Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Can Chinatown Speak? Mapping Hauntings, Dispossessions, And Diasporic Lifeworlds In Boston’S Chinatown, Lin Lin

Geography Undergraduate Senior Theses

Boston's Chinatown has persisted despite highway construction, urban renewal, and institutional expansion that destroyed much of the neighborhood. This thesis asks how residents have shaped and inhabited that space and whose contributions have been forgotten in the process. Through entangling frameworks from Geography and Asian American Studies, the thesis approaches Boston's Chinatown through walking, archiving, and counter-mapping. The first chapter reads the streets as a layered record of historical ruptures, which leads to a dichotomy of presence and absence. The second chapter then examines the archives of the 1993 Parcel C struggle. It creates an original counter-archive, titled the "Collection …

Delivering Urban Transformation For The Individual, Havovi Joshi

Asian Management Insights

The call for urban transformation has never been more pressing.

The 15-Minute City And Social Behavior Changes In The Tod Area: Blok M-Sisingamangaraja Tod Case Study, Dede Julfikar, Lin Yola

International Review of Humanities Studies

The changing process of the city can be due to economic development that results in urbanization then enlarges the city. This situation affects the growth and evolution of other activities in urban areas such as the emergence of new residential areas, industrial zones, and trade and service (commercial) areas. The government of DKI Jakarta is targetting to develop many public transportation infrastructure due to its target of 2040 70% of Jakarta residents live near by transit points. So that the distance of residential residents to urban facilities can be reached within 15 minutes of walking, cycling or using public transportation. …

Acceptability Of The Proposed Congestion Charging System In The Central Business District Of Baguio City, Philippines, Ericka Renee A. Lanigt, Sandra S. Samantela, Ma. Catriona E. Devanadera, Casper Boongaling Agaton

CSID Journal of Infrastructure Development

The City Government of Baguio is proposing a congestion charging system in the Central Business District (CBD) to address the ongoing issue of traffic congestion in the city. Although it is an effective tool, low public acceptability hinders its implementation. This study aims to assess Baguio City residents' acceptability regarding the CBD's congestion charging system. Specifically, it seeks to (1) identify the factors that influence residents’ acceptability of the proposed system, (2) evaluate whether there is a significant difference in acceptability across different road users (private vehicles, public transportation, cycling, and walking), and (3) provide recommendations for transportation policy planning …

Elemental Analysis Of Sediments In Johnson County, Kansas: Applications In Fluvial Suspended Sediment Tracing, Kiena Campbell

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This exploratory study investigates whether bulk elemental analysis of sediment samples using inductively coupled mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) can reveal chemical signatures that identify anthropogenic contributions to sedimentation and increased fluvial suspended sediment loads, and whether these contribution sources can be identified. Human activity, urbanization, and changes in land use increase erosion, resulting in higher-than-natural suspended sediments (SS) in waterways and increasing sedimentation in reservoirs across the state of Kansas. These threats to freshwater storage capacity are especially urgent given the projected rise in freshwater demand in the Great Plains region driven by climate change. Understanding the origin of anthropogenic SS …

The Formation Of The American League In Baseball; Changes In American Society And Culture That Contributed To The Demand For More Baseball In The Late 19th Century, Shawn M. Smith

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

The second professional major league (the American League) in baseball came about in response to the demand for more baseball entertainment due to the increased amount of leisure time Americans had in the late-19th century as society started the shift from an agricultural based lifestyle to a culture who worked predominantly in factory work.

The culture and society of the day changed drastically due to changing economic conditions of the time period. Due to monumental changes in industry, the vast majority of the population had shifted from working in an agrarian society to working in factories as a result of …

Space For The Departed: Burial, Land Scarcity, And Bone-Ash Apartments In China, Xinyi Wu

Pitzer Senior Theses

The rise of bone ash apartments in China reflects a layered response to urban land scarcity, shifting funeral policies, and real estate speculation. As the state mandates cremation and restricts private cemetery development, traditional burial customs are increasingly reshaped by spatial limitations, economic pressures, and political regulation.

For some families, bone ash apartments function as modern ancestral halls—domestic spaces for remembrance and ritual continuity. For others, they represent a pragmatic investment strategy, offering long-term storage of ashes within assets that retain market value.

This thesis examines how urban planning, state funeral policy, real estate dynamics, and the disintegration of neighborhood …

Urbanization And Work Ethic Culture Case Study: Sindang Workers, Kevin Adi Perdana, Rinaldo Sutanto Sinaga

Cities and Urban Development Journal

Background: Urbanization changes the demographic structure and lifestyle, and drives economic growth and the construction sector including Sindang Workers. Sindang Workers from Sindanglaut, Cirebon, play an important role in urban projects with a high work ethic. This study then links their work culture with the theory of social capital.

