Matching Items (53)
Description
Tempe experienced rapid growth in population and area from 1949 to 1975, stretching its resources thin and changing the character of the city. City boosters encouraged growth through the 1950s to safeguard Tempe’s borders against its larger neighbor, Phoenix. New residents moved to Tempe as it grew, expecting suburban amenities that the former agricultural supply town struggled to pay for and provide. After initially balking at taking responsibility for development of a park system, Tempe established a Parks and Recreation Department in 1958 and used parks as a main component in an evolving strategy for responding to rapid suburban growth. Through the 1960s and 1970s, Tempe pursued an ambitious goal of siting one park in each square mile of the city, planning for neighborhood parks to be paired with elementary schools and placed at the center of each Tempe neighborhood. The highly-publicized plan created a framework, based on the familiarity of public park spaces, that helped both long-time residents and recent transplants understand the new city form and participate in a changing community identity. As growth accelerated and subdivisions surged southward into the productive agricultural area that had driven Tempe’s economy for decades, the School-Park Policy faltered as a planning and community-building tool. Residents and city leaders struggled to reconcile the loss of agricultural land with the carefully maintained cultural narrative that connected Tempe to its frontier past, ultimately broadening the role of parks to address the needs of a changing city.
ContributorsSweeney, Jennifer (Author) / Thompson, Victoria (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Susan (Committee member) / MacFadyen, Joshua (Committee member) / Smith, Jared (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Located in Southwest Alaska on the Bering Sea, Bristol Bay covers the area of land and water that lies north of the Alaska Peninsula. The Bristol Bay region consists of more than 40 million acres and is home to approximately 7,400 people of mostly Alaska Native descent. Many Natives still maintain a subsistence lifestyle. The region’s Indigenous inhabitants include Aleuts, Eskimos, and Indians. Bristol Bay’s Indigenous cultures developed around the abundant salmon runs. The Bristol Bay watershed, with its extensive lake and river systems, provides the ideal breeding grounds for all five species of Pacific salmon. As a keystone species, salmon directly or indirectly impact many species in the ecosystem. This dissertation focuses on the ecology and environment, culture, and economy in the Bristol Bay salmon fishery from its beginnings in 1884 until the present. The arrival of Euro-Americans altered the human/salmon relationship as Alaska Natives entered the commercial salmon fishery. The commercial fishery largely marginalized Alaska Natives and they struggle to remain relevant in the fishery. Participation in the subsistence fishery remains strong and allows Bristol Bay Natives to continue their cultural traditions. On a global scale, the sustainable Bristol Bay’s salmon harvest provides over half of the world’s wild sockeye salmon. Salmon cultures once existed throughout the Atlantic and Pacific. With the decline of salmon, few viable salmon cultures remain today. I argue that because of the ecological, cultural, and economic factors, salmon in Bristol Bay deserve protection from competing resource development and other factors that threaten the valuable fishery. The unique ecology of Bristol Bay needs clean water to continue its bountiful production. As a member of the Bristol Bay community, I include my own experiences in the salmon fishery, incorporating “writing from home” as one of my primary methodologies. I also include ethnohistory and oral history methodologies. I conducted interviews with elders in the Bristol Bay community to incorporate Indigenous experiences as Natives faced changes brought on by the commercial salmon fishery.
ContributorsGroat, Bridget Lee (Author) / Fixico, Donald L (Thesis advisor) / Bauer, William (Committee member) / Hirt, Paul (Committee member) / Riding In, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Human migration is not a new phenomenon but present and future human-induced environmental changes pose new questions and challenges. In the coming years, both rapid and slow onset environmental changes will drive many people to migrate in search of improved security and livelihoods. Anthropogenic climate change in particular requires international institutions to determine how to best meet the needs of present and future migrants. I analyzed interviews with experts to identify institutional gaps for managing environmental migration and what potential, if any, the Warsaw International Mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts (WIM) might contribute to filling these gaps. Using these interviews and literature, I propose a framework to assess the capacity of existing institutions to address the breadth of migrant needs. Then, I identify gaps and challenges in order to illuminate strategies for future solutions.
ContributorsThompson-Ballentine, Katherine (Author) / Klinsky, Sonja (Thesis advisor) / Hirt, Paul (Committee member) / Chhetri, Netra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This dissertation explores how the written word and natural and cultural landscapes entwine to create a place, the process by which Arizona's landscapes affected narratives written about the place and how those narratives created representations of Arizona over time. From before Arizona became a state in 1912 to the day its citizens celebrated one hundred years as a state in 2012, words have played a role in making it the place it is. The literature about Arizona and narratives drawn from its landscapes reveal writers' perceptions, what they believe is important and useful, what motivates or attracts them to the place. Those perceptions translated into words organized in various ways create an image of Arizona for readers. I explore written works taken at twenty-five year intervals--1912 and subsequent twenty-five year anniversaries--synthesizing narratives about Arizona and examining how those representations of the place changed (or did not change). To capture one hundred years of published material, I chose sources from several genres including official state publications, newspapers, novels, poetry, autobiography, journals, federal publications, and the Arizona Highways magazine. I chose sources that would have been available to the reading public, publications that demonstrated a wide readership. In examining the words about Arizona that have been readily available to the English-reading public, the importance of the power of the printed word becomes clear. Arizona became the place it is in the twenty-first century, in part, because people with power--in the federal and state governments, boosters, and business leaders--wrote about it in such a way as to influence growth and tourism sometimes at the expense of minority groups and the environment. Minority groups' narratives in their own words were absent from Arizona's written narrative landscape until the second half of the twentieth century when they began publishing their own stories. The narratives about Arizona changed over time, from literature dominated by boosting and promotion to a body of literature with many layers, many voices. Women, Native American, and Hispanic narratives, and environmentalists' and boosters' words created a more complex representation of Arizona in the twenty-first century, and more accurately reflected its cultural landscape, than the Arizona represented in earlier narratives.
ContributorsEngel-Pearson, Kimberli (Author) / Pyne, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Hirt, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Adamson, Joni (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Postwar suburban sprawl resulted in environmental consequences that engendered backlash from those concerned about the quality life in the places they lived, played, and worked. Few cities grew as rapidly as Phoenix and therefore the city offers an important case study to evaluate the success and limits of environmentalism in shaping urban growth in the postwar period.
Using three episodes looking at sanitation and public health, open space preservation, and urban transportation, I argue three factors played a critical role in determining the extent to which environmental values were incorporated into Phoenix's urban growth policy. First, the degree to which environmental values influenced urban policy depends on the degree to which they fit into the Southwestern suburban lifestyle. A desire for low-density development and quality of life amenities like outdoor recreation resulted in decisions to extend municipal sewers further into the desert, the creation of a mountain preserve system, and freeways as the primary mode of travel in the city. Second, federal policy and the availability of funds guided policies pursued by Phoenix officials to deal with the unintended environmental impacts of growth. For example, federal dollars provided one-third of the funds for the construction of a centralized sewage treatment plant, half the funds to save Camelback Mountain and ninety percent of the construction costs for the West Papago-Inner Loop. Lastly, policy alternatives needed broad and diverse public support, as the public played a critical role, through bond approvals and votes, as well as grassroots campaigning, in integrating environmental values into urban growth policy. Public advocacy campaigns played an important role in setting the policy agenda and framing the policy issues that shaped policy alternatives and the public's receptivity to those choices.
Urban policy decisions are part of a dynamic and ongoing process, where previous decisions result in new challenges that provide an opportunity for debate, and the incorporation of new social values into the decision-making process. While twenty-first century challenges require responses that reflect contemporary macroeconomic factors and social values, the postwar period demonstrates the need for inclusive, collaborative, and anticipatory decision-making.
Using three episodes looking at sanitation and public health, open space preservation, and urban transportation, I argue three factors played a critical role in determining the extent to which environmental values were incorporated into Phoenix's urban growth policy. First, the degree to which environmental values influenced urban policy depends on the degree to which they fit into the Southwestern suburban lifestyle. A desire for low-density development and quality of life amenities like outdoor recreation resulted in decisions to extend municipal sewers further into the desert, the creation of a mountain preserve system, and freeways as the primary mode of travel in the city. Second, federal policy and the availability of funds guided policies pursued by Phoenix officials to deal with the unintended environmental impacts of growth. For example, federal dollars provided one-third of the funds for the construction of a centralized sewage treatment plant, half the funds to save Camelback Mountain and ninety percent of the construction costs for the West Papago-Inner Loop. Lastly, policy alternatives needed broad and diverse public support, as the public played a critical role, through bond approvals and votes, as well as grassroots campaigning, in integrating environmental values into urban growth policy. Public advocacy campaigns played an important role in setting the policy agenda and framing the policy issues that shaped policy alternatives and the public's receptivity to those choices.
Urban policy decisions are part of a dynamic and ongoing process, where previous decisions result in new challenges that provide an opportunity for debate, and the incorporation of new social values into the decision-making process. While twenty-first century challenges require responses that reflect contemporary macroeconomic factors and social values, the postwar period demonstrates the need for inclusive, collaborative, and anticipatory decision-making.
ContributorsDi Taranto, Nicholas (Author) / Hirt, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Vandermeer, Philip (Committee member) / Smith, Karen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Since the late 1990s thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hundreds of miles of fencing, and additional immigration checkpoints have been added to the Mexico-U.S. border region. This unprecedented increase in boundary enforcement has strained existing relationships and created new separations between people and places in the borderlands. Southwestern Arizona has been impacted in especially dramatic ways, as the “hardening” of the international boundary has transformed conservation and indigenous spaces into theaters of drug interdiction and immigration control. This dissertation explores this transformation in southwestern Arizona, a region that was known by Spanish Colonial administrators as the Papaguería. With the community of Ajo at the center of the narrative, this dissertation explores the ways that industry and conservation have long shaped the social relations and the landscape of the region. The destruction of old borders, the creation of new borders, and the redefinition of space has been an ongoing process that continues to define some groups of people as insiders and other groups as outsiders. In the current era of border security echoes from earlier colonial encounters reverberate into the present, shaping landscapes and the lives of local residents in the contemporary Papaguería in significant ways.
ContributorsWarren, Scott (Author) / Arreola, Daniel D (Thesis advisor) / Klett, Mark (Committee member) / Hirt, Paul (Committee member) / McHugh, Kevin E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The Energiewende aims to drastically reduce Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions, without relying on nuclear power, while maintaining a secure and affordable energy supply. Since 2000 the country’s renewable-energy share has increased exponentially, accounting in 2017 for over a third of Germany's gross electricity consumption. This unprecedented achievement is the result of policies, tools, and institutional arrangements intended to steer society to a low-carbon economy. Despite its resounding success in renewable-energy deployment, the Energiewende is not on track to meet its decarbonization goals. Energiewende rules and regulations have generated numerous undesired consequences, and have cost much more than anticipated, a burden borne primarily by energy consumers. Why has the Energiewende not only made energy more expensive, but also failed to bring Germany closer to its decarbonization goals? I analyzed the Energiewende as a complex socio-technical system, examining its legal framework and analyzing the consequences of successive regulations; identifying major political and energy players and the factors that motivated them to pursue socio-technical change; and documenting the political trends and events in which the Energiewende is rooted and which continue to shape it. I analyzed the dynamics and the loopholes that created barriers to transition, pushed the utility sector to the brink of dissolution, and led to such undesirable outcomes as negative wholesale prices and forced exports of electricity to Germany’s European neighbors. Thirty high-level energy experts and stakeholders were interviewed to find out how the best-informed members of German society perceive the Energiewende. Surprisingly, although they were highly critical of the way the transition has unfolded, most were convinced that the transition would eventually succeed. But their definitions of success did not always depend on achieving carbon-mitigation targets. Indeed, Germany jeopardizes the achievement of these targets by changing too many policy and institutional variables at too fast a pace. Good intentions and commitment are not enough to create economies based on intermittent energy sources: they will also require intensive grid expansion and breakthroughs in storage technology. The Energiewende demonstrates starkly that collective action driven by robust political consensus is not sufficient for steering complex socio-technical systems in desired directions.
ContributorsSturm, Christine (Author) / Sarewitz, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Clark (Committee member) / Anderies, John (Committee member) / Hirt, Paul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This paper argues that the use of masculine rhetoric in the expansion of the United States derived from a larger ideological system that glorified masculinity through imperialism. The United States relied on the frontier myth, a belief that asserted that the nation was formed through the struggle of settling the frontier. The American man possessed the strength to conquer the wilderness and the people who already inhabited it. This version of masculinity combined not only elements of nationalism but also of race. As the United States continued to expand its borders through imperialism, the masculine identity associated with the frontier myth persisted in the psyche of the American male. The conquering man became the ideal of the American man, and rhetoric regarding the national need for this figure in the continual expansion of America justified wars of imperialism. In order to observe recurring patterns of masculine rhetoric, this thesis adopts a comparative approach to American imperialism by analyzing two wars separated by time and political climate; the U.S.-Mexican War and the Spanish-American War. Systems of ideology are always embodied by people; consequently this thesis applies a biographical approach to the key political figures who influenced the United States’ route to war. These men serve as examples of the internalization and intersectionality of masculine rhetoric as well as the outward expression of those systems in the form of imperialism.
ContributorsAlonso, Andrea (Author) / Hirt, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Susan (Thesis advisor) / Schermerhorn, Calvin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This project uses the tools of speculative climate fiction to explore and imagine the future of the United Nations climate negotiations in each of the five Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios. Climate fiction (cli-fi) proves a powerful but imperfect tool for envisioning future challenging and turning scientific models into meaningful narratives.
ContributorsHudson, Andrew Dana (Author) / Hirt, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Klinsky, Sonja (Committee member) / Bell, Matt (Committee member) / Broglio, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
This dissertation explores the role transportation infrastructure played in regional and community development in northwestern Arizona from 1882 to 1989. Transportation infrastructure undergirds the economic viability and development of most American regions and communities. In northwestern Arizona, following a process familiar throughout the American West, the initial construction of railroad transportation infrastructure fundamentally transformed the area from sparsely populated space to an industrialized region centered on railroad created townsites. Although critical to regional development and growth, U.S. Route 66 was added well after the initial railroad period. In total, regional transformation occurred in four phases: Railroad, Route 66, I-40, and post-bypass. For regional residents, Route 66 was the most important phase transforming railroad created spaces into functional communities. Yet, despite maturing as communities, each of these towns also struggled with the same racial and class divides as the larger nation. From the early railroad period, through WW2, tourism was present in the region, but an ancillary part of the economy focused on visiting environmental attractions like the Grand Canyon. After WW2, it became more important as regional industrialism faded and traffic levels rose on Route 66. However, as long as Route 66 remained a primary highway, tourism retained its focus on the environment. As much as the construction of transportation infrastructure provided initial access to the region and founded towns, the later regional highway and railroad bypasses cut-off many of these communities from the source of their economic livelihood. Regional towns lucky enough to be integrated into the new interstate highway system like Kingman profited and grew; towns bypassed by the interstate and railroad withered and were forced to reinvent themselves to survive. This post-bypass reinvention took the form of a non-environmental focused mythic tourism connected to an emerging national Route 66 nostalgia movement that envisioned the lost Route 66 as representative of a better, more authentic America. The association with the national Route 66 nostalgia myth successfully attracted tourists but came at the cost of regional communities losing a more realistic understanding of their past and becoming disassociated from their previous community identity.
ContributorsMilowski, Daniel (Author) / Jones, Christopher (Thesis advisor) / Lim, Julian (Committee member) / MacFadyen, Joshua (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021