Matching Items (2)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Urban renewal
- Creators: Larsen, Dale
- Creators: Murphy-Erfani, Julie
Description
A right to the city is a human right that is overlooked in American cities. Cities reflect humanity in collective form, but are manipulated by the powerful at the expense of the powerless. Landscapes of cities tell the city's stories, as historical inequalities become imprinted on the city's physical and symbolic landscapes. In Detroit, Michigan, over forty square miles of the city are vacant, unemployment might be as high as fifty percent, and the city has lost about sixty percent of its population since the mid-1950s. Detroit must now solve its spatial problems in the context of depopulation; the city's planners, nonprofits, and scholars are now debating "planned shrinking" or "right-sizing." Simultaneously, a blooming arts scene is also slowly revitalizing parts of the city. This thesis will critically examine the possibilities of planned shrinking and the arts movement in Detroit, as well as suggest theoretical explanations for the city's dilemmas. Detroit has been the subject of a myopic popular narrative, one that isolates the city from modern America rather than critically examines its place in modern America. Redefining regional healing through honest discourse and developing a more appropriate narrative for Detroit are among the solutions proposed. Finally, the importance of establishing a human right for the city is discussed.
ContributorsMarotta, Stephen J (Author) / Casper, Monica J (Thesis advisor) / Murphy-Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Stancliff, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Denver, Colorado is experiencing an unprecedented growth spurt, particularly in the downtown neighborhoods. As such, the city has proposed a multitude of urban revitalization projects in its urban core. This pattern of revitalization has unintended consequences including changes in residents’ meanings assigned to their neighborhoods and subsequently changes in residents’ attachment to those neighborhoods. Given this, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to use a symbolic interactionist perspective to uncover resident meanings of their neighborhoods and discover how redevelopment efforts are affecting those assigned meanings. Participants, recruited through the snowball sampling method in the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods in downtown Denver, were interviewed during spring of 2017. Photo-elicitation techniques were used as part of the interviews. Additionally, secondary data available through public documents were analyzed to provide a context for understanding the changes that are taking place in the selected neighborhoods. This data aids in guiding future research, which may ultimately better inform the government agencies and private organizations who are looking to redevelop low-income neighborhoods similar to the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods in the given study.
ContributorsHumberger, Olivia (Author) / Budruk, Megha (Thesis advisor) / Knopf, Richard (Committee member) / Larsen, Dale (Committee member) / Tetreault, Colin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018