Place and Environment Commons^™

Nof Kdumim: Remaking The Ancient Landscape In East Jerusalem’S National Parks, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

This article explores two national parks in East Jerusalem and their legal administration as the focus of contradictory and complementary attempts at preservation, colonization, and normalization. Drawing on in-depth interviews with, and observations of, officials from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and others, I expose the Judaizing of the landscape in Jerusalem. Nature never stands for itself; it is always an echo of a human presence and, in this case, of a Jewish past and its modern reunion. The project of imagining the natural landscape as one that embodies an ancient past—what Israeli officials have referred to in our …

¿Historia Y Cultura Al Viento? Los Efectos De La Construcción Del Aeropuerto Internacional De Chinchero En El Patrimonio Arqueológico Circundante, Becca Teachey

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Durante los últimos 40 años, el gobierno del Perú ha hablado de construir un nuevo aeropuerto internacional en Chinchero, Perú. Chinchero es una ubicación perfecta debido a su proximidad a numerosos sitios turísticos y su gran cantidad de tierra que tiene el potencial de servir como un sitio de construcción. Sin embargo, Chinchero también es conocido por su riqueza en historia, belleza natural y ruinas arqueológicas del imperio inca. Con la construcción de un nuevo aeropuerto internacional en Chinchero, el patrimonio cultural y la integridad de la arqueología allá están en peligro. Se dice que el aeropuerto atraerá más turistas …

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 …

Laguna De Los Datos: Usos Y Percepciones De Rnu Laguna De Los Patos, Río Grande, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina, Rosa Kirk-Davidoff

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La protección de las áreas naturales urbanas es un tema importante que requiere tanta atención a los aspectos humanos de estos espacios como a sus características naturales. Río Grande, Argentina tiene un sistema de reservas naturales urbanas (RNUs) que comenzó en 2012 para proteger el hábitat de las aves migratorias en la ciudad. En este proyecto, estudié las actividades y las percepciones de los visitantes de una de estas reservas, RNU Laguna de los Patos. Conté todas las personas que visitaron la reserva durante 13 días, registrando lo que hicieron y cuánto tiempo se quedaron. También encuesté a una muestra …

Rezoning, Real Estate, And The Dynamics Of Displacement In Inwood, Damaly Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis asks how New York City’s rezoning process combine with the dynamics of real-estate sales to create displacement pressures for low-income communities of color. A case study of the recent rezoning of Inwood, a neighborhood in upper Manhattan, in August 2018, will help to illustrate these dynamics. Through an analysis of building sales and extreme rent inflation embedded in a historical and contemporary analysis of zoning and the influence of real-estate developers and owners on these processes, this thesis paints a dire picture of the risks faced by the mostly-Dominican-American renters in Inwood. The principal contribution of the …

The Politics Of Where: The Federal Government And Canada's Urbanization, 1867-2017, Charles D. Crenna

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation responds to a single overarching research question: what is the nature and extent of the federal government’s influence on urbanization in Canada, both on its systems of cities and on their internal structure? Lessons learned regarding the federal role in Canada’s urbanization remain relevant and applicable to emerging conditions. They offer a sound, streetwise foundation for future urban policy development, based on understanding the vital politics of where.

Large, complex systems of cities are both self-organizing and responsive to strategic guidance by the federal government. Politically-difficult choices among competing urban locations can be made both by hiding …

The Public Library As Resistive Space In The Neoliberal City, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

With reduced hours, decaying infrastructure, and precariously positioned staff, local public libraries provide much needed services in cities devastated by inequality and slashed safety nets. In this article, I draw on ethnographic research of a small public library in a diverse, mostly working class neighborhood in Queens, New York. I show that in addition to providing an alternative to the capitalist market by distributing resources according to people’s needs, the library serves as a moral underground space, where middle class people bend rules to help struggling city residents. Although the library occasionally replicates hegemonic ideologies about immigrant assimilation, it provides …

Gentrification In Upper Manhattan? Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations In Washington Heights/Inwood, 1990 - 2015, Lawrence Cappello

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines the impact and extent of gentrification in the Washington Heights/Inwood area – traditionally one of Manhattan’s most quintessential Latino neighborhoods.

Methods: This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml).

Results: The Latino community of Washington Heights/Inwood is not being displaced in any meaningful way. While there has certainly been an increase in the number of wealthy non-Hispanic Whites over the last decade, as of 2015 Latinos maintained the …

Repurposed Spaces In Berlin And Johannesburg, Rebecca Kukla

Theses and Dissertations

Berlin and Johannesburg are repurposed cities, which were spatially designed to enforce a defunct social order, and which now must be used in new ways by new residents. Through a reading of several sites in each city, I examine how repurposed urban spaces and their inhabitants shape one another.

Developing A Creative Learning Format For Street Children, Shazina Masud

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Developing a Creative Learning Format for Street Children

As the number of street children grow globally, governments and UN agencies are looking at solutions to cater to their needs of shelter, health and safety. Efforts to provide formal education to street children are not always successful. This project hypothesizes that equipping these children with essential knowledge in an informal but creative learning environment will allow them to live safe and productive lives. The prototype of the creative learning format is based on approaches and tools that have worked with children in other settings and has been modified for street children. …

Demographic Trends Of Walkable Cities In The United States, Christine Leonhardt

Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium

Walkable cities have become attractive places to live in recent years as they benefit resident’s well-being. Walkable cities have a positive correlation with a population that is young, educated, safe, and healthy. In cities with high-walkability, residents are encouraged to walk more, rather than use a car for each outing, which counters obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, a grim atmosphere, and unsafe surroundings. Most research on walkability and demographics is limited to case studies comparing city neighborhoods, whereas this research encompasses 108 United States cities with a population over 200,000 people. This research goes beyond a city’s walk score, established …

“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 …

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 …

Feeling Green: The Benefits Of Green Space On Urbanites' Mental Health, Kathryn A. Hoagland

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

This investigation intends to determine the best methods for incorporating public green space into dense urban areas, for the betterment of residents' mental health. Data from studies showing differences in the prevalence of anxiety and depression in urban and rural areas are discussed alongside data from studies looking at the effect that certain types of green space might have on mental health. While there is no exact consensus on the extent to which nature has positive effects on mental health there is enough of a correlation to argue for the implementation of public green spaces in urban design, in order …

“A Different World”:Navigating Between White Colleges And Low-Income Racially Segregated Neighborhoods, Joshua M. Perez

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This research project focuses on the ways in which college students, Black, African-American and Hispanic/Latinx, from low-income racially segregated backgrounds navigate their neighborhood and predominantly white institutions (PWI). Importance for this study is focused on how coming from such environments due to socialization and identity can impact their ability to navigate their PWI as well as how they view their neighborhood once they returned during their college years. These students left their own world and step into a new one containing a whole new set of values, norms, and institutions separate from their own. Figuring out ways to navigate this …

A New Long Island: Demographic, Economic, And Social Transformations In New York City's Historic Suburbs, 1990 - 2016, Lawrence Cappello

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines key socioeconomic and demographic trends in New York City and Long Island from 1990 to 2016.

Methods: The findings reported here are based on data collected by the Census Bureau IPUMS (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series), available at http://www.usa.ipums.org for the corresponding years and the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

Results: The Long Island suburbs have grown significantly more diverse in the early twenty-first century. The total number of non-Hispanic Whites in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties is in steady decline, as is their share of Long Island’s total population. Latinos and Asians, on the …

Make New York Affordable Again, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Suggests a package of zoning reforms to hold down New York City housing costs, and responds to counterarguments.

Planetizen Blog Posts- First Half Of 2019, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn