1,720,985 research outputs found
Urban Honey Bees and Forage: The Ecological Dimension of Disinvested Neighborhoods in Philadelphia, USA
Get PDFWith bee decline underway across taxa on a global scale, cities increasingly stand as a haven for bee conservation. Primary drivers of bee decline include habitat fragmentation and high-input agricultural and lawn management – both of which can make non-urban landscapes more hostile to bees than urban landscapes. In this analysis, I draw from urban ecological methods and political ecological framings to better understand the urban landscape as a bee socio-economic system. Using data from the unique honey bee foraging assay of Sponsler et al. (2020) which describes plant genera identified from pollen DNA samples from apiaries across the city, I offer a geospatial analysis to describe spatial patterns of bee floral resources. I ask the following: I) What spatial patterns exist in floral resources for bees across the landscape of the city of Philadelphia? II) Do these spatial patterns correlate with the socio-economic variables of income and racial composition? and II) To what extent can urban ecology and the critical social sciences inform one another in the context of this socio-ecological system? Although I find no strong correlation between plant richness and demographic variables, I examine the dominant plant genera in select Philadelphia neighborhoods, contributing to urban political ecological understandings of weedy ecologies, marginalization, and social control.Temple University Office of Sustainability 2020-2021 Graduate Research Award Sustainability Program (GRASP) (Philadelphia, Pa.)Temple University. College of Liberal ArtsGeography and Urban StudiesThis report was submitted to the Office of Sustainability at the conclusion of the 2020-2021 Graduate Research Award Sustainability Program (GRASP) award period. GRASP advances Temple University’s goal of expanding sustainability research by providing funding to a graduate student research project focused on sustainability
HOUSING AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: DEVELOPING A PATH FORWARD TO A RACIALLY JUST AND CLIMATE-READY PHILADELPHIA
No full textThe research conducted for this dissertation was methodologically designed to explore human environments and the role of housing as a space that makes an integral difference in the livelihoods and well-being of residents facing environmental burden and climate risks. The research explores the following questions: 1) How does the contextual scale of the home serve as a support or detriment to well-being and climate-preparedness for residents living in neighborhoods that have undergone degradation in the urban environment resulting from Philadelphia’s history of racialized planning practice? 2) How can the housing structure be reconceptualized as the scale which holds the fullest potential of resilience mitigation and climate preparedness in the built environment? 3) How does analytically centering the focus on the “home” and housing environments within the geographical urban landscape fill a gap in understanding about what ties people to place physically and socio-economically connects people to communities? Focusing in on the “Home” as a scale of geographic and qualitative inquiry, deriving its significance from resident voice expands the body of literature that can bridge the theoretical and advocacy based analytical framings of Black feminist thought and environmental justice to highlight the importance of housing in the urban landscape to find solutions to equitable housing concerns in the city. The objective of the research is to understand how environmental neighborhood conditions resulting from racialized planning practice manifest in present day socio-environmental outcomes and influence resident well-being even within the context of the “home”. I argue that climate change vulnerability and environmental burden can be more holistically understood and mitigated by reframing the scale at which environmental justice claims and research is formulated and analyzing the home itself as an environmental site of struggle and/or resilience.Geograph
Growing a Sustainable City: The Question of Urban Agriculture
Get PDFThis presentation examines urban agriculture in Philadelphia and highlights the challenges of institutionalizing this historically informal urban activity into formal city policy over the last two decades. Urban agriculture has become a symbol of Philadelphia’s economic revitalization, sustainability, and increasingly, its gentrification. Often characterized by advocates as an urban panacea, gardening and farming seem to promise solutions to many different urban problems, such as blighted vacant lots, food insecurity, stormwater runoff, and neighborhood decline. However, questions of land tenure, the use of economic resources, and the long-term viability of urban agriculture shape the political discourse about the future of growing in the city and its role in promoting urban sustainability. Through archival research, a media content analysis, and interviews with urban farmers, gardeners, and city officials, this research examines urban agriculture’s role in Philadelphia’s transition to economic and environmental sustainability
Spatial Stories of Sustainability: The Women Building Philadelphia’s Green Spaces
No full textIn urban greening scholarship, many have focused on the role of public institutions and professional leaders when looking at urban greening patterns (Boone et al., 2009; Eisenman, 2013; Lawson, 2005). However, a few scholars have begun to shed light on the lesser known work that other identities, such as women, who have historically contributed to the development of urban green spaces (Deutsch, 2000; Dümpelmann, 2015; Flanagan, 2002; Sewell, 2011; Spain, 2001). This project builds on feminist historical methods to consider the often-invisible role of women in the creation and maintenance of green spaces. I refer to Philadelphia’s long history of urban greening efforts (Rosan and Pearsall, 2017) to show examples of how women have historically contributed to the development of green spaces, and how current day urban greening initiatives reflect the legacies of this labor. Using archival research, oral histories and storymapping techniques, this project seeks to challenge historical accounts that overlook over the contributions of women, and center gender as a key category within the ‘spatial stories’ of Philadelphia’s green spaces.Temple University Office of Sustainability 2022-2023 Graduate Research Award Sustainability Program (GRASP) (Philadelphia, Pa.)Temple University. College of Liberal ArtsGeography, Environment and Urban StudiesThis report was submitted to the Office of Sustainability at the conclusion of the 2022-2023 Graduate Research Award Sustainability Program (GRASP) award period. GRASP advances Temple University’s goal of expanding sustainability research by providing funding to a graduate student research project focused on sustainability
STRIKING A GREEN BALANCE: ASSESSING EQUITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELEVATED PUBLIC PARK PROJECTS IN PHILADELPHIA AND WASHINGTON D.C.
