Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

The Streets Are Talking: The Aesthetics Of Gentrification In Two Downriver New Orleans Neighborhoods, Tara E. Foster

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1970s, when neoliberal policies and changing consumer patterns began remaking cities, scholars have conducted research about gentrification. In New Orleans, these studies have helped explain the demographic and economic shifts in some neighborhoods. However, there has been limited focus on the built environment aspects of gentrification in New Orleans, specifically the interpretation of the external aesthetic shifts in streetscapes as part of the gentrification process. This thesis examines the relationship between these aesthetics, primarily graffiti and street art, and the gentrification process, as perceived by various stakeholders in two New Orleans neighborhoods: St. Roch and Bywater. Using empirical, …

Reflections On Community Planning In San Francisco, Rachel Brahinsky, Miriam Chion, Lisa Feldstein

Politics

This paper builds on a dialogue between barrio planners and municipal planners on spatial and economic changes in San Francisco’s Mission District. The Mission is a predominantly Latino neighborhood with vibrant streets that have reflected and been transformed by the investments and displacement of recent decades. Though the Mission has seen tremendous upheaval with the influx of new capital and communities, this paper contends that efforts of community members shaped the development of the neighborhood with street-level planning expertise. We find that an attempt by community members to define their own development proposals and engage in land use decisions– rather …

Who Produces Urban Space?: Gentrification And Contestations Over Urban 'Authenticity', Daniel Kudla

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The main purpose of this work is to explain how urban authenticity has changed as a result of different social agents taking control of urban production. I will establish a framework of authenticity by combining the ideas of William Sewell’s theory of structure, Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism, Erich Fromm’s theory of freedom, Henri Lefebvre’s idea of the ‘total man’, and Herbert Marcuse’s theory of an advanced capitalist form of production. This framework of authenticity will allow me to argue that urban authenticity has been recently co-opted by multinational developers, real estate commodity, private corporations, and entrepreneurial municipal governments. The starting point …

Investigating The Housing Market For Student Tenants Surrounding An Urban University, Olivia M. Dobbs Ms.

Honors College Theses

The private housing market for students around Wayne State University, an urban campus in Detroit, Michigan, stands in a fast-changing period. The area has grown economically from institutional and medical center investment in the past few years, causing occupancy and rents to rise. This follows years of disinvestment that allowed rent rates to fall to comfortable rates for students. The University has published its interest in developing the “campus life” including more off-campus private market housing for students, while developers see potential for even higher rents for young professionals. This study assesses the current perceptions of a sample of rental …

New York Neighborhoods Fight Land Grabs: Public Parks Going To Professional Teams, Donovan Finn

School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences Faculty Publications

In the diverse New York City borough of Queens, local activists banded together in the early 2000's to fight back against a trio of city-led urban development projects intended to provide public parkland to private real estate developers.

Altering The Urban Frontier: Gentrification And Public Parks In New York City, Sarah E. Evers

Pitzer Senior Theses

After decades of cuts to federal funding, cities were left with few resources for public services, particularly parks and open spaces. Current trends of massive gentrification in New York City are changing the housing market and other components of the private sector. In addition to altering socio-spatial dynamics in the housing and consumer markets, gentrification can alter public spaces as well. By comparing three New York City neighborhoods at different stages of gentrification, I analyzed socio-spatial dynamics, public and private funding, event programming, and ethnographically observed changes in the physical and social landscape of the park, and neighborhood, over time.

Young Professionals As Ambivalent Change Agents In New Orleans After The 2005 Hurricanes, Renia Ehrenfeucht, Marla Nelson

Renia Ehrenfeucht

After the 2005 hurricanes, newcomers arrived in New Orleans to help rebuild the city. The influx of one identifiable group, young professionals and postgraduates, raised hopes and concerns that New Orleans would gentrify. Based on semistructured interviews with 78 young and mid-career professionals, this paper examines how the young professionals approached an ambivalent situation where they were working to rebuild a better city while retaining its distinct cultural qualities, given that their presence itself contributed to the cultural change. They reconciled these tensions with an appreciation for localism that, for newcomers in particular, was expressed through knowing and responding to …

2013 Planetizen Blog Posts, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn