Matching Items (6)
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- All Subjects: environmental justice
- Genre: Academic theses
- Creators: Schoon, Michael
- Creators: Golub, Aaron
Description
Cordon pricing strategies attempt to charge motorists for the marginal social costs of driving in heavily congested areas, lure them out of their vehicles and into other modes, and thereby reduce vehicle miles traveled and congestion-related externalities. These strategies are gaining policy-makers` attention worldwide. The benefits and costs of such strategies can potentially lead to a disproportionate and inequitable burden on lower income commuters, particularly those commuters with poor accessibility to alternative modes of transportation. Strategies designed to mitigate the impacts of cordon pricing for disadvantaged travelers, such as discount and exemptions, can reduce the effectiveness of the pricing strategy. Transit improvements using pricing fee revenues are another mitigation strategy, but can be wasteful and inefficient if not properly targeted toward those most disadvantaged and in need. This research examines these considerations and explores the implications for transportation planners working to balance goals of system effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. First, a theoretical conceptual model for analyzing the justice implications of cordon pricing is presented. Next, the Mobility Access and Pricing Study, a cordon pricing strategy examined by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority is analyzed utilizing a neighborhood-level accessibility-based approach. The fee-payment impacts for low-income transportation-disadvantaged commuters within the San Francisco Bay area are examined, utilizing Geographic Information Systems coupled with data from the Longitudinal Employment and Household Dynamics program of the US Census Bureau. This research questions whether the recommended blanket 50% discount for low-income travelers would unnecessarily reduce the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the cordon pricing system. It is proposed that reinvestment of revenue in transportation-improvement projects targeted at those most disproportionately impacted by tolling fees, low-income automobile-dependent peak-period commuters in areas with poor access to alternative modes, would be a more suitable mitigation strategy. This would not only help maintain the efficiency and effectiveness of the cordon pricing system, but would better address income, modal and spatial equity issues. The results of this study demonstrate how the spatial distribution of the toll-payment impacts may burden low-income residents in quite different ways, thereby warranting the inclusion of such analysis in transportation planning and practice.
ContributorsKelley, Jason L (Author) / Golub, Aaron (Thesis advisor) / Boone, Christopher (Committee member) / Guhathakarta, Subhrahit (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Mexico City has an ongoing air pollution issue that negatively affects its citizens and surroundings with current structural disconnections preventing the city from improving its overall air quality. Thematic methodological analysis reveals current obstacles and barriers, as well as variables contributing to this persistent problem. A historical background reveals current programs and policies implemented to improve Mexico’s City air quality. Mexico City’s current systems, infrastructure, and policies are inadequate and ineffective. There is a lack of appropriate regulation on other modes of transportation, and the current government system fails to identify how the class disparity in the city and lack of adequate education are contributing to this ongoing problem. Education and adequate public awareness can potentially aid the fight against air pollution in the Metropolitan City.
ContributorsGarcia, Lucero (Author) / Duarte, Marisa E. (Thesis advisor) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Committee member) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
It is widely recognized that, compared to others, minority and low-income populations are more exposed to environmental burdens and unwanted land uses like waste facilities. To prevent these injustices, cities and industry need to recognize these potential problems in the siting process and work to address them. I studied Phoenix, AZ, which has historically suffered from environmental justice issues. I examined whether Phoenix considered environmental justice concerns when siting their newest landfill (SR-85) and transfer station (North Gateway Transfer Station). Additionally, I assessed current views on sustainability from members of the Phoenix Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee and of decision-makers in the Public Works Department and Solid Waste Division. Using a mixed methods approach consisting of interviews, document analysis, and a demographic assessment of census tracts, I addressed two main research questions:
1. Do the distributions and siting processes of environmental burdens from SR-85 and North Gateway Transfer Station constitute a case of environmental injustice according to commonly held definitions?
2. Do current Solid Waste and council members on the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee consider environmental justice, defined as stakeholder engagement, to be a part of sustainability?
The results show that the distribution and siting processes of environmental burdens from these facilities may constitute a case of environmental injustice. While city officials do involve stakeholders in siting decisions, the effects of this involvement is unclear. An analysis of long-term demographic data, however, revealed no significant racial, ethnic, or economic effects due to the locations of the SR-85 and North Gateway Transfer Station.
Interviews with current members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, Public Works Department, and Solid Waste Division indicated that Phoenix’s decision-makers don’t consider environmental justice as part of sustainability. However, they seem to consider stakeholder engagement as important for decision-making.
To help mitigate future injustices, Phoenix needs buffer zone policies for waste facilities and stakeholder engagement policies for decision-making to ensure the public is engaged appropriately in all circumstances. Enacting these policies will help Phoenix become both a more sustainable city and one in which stakeholders have the opportunity to provide feedback and are given decision-making power.
1. Do the distributions and siting processes of environmental burdens from SR-85 and North Gateway Transfer Station constitute a case of environmental injustice according to commonly held definitions?
2. Do current Solid Waste and council members on the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee consider environmental justice, defined as stakeholder engagement, to be a part of sustainability?
The results show that the distribution and siting processes of environmental burdens from these facilities may constitute a case of environmental injustice. While city officials do involve stakeholders in siting decisions, the effects of this involvement is unclear. An analysis of long-term demographic data, however, revealed no significant racial, ethnic, or economic effects due to the locations of the SR-85 and North Gateway Transfer Station.
Interviews with current members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, Public Works Department, and Solid Waste Division indicated that Phoenix’s decision-makers don’t consider environmental justice as part of sustainability. However, they seem to consider stakeholder engagement as important for decision-making.
To help mitigate future injustices, Phoenix needs buffer zone policies for waste facilities and stakeholder engagement policies for decision-making to ensure the public is engaged appropriately in all circumstances. Enacting these policies will help Phoenix become both a more sustainable city and one in which stakeholders have the opportunity to provide feedback and are given decision-making power.
ContributorsGarland, P. M. (Patricia M.) (Author) / Golub, Aaron (Thesis advisor) / Boone, Christopher (Committee member) / Kim, Yushim (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Effective collaboration and cooperation across difference are at the heart of present and future sustainability challenges and solutions. Collaboration among social groups (intragenerational), across time (intergenerational), and across species (interspecies) is each central to achieving sustainability transitions in the 21st century. In practice, there are three types of differences that limit collaboration and cooperation toward sustainability outcomes: differences among social groups, differences across time, and differences across species. Each of these differences have corresponding cognitive biases that challenge collaboration. Social cognitive biases challenge collaboration among social groups; temporal cognitive biases challenge collaboration across time; and anthropocentric cognitive biases challenge collaboration across species. In this work, I present three correctives to collaboration challenges spanning the social, temporal, and species cognitive biases through intervention-specific methods that build beyond traditional framings of empathy, toward social, futures, and ecological empathy. By re-theorizing empathy across these domains, I seek to construct a multidimensional theory of empathy for sustainability, and suggest methods to build it, to bridge differences among people, time horizons, and species for sustainability practice.
ContributorsLambert, Lauren Marie-Jasmine (Author) / Selin, Cynthia (Thesis advisor) / Schoon, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Tomblin, David (Committee member) / Berbés-Blázquez, Marta (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Climate adaptation has not kept pace with climate impacts which has formed an adaptation gap. Increasingly insurance is viewed as a solution to close this gap. However, the efficacy and implications of using insurance in the climate adaptation space are not clear. Furthermore, past research has focused on specific actors or processes, not on the interactions and interconnections between the actors and the processes. I take a complex adaptive systems approach to map out how these dynamics are shaping adaptation and to interrogate what the insurance climate adaptation literature claims are the successes and pitfalls of insurance driving, enabling or being adaptation. From this interrogation it becomes apparent that insurance has enormous influence on its policy holders, builds telecoupling into local adaptation, and creates structures which support contradictory land use policies at the local level. Based on the influence insurance has on policy holders, I argue that insurance should be viewed as a form of governance. I synthesize insurance, governance and adaptation literature to examine exactly what governance tools insurance uses to exercise this influence and what the consequences may be. This research reveals that insurance may not be the exemplary adaptation approach the international community is hoping for. Using insurance, risk can be reduced without reducing vulnerability, and risk transfer can result in risk displacement which can reduce adaptation incentives, fuel maladaptation, or impose public burdens. Moreover, insurance requires certain information and legal relationships which can and often do structure that which is insured to the needs of insurance and shift authority away from governments to insurance companies or public-private partnerships. Each of these undermine the legitimacy of insurance-led local adaptation and contradict the stated social justice goals of international calls for insurance. Finally, I interrogate the potential justice concerns that emerged through an analysis of insurance as a form of adaptation governance. Using a multi-valent approach to justice I examine a suite of programs intended to support agricultural adaptation through insurance. This analysis demonstrates that although some programs clearly attempted to consider issues of justice, overall these existing programs raise distributional, procedural and recognition justice concerns.
ContributorsLueck, Vanessa (Author) / Klinsky, Sonja (Thesis advisor) / Schoon, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Eakin, Hallie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Stressors to marine environments are predicted to increase and affect the well-being of marine ecosystems and coastal communities. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are one most widely implemented interventions for marine stressors. Despite the implementation of thousands of protected areas worldwide, people are still striving to understand their dynamics as they vary in their efficacy and many MPAs have not met their objectives. Additionally, those that have often fail to protect the ecosystem services and cultural values necessary for human community health. Thus, research has expanded to include analyses of the human and social dimensions that may limit their effectiveness. This dissertation explores the role of community engagement in marine protected areas and perceptions of environmental changes in coastal communities. Currently, existing research on the roles of community engagement in marine conservation interventions is limited, particularly in the island-states of the Caribbean region. This dissertation contains a review of the literature to understand the nuances of community engagement in relation to MPAs. Through the review, it was determined that primary forms of engagement are interviews and surveys, and respondents primarily included businesses, community members, fishers, and resource users. To better understand the perceptions and practices on-the-ground, key informants were interviewed across the Caribbean. There are strong desires to conduct community engagement for innumerable benefits, but there are barriers that some participants have overcome. Sharing information between MPA sites offers an opportunity to effectively engage community members. For the local case study, Charlotteville, Trinidad and Tobago, a small, coastal fishing town in the northeast region of Tobago was selected to understand the role of perceptions of environmental changes. There were strong ties of environmental and social changes, with an emphasis on the impacts of environmental stressors to human health. The heterogeneity and diversity of responses in this chapter highlight the need to consider who is engaged in community engagement activities.
ContributorsBernard, Miranda Lynn (Author) / Gerber, Leah (Thesis advisor) / Buzinde, Christine (Committee member) / Schoon, Michael (Committee member) / Kittinger, Jack (Committee member) / Cheng, Samantha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021