No full textThis research seeks to investigate the impact of equitable development strategies on urban environmental justice. I focused on the extent to which the processes that accompany the highly visible large-scale park planning projects promote equity and inclusion in the Rail Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington D.C. This research focuses on natural urban environment settings, with attention given to the development of highly visible parks projects that take at least partial inspiration from New York City’s High Line Park. Park development in underserved neighborhoods can lead to green gentrification. Thus, equity concerns are raised, as the very residents that would benefit the most from environmental improvements such as green space remediation and expansion are more likely to be excluded due to their development. I employed a qualitative methodology utilizing content analysis and 33 in depth interviews were conducted at two park project sites in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Based on grounded theory, I explored stakeholder attitudes, feelings, and perceptions tied to varied notions of equity and the engagement levels of planning processes connected to park project development. Trust capital emerged as a major theme in the perceived efficacy of development processes that pursue equitable goals. This factor fluctuates with stakeholder perceptions of equity and the legitimization of socioeconomic concerns expressed by the community in urban green infrastructure development. This research concludes that the inclusion of an equitable development (ED) process impacts greening project implementation and the individuals involved.Geograph
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
WE ARE HERE: THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF DREXEL UNIVERSITY’S EXPANSION ON MANTUA AND POWELTON VILLAGE
Get PDFDrexel University, a private university in Philadelphia, is expanding its campus to attract more students, faculty, and researchers. The current President, John Fry, envisions transforming West Philadelphia into an innovation district. The university is working with real estate developers on a $3.5 billion real estate project at Schuylkill Yards, in addition to mixed-use student housing and projects. The development goals of the university will impact the social conditions of the long-term residents of the two neighboring communities, Mantua and Powelton Village. In addition to the larger developers who are working with Drexel, numerous small-scale developers are developing market-rate student housing around the periphery of the two communities. In the process, the developers are disrupting the character of the neighborhoods and changing the racial demographics of the Mantua community from a predominantly African American community into one that reflects predominantly White and Asian demographics of the university. The combination of Drexel University and the developers is threatening to “studentify” the Mantua community. In the process Mantua, is at risk of losing the cultural elements that have defined the neighborhood for decades, in addition to their sense of belonging in the neighborhoods where the residents have lived for generations. This research is a qualitative assessment of the social changes to the two communities as a result of Drexel’s expansion activities. A social sustainability framework was developed based on the results of a cultural landscape assessment and structured and semistructured interviews of long-term residents, business owners, community leaders, and university officials.Geograph
EXAMINING THE IMPACT OF NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS ON FLOOD VULNERABILITY AND LOSS IN SMALL URBANIZING REGIONS: A CASE STUDY OF THE PHILADELPHIA METROPOLITAN AREA
Get PDFNature-based solutions (NbS) are becoming increasingly popular in cities around the world; however, such efforts have not been widely incorporated into analyses of urban flood vulnerability nor the total population and property loss of flooding to date, except for a few studies that examined the effectiveness of green infrastructure or only wetlands in flood regulation. The proposed research sought to understand if the existing pattern and composition of NbS can mitigate flood vulnerability and loss of flooding in one of the fastest urbanizing regions in the United States, the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area. This research made key contributions to our understanding of how urban areas can grow without exacerbating flooding and inequity.First, a systematic mapping was conducted to reveal the most common spatial metrics of NbS that mitigate urban flooding in countries around the world. These findings identified important research areas for urban geographers, policymakers, planners, and civil engineers. This review indicated that the effectiveness of NbS varies spatially based on land use/land cover, climatic, and other contextual factors. The results indicated that the location, distribution, and arrangement of NbS may have different impacts on runoff mitigation and flood loss. Also, flood hydrology was the most common topic addressed, and the spatial configuration of NbS, especially connectivity was consistently identified as an important factor in flood regulation.
Second, the potential of NbS as a flood loss mitigation tool in one of the fastest-growing and flood-prone counties of Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, using the Generalized Linear Model (GLR) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) techniques was examined. The findings partially contradicted previous research by revealing an unexpected relationship between NbS quantity in floodplains and expected annual loss. Findings also demonstrated that lower-sized and disconnected patches of NbS in floodplains in some dense urban areas effectively reduce total losses from flood events.
Third, the spatial coincidence between the density of NbS and flood vulnerability within eight neighboring urbanizing regions situated in Montgomery County was analyzed by using the Local Indicator of Spatial Association (LISA). The results of LISA identified regions of concern characterized by elevated flood vulnerability scores and reduced concentrations of two tree canopy types as well as shrubs and grasses. Taken together, these results emphasize the significance of strategically integrating and improving NbS, especially in areas grappling with distinct flood-related issues. It also emphasized the potential for significant enhancements in flood resilience and mitigation policies thoughtful urban planning and the adoption of NbS.Geograph
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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