Place and Environment Commons^™

City Flags And The Politics Of Urban Revitalization: The Case Of Syracuse, Ny, Grace Risinger

Honors Theses

People tend to care about flags, but are not aware that their city has a flag. A recent wave of flag redesigns has been happening in the United States since a 2015 TED Talk was posted widely criticizing city flags. This subject prompted my professor, Daniel Alvord, to ask for a research assistant for his project to understand this phenomenon. For my thesis, I focus on a specific flag redesign initiative in Syracuse, NY, through an ethnographic case study. By applying previous urban sociological literature to my focus on flag redesigns, I can connect the Syracuse community member’s increased civic …

Gentrification And Income Segregation In Fayetteville, Arkansas, Willie Benson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gentrification and income segregation are both poorly understood phenomena in terms of their causes and effects as is the relationship between the two topics. Even less is known in the context of small cities and over the time period spanning the last few decades. In this study public data from the U.S. Census, the American Community Survey and the Washington County Assessor's office has been used to measure economic gentrification in Fayetteville, Arkansas using an index based on property values and median rent prices and how much they have changed between 2000 and 2015. Then, using U.S. Census and American …

Community-Based Initiatives For Neighborhood And Community Rehabilitation: A Case Study Of The Mission District, San Francisco, California, Francesca Monique Gallardo

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Through the case study of San Francisco, CA’s Mission District, this research project addresses how community-based affordable housing development is operationalized to rehabilitate communities and neighborhoods experiencing effects of gentrification, mass displacement, and cultural dilution. My goals were to identify how the processes of building a sense of community, trust, and cohesion- rehabilitating and critical to affordable housing development efforts in the Mission District? And, how are nonprofit community development organizations engaging with these processes in collaboration with citizen and community partners? The final objective is to provide evidence-based strategies to assist other at-risk minority communities and neighborhoods in the …

Following The Flâneur: The Methodological Possibilities And Applications Of Flânerie In New Urban Spaces, Jessica Rizk, Anton Birioukov

The Qualitative Report

This paper considers the historic concept of flânerie, the act of “strolling” through urban spaces, as an unconventional approach to gathering qualitative data. In adopting a flânerie identity, the researcher is able to critically analyze urban spaces and the relation of self to those spaces. Through a (re)conceptualization of the 19th century flâneur, we explicate the methodological possibilities and applications of flânerie, in particular, as suited to excavating new urban tropes, whilst giving expression to new urban subjectivities. The authors adopt a flânerie identity, engaging in a qualitative inquiry vis-à-vis two “strolls” occurring in Toronto, Canada. The strolls provide opportunities …

Talking The Walk: An Autoethnography Of Pedestrianism In Chicagoland, Andrew Kuka

Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development—Student Research

This autoethnographic account of pedestrianism in Chicagoland aims to remind us of the sensory, social, and emotional experiences walking can provide, and how an environment centered around automobiles affects those experiences. It utilizes participant observations and refers to literature from a wide range of disciplines to construct a story of walks in downtown Aurora and Chicago, Illinois that illuminates factors at play in the shaping of the pedestrian experience in urban areas.

Pension Fund Evictions: Lessons For Housing And Labor, Marnie F. Brady

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I analyze an institutional investor portfolio of over-leveraged multifamily rental housing in East Palo Alto, California to demonstrate how changing forms of landlordism produce both new and familiar targets for tenants organizing against displacement and for housing security. Venture capital investors in the first decade of the 2000s exploited the Silicon Valley regional conditions of racial exclusion, uneven development, and municipal rent control. I introduce the legacy of Black political organization in East Palo Alto as a way of contextualizing the tenants’ and the city leaders’ response to the monopoly investment purchase. The structure of this rental …

Divine Intervention: Designed For Social Evolution By Integrating Natural Order, Anatoshia L. Wyatt

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

There is a long tradition in architecture of using ordering systems found in nature and science to create built space. This thesis builds upon such line of thought to propose new design methods based on ordering systems with a particular focus on social relations. It focuses on the design of a community center in the city of Atlanta which is considered as a catalyst for jumpstarting the betterment of society through improvement of social bonds, community involvement, activism, meditation, and the integration of nature in the community. The design is situated on the Bellwood Quarry site and creates an ecological …

Eating Your Greens: Community Gardens And Gentrification In Oakland, Nicholas C. Felicich

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The issue of gentrification is paramount to the viability of poor and at risk communities in Oakland. Literature on gentrification has historically focused on larger societal and economic movements, but little has been studied about the role planned green space and gardens play in the spatial transformation of the urban environment. In this case study of two gardens in West Oakland, I explore questions of community involvement in the gardens, the role of garden aesthetics in attracting development and new residents to the neighborhood, the unique relationship between the City government and the gardens, the larger symbolic significance of green …

