De Información Geográfica, Clara Wang

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La accesibilidad al transporte es considerada como un elemento crítico del desarrollo urbano y además la clave del empleo. Este informe intenta analizar el problema de la baja tasa del empleo local enfrente de Malvinas Argentinas (MA)en relación con el bajo nivel de conectividad entre la zona industrial y residencial del municipio. Para contextualizar el problema de este desequilibrio en la región metropolitana de Buenos Aires, La Matanza (LM) será el caso de estudio por tratarse de un municipio similar en localización y estructura industrial. El Sistema de Información Geográfica (SIG) se utiliza para análisis de espacio y visualización de …

“Todos Somos Trigueños”: La Presencia De Los Pueblos Indígenas En El Arte Urbano De Perú, Aubrey Parke

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Con una base en teorías de las ciencias sociales, incluso sociología, antropología y estudios urbanos, este proyecto investiga la representación de los pueblos indígenas en el arte urbano de Perú. Mi objetivo es entender como artistas urbanos en Lima conceptualizan a los pueblos indígenas a través de sus murales. Hice entrevistas con siete artistas urbanos en Lima durante un periodo de dos semanas, y también discutí con ellos ejemplos de su trabajo. Analizo las entrevistas y los murales dentro del contexto de la globalización, la historia del indigenismo en el arte peruano y las historias personales de cada artista. Encontré …

"Waste Is Not Just Waste Anymore": Deconstructing The Relationship Between Sustainable Waste Prevention And Individual Socio-Demographic Characteristics (The Juxtaposition Of Ushongo Mtoni Village And Moshi Urban, Tanzania), Mahalia Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

I am going to tell you a story about humans — their lives, livelihoods, environments, and their individual relationships to sustainable waste prevention. As developing countries, such as Tanzania experience economic growth, waste overflow and proper waste disposal become even more arduous challenges. Thus, it is becoming increasingly important to explore sustainable solutions such as waste prevention. Through conducting semi-structured interviews in two distinctly unique locations, Moshi Urban of the Kilimanjaro Region and Ushongo Village on the coast of Tanga Region, Tanzania, I explored how levels of awareness and involvement in sustainable waste prevention practices, specifically reducing, reusing, and recycling, …

Land-Use And Land-Ownership Changes In Usoma Village, Kenya, Ernest Tan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study attempted to find out how land-use activities and land-ownership patterns have changed since land adjudication in Usoma Village, a peri-urban community on the fringe of Kisumu City. The methods used were photo-observation and geo-tagging based on walkabouts onsite, documentary analysis of maps obtained from the Ministry of Lands, interviews with key authority figures, independent experts and community leaders, and interviews as well as focus-group discussions with community members. In terms of land ownership, it was found that subdivisions of land, both formal and informal, had been common over the period. Land transfers based on compulsory acquisition and investment …

Quality Of Water In Relation To Diarrheal Disease Incidence In Obunga, Tianna Herman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Kenyan cities are experiencing a serious dilemma in dealing with the large influx of people from rural parts of the country to the cities. Most people come to the city in pursuit of better opportunities and jobs. Rapid urban growth with little planning and preparation by the national and county governments has led to the development of informal settlements. These informal settlements are characterized by poor environmental conditions that predispose their residents for poor health conditions. Because of their illegal status, most residents of informal settlements in Kenya do not receive government services such as water, drainage, sewerage, and rubbish …

Solid Waste Management In The Developing World: The Role Of Local Government In Kisumu, Kenya, Rachel Schlueter

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the world becomes more urbanized, more waste is being produced. According to United Nations projections in 2014, 66% of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050 with the majority of growth occurring in African cities. Managing urban waste in lower-middle income countries, such as Kenya, poses a particular challenge as income levels rise, municipal capacities are stretched, and foreign loans complicate accountability. This project sought to assess the practical role of local government when managing solid waste in the context of long-term development strategies. The objectives of this study are to first establish the current role …

Use Of Cycling Paths Along The Morogoro Brt Line, Ford Sanger

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the urban population continues to increase rapidly in Dar es Salaam it will become increasingly important to find sustainable means of urban transportation. With planned infrastructure improvements in the city to help alleviate traffic congestion, bicycles, which represent a largely underutilized form of urban transportation, have the potential to play a large role in the future of the city. Through background research, direct observations, community surveys, and interviews, both formal and informal, this study sought to understand the impact of the recent addition of bike lanes along the first phase of the Dar Bus Rapid Transit line. It was …