Aims: The study examines how social capital influences the work ethic culture of Sindang Workers through indicators of migration, work ethic culture, and work discipline.

Methods: This study uses a qualitative approach such as interviews and field observations to understand the factors driving the work ethic of Sindang Workers.

Results: The …

Growing Urbanization In The Jammu Province Of Jammu And Kashmir, India: An Environmental And Social Interpretation, Rani Mughal, Javed Manzoor, Rouf Ahmad Wagay

Journal of Bioresource Management

Urbanization is a global phenomenon with profound implications for both physical and social landscapes and plays a noteworthy role in the progression and advancement of human civilizations. Urbanization influences and changes the social, economic, political, and traditionalorganization of a society. This paper examines the process and consequences of urbanization in the Jammu province of J&K India, focusing on its physical transformation and social dynamics. This study employs a descriptive research approach to investigate the multifaceted aspects of urbanization by synthesizing data from various sources, including demographic surveys, interviews, and spatial analysis. The study showed that Jammu province is gradually proceeding …

Smu Launches Urban Institute Focused On The Study Of Asian Cities, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

As Asian cities urbanise at an unprecedented rate, urban policy-makers face the increasingly complex and pressing challenge of balancing urban growth with resilience and sustainability. With migration and the rapid flow of ideas online, old and new city-making practices have become uncomfortably entwined, resulting in contestation for space, resources, and municipal services. In response to megatrends that underscore the critical need to prioritise urban research, Singapore Management University (SMU) today launched the SMU Urban Institute (UI), a new research institute dedicated to multi- and inter-disciplinary research on cities in Asia. SMU UI will look beyond the development of infrastructure, and …

A Systematic Review On The Ecosystem Services Provided By Green Infrastructure, Daniel Jato-Espino, Fabio Capra-Ribeiro, Vanessa Moscardó, Leticia Bartolome Del Pino, Fernando Mayor-Vitoria, Laura Gallardo, Patricia Carracedo, Kristin Dietrich

Faculty Publications

Urbanization and climate change are endangering the sustainability of public spaces through increased land artificialization, ecological fragmentation, reduced resource availability, and limited accessibility to natural and seminatural areas. Properly managing Green Infrastructure (GI) can contribute to mitigating these challenges by delivering multiple provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural Ecosystem Services (ES). This would facilitate the implementation of strategically planned GI networks in cities for urban regeneration purposes. In this context, this study developed a systematic review on the ES provided by GI using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. The analysis of 199 eligible articles indicated …

State Of Urbanization In Nepal: The Official Definition And Reality, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari, Shiva Gautam

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepali government’s official delineation of several human settlements as new urban areas has been questionable because many important criteria such as urban infrastructure and services, open space, population density and economic viability are not thoroughly analyzed while defining what is urban. Many settlements in Nepal officially defined as urban, often driven by political considerations, are operating in the rural framework forming ruralopolises. This paper analyzes various criteria needed for defining urbanization that are internationally accepted to assess Nepal’s official definition of urban settlements. Urban areas have been expanding in Nepal at the cost of agricultural, forest, and shrubland land uses. …

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

Springdale Arkansas' Form-Based Code: Analyzing Urban Dispositions, Nate Cole

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Springdale, Arkansas, has witnessed population growth, public and private development, and interest from stakeholders throughout the Northwest Arkansas region in the past six years. The impetus for this case study is the rapid urbanization of Springdale, catalyzed by the adoption of a downtown Form-Based Code in 2017. The study analyzes four projects representing a range of typologies and uses, selected from many new and upcoming projects in the FBC area. Utilizing multiple techniques to present each project's spatial and social characteristics, the study presents these nuances and provokes further discussions. A literature review covering complexity and complex adaptive systems supports …

Three Essays On Health And Environmental Economics: Applications Of Spatial Econometrics And Spatial Analysis, Mohammed Syedul Islam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Spatial interaction and the locational structure between observations play key roles in the field of econometrics for both cross-sectional and panel data analysis. Compared to a non-spatial econometric model, a spatial model relaxes the assumption of independency in observations. This research applies spatial and non-spatial econometrics in three different fields of applied economics: (1) drinking water and air quality violations impacts on lung and bronchus cancer incidence in the contiguous United States (U.S.); (2) spillover effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on COVID-19 cases across the contiguous U.S. counties; and (3) urbanization impacts on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in …

Making The Rural Urban: Inter-Class Dynamics To Protect The Environment In The Colombian Countryside, Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For the past thirty years, the small rural town of La Calera in the outskirts of the Colombian capital of Bogotá has received an influx of upper-middle class residents that want to live “in nature.” These ex-urban newcomers arrived in the Andean highlands to live next to the long-time residents, who are descendants of peasants and mining workers that live “off nature.” The different visions of what nature or its uses should create a series of interactions among residents that will decide how will this area’s ecological resources be used in the face of further urban expansion.