Sense Of Belonging In The Urban School Environments Of Aboriginal Youth, Chantelle Am Richmond, Dawn Smith, * The Wabano Centre For Aboriginal Health

Chantelle Richmond

It is well established that educational attainment and social support are critical social determinants of health among Aboriginal Canadians. Still, the gap in educational attainment with non-Aboriginal Canadians continues to grow, and little is known about the role of social support as a health determinant among Aboriginal youth. In collaboration with The Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health (Ottawa, Canada), we undertook focus groups with urban Aboriginal youth at-risk to examine perceptions of their urban school environments, including access to social support. Data were analyzed using a general inductive approach. Results indicate that youths’ perceived level of trust is key to …

The Determinants Of Within Metropolitan Immigrant Moves, Richard J. Smith, Catherine Schmitt-Sands

Social Work Faculty Publications

While the role of immigration and neighborhood change has been studied since the days of the Chicago School of Sociology, recent restrictions to immigration in concert with state and local initiatives to both enforce immigration policy or welcome immigrants raises new questions about neighborhood sorting within metropolitan areas. Policy makers are interested in recruiting high skilled and wealthy immigrants to attract investment and create jobs for native-born citizens. Some have endorsed welcoming immigrants as a solution to regional economic development and to stabilize high poverty urban neighborhoods. Are these immigrant recruitment policies realistic given existing patterns of immigrant housing location …

Evaluating The Role Of Latinidad And The Latino Threat In The State Of Missouri, Joel Jennings, J.S. Onésimo Sandoval

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Growing Latino populations in midwestern cities of the United States are leading to the creation of contested ethnic spaces and urban landscapes. In this article we examine the historical, demographic, and social contexts associated with a growing sense of Latinidad and the countervailing Latino threat narrative in Kansas City and St. Louis, the two largest metropolitan areas in Missouri. Latinidad, or a notion of belonging based on ethnic identity in Missouri, is being challenged by nativist discourses that frame the growing Latino population as a threat. We highlight the different historical trajectories and geographical characteristics that have created distinct demographic …

Measuring Spillover Effects Of Residential Amenity Improvements Using Spatial Hedonic Approach, Shruti Bishan Tandon

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop a methodology for the estimation of the appropriate welfare benefits in the presence of spillover externalities. The ability to capture influences of the not so easily observed variables allow spatial lag models to measure the direct and indirect spillover effects. The direct effect measures the value of the property in question and the indirect captures the influences of neighboring properties, through a spatial multiplier effect.

Kim et al. (2003) through a path breaking approach estimated welfare benefits of air quality improvement. Their methodology captured spillover effects of amenity changes that lump both …

The Potential Of Downtown Las Vegas Becoming A Creative Milieu, Ana Magdalena Barragan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The city of Las Vegas is attempting to revitalize downtown through a creative economy by bringing cultural and experiential activities to the area in a mixed use arrangement with residential, business and civic uses. This study looks at the possibility of not only revitalizing downtown, but on it becoming a true creative milieu - a place that fosters creativity and innovation. It does so by first identifying three major forces working upon the realization of these goals: 1) the regional socio-economic conditions, 2) the government strategies, and 3) the creative population's participation.

The study conducts a quantitative assessments of each, …

Las Vegas Metropolitan Area Social Survey 2010 Highlights, Robert Futrell, Christie D. Batson, Barbara G. Brents, Andrea Dassopoulos, Chrissy Nicholas, Mark J. Salvaggio, Candace Griffith

Reports (USI)

UNLV sociologists conducted the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area Social Survey (LVMASS) to identify the socio-spatial distribution of attitudes and attributes relevant to urban sustainability in the Las Vegas Valley. The project goal is to understand how Las Vegas residents think about urban sustainability issues across three dimensions: 1) natural environment; 2) community and quality of life; 3) economy.

Architectural Sociology And Post-Modern Architectural Forms, Ronald Smith, Valerie Bugni

Sociology Faculty Research

Architectural sociology examines how architectural forms are both the cause and effect of sociocultural phenomena. As illustration of both but especially the former relationship, we could examine the role of architecture in the creation of contemporary Las Vegas, a city that has experienced almost unparalleled growth in residents (1.4 mil.) and tourists (35 mil.annually) since 1990. We consider the postmodern characteristics of Las Vegas and architecture’s role in creating this image.

Personality Development In Farm, Small-Town, And City Children, Leland H. Stott

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

One purpose of the present research project was to contribute further toward an adequate knowledge of the relative merits of urban and rural environments. In this bulletin the three general home settings already mentioned, namely the farm in the open country, the small town (600 to 1,300 in population), and the city, are compared as to their "favorableness" in regard to the personality development of the children who grow up in them. The data for the comparisons are the average scores made by representative samples of young people from each environment on a set of tests and scales designed to …