ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: Public Administration
- Creators: Lucio, Joanna
Drawing on 30 interviews with key actors and document analysis, this dissertation employs a multiple case study design to conduct an interpretive policy analysis of the initiatives of four U.S. welcoming cities: Austin, Texas; Boise, Idaho; Chicago, Illinois; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The analysis explores three independent but interconnected themes. The first theme concerns multiple, context-specific framings of “welcoming” and the types of assets cities seek to leverage and develop through the welcoming city initiatives. This investigation finds that while each city puts a priority on developing a certain set of assets based on its unique political, economic, and demographic contexts, welcoming efforts tend to encourage immigrant entrepreneurialism, the leveraging newcomers’ human capital and financial assets, and the development place-based assets to attract and retain newcomers. The efforts to strengthen community capacity seek to institutionalize a new norm of welcoming, structure immigrant-friendly governance practices, and engage newcomers and longer-term residents in their community affairs. The second theme probes the ways in which these four cities create and maintain governing regimes for the initiative. The analysis finds that, while the four cities develop different governing structures, all pursue the creation of mixed types of governing coalitions that combine pro-growth and opportunity expansion regimes by incorporating the goals of economic growth and immigrant integration. The third theme investigates different modes of immigrant incorporation and their contribution to immigrant integration, the final stage in immigrant settlement. The analysis suggests that political leaders and bureaucratic agencies of the welcoming cities tend to build reciprocal relationships, rather than principal-agent relationships, in which political leaders rely on the positional, professional, and technical expertise of bureaucrats. In these early stages on the initiative, political and bureaucratic incorporation aim to create institutional changes that help immigrants and newcomers to be viewed as political constituents and clients of bureaucratic agencies.
This dissertation broadly concludes that the welcoming city initiative is a promising new urban economic development framework that could reshape urban space by integrating pro-growth demands with social integration and inclusion. Going forward, however, deeper consideration of the perspectives and rights of immigrants and newcomers themselves is needed in these initiatives.
This dissertation argues that the counterexamples and theoretical inconsistencies are a theoretical gap in current public space privatization studies; this gap is created by the metaphorical understanding of public space ownership. This dissertation comprehensively answers how property transfer shapes the production of public space. It emphasizes the significance of social and historical contexts in understanding the meaning of property ownership. It follows the theoretical framework of Lefebvre and Pierson as well as Lefebvre’s methodology of spatial dialectic.
The case in this dissertation is the history of Patriots Park, Phoenix, Arizona from 1976 to 2007. Public records, archives and governmental plans, historical newspapers and online essays, second-hand interviews, speech transcripts and transcripts of interviews are four main sources of this dissertation. This dissertation develops a new framework to understand the meaning of public space ownership through both the initial construction of planning ideology and the spatial evolution through practice and perception, which can more comprehensively and consistently interpret the different outcomes of different public space property transfer.
Results indicate that there were social equity failures across all three sites with the private sites experiencing the most barriers for residents. The power-knowledge structure and perceptions of the residents shaped the institutions or staffing, services, policies, and amenities that either empowered the residents by helping them build a cohesive community; or it subjugated them by not offering space for community-building. In response, many residents' actions and beliefs were shaped by these institutions; however, in the face of resistance to management practices, they often exercised power through self-governing to achieve the satisfaction they desired. Recognizing that residents can exercise their own power, community resiliency to support aging in place may be achieved by supporting resident needs and drawing upon their expertise, assistance, and influential power to build stronger housing communities - an option with low costs but great gains. But in order to do so, the power-knowledge structure must be influenced to support this goal. This research describes the governance of public housing and the responses and relationships of both management and residents in these newly created public spaces. It then presents a model that can foster change in resident engagement and network building to support aging in place, and advance social and community resiliency, regardless of sector.