Yet, contrary to …

النقل الحضري الجماعي بأكادير الكبير، القطاع العمومي والقطاع الخاص في مواجهة النمو الحضري، نموذج الحافلات, Mohamed Ben Attou

Dirassat

Mass Urban Transport in Agadir, the Public Sector and the Private Sector in the Face of Urban Growth, the Bus Model

This research deals with the urban transport sector in Agadir Al-Kabeer in its relation to urban expansion, the problems of public transport and the openness of mass transport to the private sector, and the accompanying weakness and legal problems.

Light Pollution Levels On Beaches: How Window Tinting Effects Disorientation Of Sea Turtles On Hilton Head Island, Kathryn (Kate) Hettiger

Biology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Loggerhead sea turtles, an endangered species, are decreasing at alarming rates worldwide. Artificial light from beachfront hotels on Hilton Head Island are causing disorientation in Loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings affecting their ability to successfully find the ocean. To mitigate this, exterior windows facing the ocean will be tinted using either tinting spray, which will be implemented at the Marriott Grande Ocean, or using tinting film, which will be implemented at the Marriott Westin. During the typical nesting and hatching season (May-October), sea turtle hatchling tracks will be recorded using drones to compare the effects of various levels of light pollution …

Sustainable Cities, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

The challenges faced by the cities today particularly in the developing world are mainifold. These are rising population, growing urbanization, widening inequalities, adapting and mitigating climate risks and realizing the full economic potential of agglomeration of economies . How to make cities sustainable in the wake of these onerous challenges is therefore not an easy task ? What is Sustainability ? There are many different interpretations but what is most accepted definition is “ meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs” . It has three main pillars: economic, environmental, and social. …

Localization Economies And Firm Productivity: Evidence From Football Teams In Sao Paulo, Brazil, Brad Humphreys, Amir B. Neto

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Agglomeration economies affect urban economic outcomes. We analyze variation in sports team productivity and localization of teams across divisions and cities in Campeonato Paulista an annual football competition in São Paulo state, Brazil, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in localization generated by a promotion and relegation system in this league. Results show that both urbanization, proxied by population, and localization affects short and long run team productivity. These results provide new evidence on the importance of localization economies in the urban economy in developing countries and shed light on why sports teams in larger cities enjoy more success than those in …

Sundaas Story: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Household Sanitation Provisioning In Urban Informal Housing In India, Sarita Vijay Panchang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aims of this research were to examine sanitation insecurity in urban informal housing through the lens of the built environment, social disparities, and health implications. While the Millennium Development Goals for halving the global proportion of people without access to safe drinking water were met ahead of schedule, progress fell short for sanitation, creating new objectives for the Sustainable Development Goals to be met in 2030. Much research in the Global South is dedicated to community-level sanitation promotion, but often presumes a rural rather than urban setting. Urban informal housing settings constitute a unique challenge due to the range …

Clientelism And Democracy In Turkey And Mexico: The Impacts On Regimes Of Political Party Exploitation Of Housing Tenure In Informal Settlements, David J. Henry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scholars have identified the abuse of state resources as one of the primary indicators of whether a country will democratize. Clientelist networks are critical to how incumbents exploit state assets to remain in power. When the informal relationships of clientelist parties undermine the formal institutions of the state, the regime is no longer democratic, even where competitive elections take place. Alternately, if a ruling party in such hybrid regimes loses its monopoly on state power, it creates an opening for other parties and social groups to push for democratization. Mexico and Turkey are critical case studies on how clientelist parties …

Perspectives On The 21st Century Urban University From Singapore: A Viewpoint Forum, Jean-Paul D. Addie, Michele Acuto, K. C. Ho, Stephan Cairns, Hwee-Pink Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this Cities viewpoint forum, we argue that there is a need to rethink U.S./U.K.-centric approaches to the urban university in policy and practice. Gathering three critical commentaries by practitioners from within the Singaporean higher education system, the forum responds to the challenges of: (1) broadened expectation placed on higher education institutions; (2) the pressures and possibilities of global urbanization; and (3) the provocation to theorize the urban, and thus the urban university, from beyond the 'Global North'. Following an introduction detailing the history and relevance of the Singaporean case, the three viewpoints seek to illustrate the various dimensions of …

Addressing Changing Demographics In Environmental Justice Analysis, Aaron Golub

TREC Project Briefs

Since 1994, every Federal agency has a mandate to develop a strategy for identifying and addressing disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on low income populations and minority populations. In transportation planning this means including those communities’ voices in the planning process, and evaluating the social impacts early on.