“La Guerra De Los Centavos” Y Contratos Sociales: Los Impactos Del Desarrollo Del Sistema Intermodal De Transporte Urbano En Loja, Ecuador / "The War Of The Cents" And Social Contracts: The Impacts Of The Development Of The Intermodal Urban Transportation System In Loja, Ecuador, Will Yetvin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El propósito de este estudio fue investigar el Sistema Intermodal de Transporte Urbano (SITU) en la ciudad de Loja, Ecuador. El contenido del estudio se basa en mis observaciones y entrevistas durante mi tiempo trabajando con la Unidad de Transporte del Municipio de Loja, y en fuentes bibliográficas relacionadas con los temas de transporte urbano, transporte sostenible, bus de rápido tránsito y gobiernos descentralizados. Además, utilicé un tesoro de documentos internos del Municipio y el Consorcio. Mi análisis es influenciado por el marco conceptual de desarrollo sostenible.

Este informe es organizado alrededor de tres temas vinculados pero distintos; 1) Un …

Informal Transportation In Uganda: A Case Study Of The Boda Boda, Bradley Raynor

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, the closest mode of transport to mass transit that citizens have access to is the 14-seater taxis which fill the streets of Kampala, create traffic jams, and are unable to fulfill the transportation needs of the city’s growing population. In response, motorcycle taxis, called Boda Bodas, which are able to navigate traffic jams, access remote locations where taxis don’t go, and deliver passengers to their destinations in a timely manner, filled the gap in public transportation. Unfortunately, while many riders have organized themselves in associations, the industry remains largely unregulated by the Kampala …

“Nous Souffrons” Examining The Problems Facing Urban Refugees In Yaoundé, Cameroon, Morgan Walbert

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper is the product of a study that examines the experiences of urban refugees in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Refugees around the world, often victims of unthinkable human rights abuses, are forced to rely fully on the hospitality and protection of the international community. This unique relationship between a refugee and his/her host state can present serious challenges to both parties. This research examined the resources available to refugees in Yaoundé, evaluated their effectiveness, and explored possibilities for improving the experience of these urban refugees. I utilized eighteen structured interviews with refugees and four follow-­‐up in depth interviews with three refugees …

“Yo Apoyo Al Tipnis ¡Y Qué!”: El Surgimiento De Apoyo Urbano Para La Viii Marcha Indígena En Defensa Del Tipnis, Jeanne Stuart

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Después de la autorización por el Presidente Evo Morales de la construcción de una carretera que atravesaría el Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro-Sécure (TIPNIS), la VIII Marcha Indígena en Defensa del Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro-Sécure (TIPNIS) por la Vida, Dignidad, y los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas caminó 600 kilómetros por sesenta y seis días en oposición a la construcción de la carretera y a la falta de una consulta previa con las comunidades que viven allí. La Octava Marcha inspiró un apoyo urbano y una movilización social sin precedentes, a través de una amplia variedad de …

Housing And Urbanization: A Socio-Spatial Analysis Of Resettlement Projects In Hồ Chí Minh City, Michael J. Stumpf

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As Hồ Chí Minh City continues to undergo rapid urbanization, especially with the creation of a multitude of new urban zone developments on the periphery of the inner districts, the resettling of people has become common. Families who live within areas that are selected for urban upgrading or, as in other cases for the construction of new miniature cities, must face the realities of relocation. Many issues arise in the complicated process of resettling the displaced, due to complex land-use laws, bureaucratic dissonance, and lack of investment in actual resettlement housing. The authorities of Hồ Chí Minh City have faced …

Youth Dating Culture In Urban Vietnam: Attitudes, Behaviors, And Influences, Alexa Difiore

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper attempts to research urban youth’s attitudes and behaviors concerning everything having to do with dating (the process, PDA, typical dating spots and behavior) and opinions towards “hot issues” in contemporary, Vietnam such as pre-marital sex and co-habitation. My research question focuses on what the term “dating” means among youth in urban Vietnam, and the various influences that affect youth’s dating and sexual lives. Through an extensive literature review, I learned that there is an overall lack of information and discussion about sex in Vietnam. There is also a general idea that from parents, the government, and school that …

The International Market, Globalization And Nafta: If Food Is Life, Why Have We Allowed It To Become So Dirty?, Abigail Dym

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

No abstract provided.

Along The River Soumsoum: Urban Agriculture In Ngaoundéré, Winnie Fay Bell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

With increasing urbanization large amounts of poverty is shifting from rural to urban centres, posing problems of unemployment and access to food. Due to this dynamic, urban poor all over the world have begun cultivating food in open areas in cities as a means of survival and in an attempt of securing food. With this in mind, this paper seeks to establish the place that urban agriculture holds in the small but rapidly expanding city of Ngaoundéré, in the Adamaoua Province of Cameroon. This is done through exploring the form, function and benefits of urban agriculture for those that partake …