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Description
Urban planning in the neoliberal era is marred by a lack of public engagement with urban inhabitants. Henri Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’ theory is often treated as a way to empower disenfranchised urban inhabitants who are lacking control over the urban spaces they occupy. Though the right to the

Urban planning in the neoliberal era is marred by a lack of public engagement with urban inhabitants. Henri Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’ theory is often treated as a way to empower disenfranchised urban inhabitants who are lacking control over the urban spaces they occupy. Though the right to the city has seen a resurgence in recent literature, we still lack a deep understanding of how right to the city movements work in practice, and what the process looks like through the lens of the everyday urban inhabitant. This dissertation seeks to fill these gaps by examining: 1) how a minority-led grassroots movement activates their right to the city in the face of an incoming light rail extension project in South Phoenix, Arizona, USA, and 2) how their right to the city movement demonstrates the possibility of urban society beyond the current control of neoliberalism. Through the use of participant observation, interviews, and media analysis, this case reveals the methods and tactics used by the group to activate their right to the city, the intra-and inter-group dynamics in the case, and the challenges that ultimately lead to the group’s demise.Tactics used by the group included protesting, organizing against city council, and creating a ballot initiative. Intra-group dynamics were often marred by conflicts over leadership and the acceptance of outside help, while inter-group conflicts erupted between the group, politicians, and pro-light rail supporters. The primary challenge to the group’s right to the city movement included neoliberal appropriation by local politicians and outside political group. By possessing limited experience, knowledge, and resources in conducting a right to the city movement, the grassroots group in this case was left asking for help from neoliberal supporters who used their funding as a way to appropriate the urban inhabitant’s movement. Findings indicate positive possibilities of a future urban society outside of neoliberalism through autogestion, and provide areas where urban planners can improve upon the right to the city. If urban planners seek out and nurture instances of the right to the city, urban inhabitants will have greater control over planning projects that effect their neighborhoods.
ContributorsTziganuk, Ashlee (Author) / Pfeiffer, Deirdre (Thesis advisor) / Larson, Kelli (Thesis advisor) / Ehlenz, Meagan (Committee member) / McHugh, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Description
Transportation infrastructure in urban areas has significant impacts on socio-economic activities, land use, and real property values. This dissertation proposes a more comprehensive theory of the positive and negative relationships between property values and transportation investments that distinguishes different effects by mode (rail vs. road), by network component (nodes vs.

Transportation infrastructure in urban areas has significant impacts on socio-economic activities, land use, and real property values. This dissertation proposes a more comprehensive theory of the positive and negative relationships between property values and transportation investments that distinguishes different effects by mode (rail vs. road), by network component (nodes vs. links), and by distance from them. It hypothesizes that transportation investment generates improvement in accessibility that accrue only to the nodes such as highway exits and light rail stations. Simultaneously, it tests the hypothesis that both transport nodes and links emanate short-distance negative nuisance effects due to disamenities such as traffic and noise. It also tests the hypothesis that nodes of both modes generate a net effect combining accessibility and disamenities. For highways, the configuration at grade or above/below ground is also tested. In addition, this dissertation hypothesizes that the condition of road pavement may have an impact on residential property values adjacent to the road segments. As pavement condition improves, value of properties adjacent to a road are hypothesized to increase as well. A multiple-distance-bands approach is used to capture distance decay of amenities and disamenities from nodes and links; and pavement condition index (PCI) is used to test the relationship between road condition and residential property values. The hypotheses are tested using spatial hedonic models that are specific to each of residential and commercial property market. Results confirm that proximity to transport nodes are associated positively with both residential and commercial property values. As a function of distance from highway exits and light rail transit (LRT) stations, the distance-band coefficients form a conventional distance decay curve. However, contrary to our hypotheses, no net effect is evident. The accessibility effect for highway exits extends farther than for LRT stations in residential model as expected. The highway configuration effect on residential home values confirms that below-grade highways have relatively positive impacts on nearby houses compared to those at ground level or above. Lastly, results for the relationship between pavement condition and residential home values show that there is no significant effect between them.

Some differences in the effect of infrastructure on property values emerge between residential and commercial markets. In the commercial models, the accessibility effect for highway exits extends less than for LRT stations. Though coefficients for short distances (within 300m) from highways and LRT links were expected to be negative in both residential and commercial models, only commercial models show a significant negative relationship. Different effects by mode, network component, and distance on commercial submarkets (i.e., industrial, office, retail and service properties) are tested as well and the results vary based on types of submarket.

Consequently, findings of three individual paper confirm that transportation investments mostly have significant impacts on real-estate properties either in a positive or negative direction in accordance with the transport mode, network component, and distance, though effects for some conditions (e.g., proximity to links of highway and light rail, and pavement quality) do not significantly change home values. Results can be used for city authorities and planners for funding mechanisms of transport infrastructure or validity of investments as well as private developers for maximizing development profits or for locating developments.
ContributorsSeo, Kihwan (Author) / Michael, Kuby (Thesis advisor) / Golub, Aaron (Committee member) / Salon, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016