A new report from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), prepared by Portland State University and ICF International, provides an in-depth analysis of national demographic trends and a synthesis of best long-range planning practices borne out of five case studies

“In Principle” Versus “In Reality”: Assessing The Potential Of Adaptive Urban Governance Toward Urban Flooding In Ho Chi Minh City’S District 7, Cindy Pham Nguyen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Flooding has become the new normal in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). During the rainy season, many areas of the city experience severe inundation that seriously impacts infrastructure, traffic, and economic transactions. As the effects of climate change unpredictably and rapidly manifest in Southern Vietnam, the frequency and impact of urban floods are projected to increase. In addition, within the last few decades, HCMC has rapidly developed and urbanized, transforming itself into the economic center of Southern Vietnam. However, previous studies and international experts have determined that rapid, poor development may be exacerbating urban flood issues.

In recent years, city …

Addressing Changing Demographics In Environmental Justice Analysis, State Of Practice, Aaron Golub, Les Brown, Michael Grant, Nathan Mcneil, Charles Ryerson, Matt Gray, Stephanie Lonsdale, Madison Levy

TREC Final Reports

This report documents how metropolitan planning organizations (MPO), State departments of transportation (DOT), and other transportation agencies are adapting Environmental Justice (EJ) analysis techniques to understand transportation impacts in communities undergoing rapid demographic change. The report also highlights national demographic trends, showing significant change in the size and location of low-income and minority households. These changes are documented in a series of State- and county-level maps demonstrating absolute and percent change in minority populations, low-income populations and limited English proficiency populations between the 1990 – 2010 decennial census periods. Based on the state of practice review, the report also highlights …

No. 29: Modes Of Governance Of Street Food Vending In Nanjing, China, Ning Dai, Taiyang Zhong, Steffanie Scott

Hungry Cities Partnership

In the Global South, the informal food economy is both a source of income for disadvantaged urban groups and an accessible source of food for consumers. Yet governance of this economy has commonly been restrictive in Southern countries including China. Consequently, in China there has been an antagonistic relationship between vendors and chengguan (China’s city management officers). This antagonism has been studied by researchers and reported by Chinese media. This discussion paper uses semi-structured interviews with street food vendors to evaluate how recent policy reforms have affected vendor-chengguan relations and vendor livelihoods in Nanjing. It identifies a non-confrontational relationship …

No. 26: Supermarkets And Informal Food Vendors In Windhoek, Namibia, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

Much of the literature on urban food systems has focused on the expansion of supermarkets and their ability to reach urban consumers. However, the current pace of urbanization and rising urban poverty have been accompanied by a major upsurge in informality and a growing role for the informal food sector. One of the persistent arguments in the literature on supermarkets is that the expansion of modern retail undermines the informal food sector. Critics of this argument suggest that there are two conditions under which this may not occur: first, when there is spatial differentiation with supermarkets servicing higher income areas …

No. 20: Cross-Platform Food Shopping And Household Food Access In Nanjing, China, Cameron Mccordic, Zhenzhong Si, Taiyang Zhong

Hungry Cities Partnership

Modern urban food systems have evolved into international, multi-scalar and complex networks. The historical evolution of the food system in Nanjing, China, exemplifies this complexity. Nanjing’s food system has undergone successive waves of modernization, bringing changes in consumer food sourcing behaviour along with it. Using household survey data, this investigation assesses the cross-platform food sourcing behaviour of households in Nanjing to untangle some of the complex relationships linking food retailers to consumers in the city. The findings indicate that the surveyed households largely prefer purchasing fresh food from wet markets over prepared food from fast food retailers, restaurants and online …

Modeling Landowner Interactions And Development Patterns At The Urban Fringe, Jennifer Koch, Monica A. Dorning, Derek B. Van Berkel, Scott M. Beck, Georgina M. Sanchez, Ashwin Shashidharan, Lindsey S. Smart, Qiang Zhang, Jordan Smith, Ross K. Meentemeyer

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Population growth and unrestricted development policies are driving low-density urbanization and fragmentation of peri-urban landscapes across North America. While private individuals own most undeveloped land, little is known about how their decision-making processes shape landscape-scale patterns of urbanization over time. We introduce a hybrid agent-based modeling (ABM) – cellular automata (CA) modeling approach, developed for analyzing dynamic feedbacks between landowners’ decisions to sell their land for development, and resulting patterns of landscape fragmentation. Our modeling approach builds on existing conceptual frameworks in land systems modeling by integrating an ABM into an established grid-based land-change model – FUTURES. The decision-making process …