Growth and Structure of Cities (Bryn Mawr)
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Browsing Growth and Structure of Cities (Bryn Mawr) by Author "Arbona, Juan"
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- ItemBombings and Blockades: The Impact of the Maoist Insurgency on the Relationship between Kathmandu and its Hinterland(2005) Marceau, Eileen Aki; Arbona, JuanThis thesis examines the impacts of Maoist insurgency in Nepal on the relationship between Kathmandu and its hinterland. An analysis of this conflict will shed light onto the meaning of space and how spaces are historical products of social, political, and economic processes. This thesis focuses on two urban attacks in August 2004 as a lens through which we can understand the value spatial meaning in a concrete place and time. The relationship between Kathmandu and its hinterland has long been divided. Kathmandu’s status as the nation’s capital makes it home to the Nepali elite and rulers and a nodal site for an international community. Because these parties dictate the distribution of wealth, and their focus lies in the capital, they consequently neglect underrepresented areas outside of Kathmandu. Throughout Nepal’s long history of varying political systems, ranging from a Rana oligarchy to multiple attempts at democracy, this disparity has always existed. Since 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist has led a civil war against the government and monarchy combating this disparity. Because the Maoists have gained most of their strength in and from rural, underrepresented areas, the war has become a conflict between the capital and its hinterland. The August 2004 attacks on the capital illustrate the final stages of the Maoists’ strategy to enact full-scale attacks on the capital after gaining prominence in its hinterland. These events represent the Maoists’ attempts to level the inequities between Kathmandu and its hinterland in an urban setting. The thesis concludes that because spaces and structures are tangible manifestations of social, economic, and political processes, it is important to pay attention to the ideas spaces grow to represent. Perhaps one way to address the disparity between Kathmandu and its hinterland is to establishing growth poles and bottom up development throughout the country.
- ItemEncamping Displaced People: Planning for Today and Tomorrow(2010) Triulzi, Ananda; Arbona, JuanUrbanism emerging in the space of refugee camps is one of the exigent planning themes of our times. This particular urbanism holds an important place in international politics as a space of conflict through which national governments, NGOs, and international agencies exercise power. The camp is subject to the design methodologies of various parties, which attempt to mold it according to their individual policies and aims. Its unique emergent urban qualities and development are therefore of interest to those who would discover the effects of such policies on the camp. As well, the space of the camp is critical to the discourse of refugee and displaced person advocates. Many studies of encampments for displaced people have been made, yet few have set out to address the planning methods used to build camps. This thesis attempts to address that deficit by examining the physical planning methods and camp forms espoused by the UNHCR, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the U.S. Air Force. The study is conducted through examining the agencies’ planning texts, respectively, Handbook for Emergencies, Camp Management Toolkit, and Air Force Handbook 10-222, Vol. 22: Refugee Camp Planning and Construction Handbook. The documents set forward methods of planning, using qualitative argument that conceive of the space’s role as formative in reconstructing the lives of displaced residents. As well the texts are respectful of international law and the needs of aid agencies within the camp. Ultimately, deferring to too many perspectives, the planning documents struggle to take a meaningful position on encampments. Rather they remain caught between their humanitarian goals and the recognition that larger forces politically overpower them with policies that are not concerned primarily with the well being of displaced people.
- ItemN.W.A. Gangster Rap: Representation and Spatial Identity within the Los Angeles Urban Context(2013) Alvarez, Lorenzo Luis; Arbona, JuanGangster rap music has a bad rap. This thesis aims to recontextualize N.W.A.’s 3 premier songs, “Express Yourself,” “Fuck the Police,” and “Straight Outta Compton” in an effort to reveal the ingrained thematic critiques of masculinity, materialism, and the political structure. The history of Compton is explained in detail to reveal structural road blocks constantly oppressing the advancement of the community collectively. Compton as a significant spatial location, a place, is given commercial cultural value through N.W.A.’s identity creation through self representation of their environment.
- ItemOf Poets, Paupers and Planes: Tuberculosis in the City(2008) Alexander, Katia; Arbona, JuanTuberculosis has afflicted human populations for thousands of years, but it was not until the nineteenth century that it came to be perceived as an epidemic that posed a serious public health problem. The dramatic rise in the incidence and the salience of tuberculosis, or “consumption,” coincided with the Industrial Revolution and the massive migration of populations to urban areas in Europe and the United States. In bringing unprecedented numbers of people together, industrial cities physically facilitated the spread of infectious diseases like tuberculosis. The transitions to city life and a capitalist industrial economy had great impact on culture and society, and these changes provided new ways of perceiving the intersections of health, illness, and class. Anxieties about the urban industrial lifestyle and the fate of the ever-changing city played out in perceptions of tuberculosis and its causes and possible treatments. Concerns about status and the growing underclass of laborers affected perceptions of consumptive patients and one’s own vulnerabilities to tuberculosis. Within the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States, tuberculosis evolved from being a romanticized disease of bohemian artists and musicians to being a social disease of the poor living in urban slums. In the beginning of the twentieth century, racial tensions in the United States fueled theories about tuberculosis and deviance in the African-American and immigrant populations. By the mid-twentieth century, tuberculosis began to fade from the people’s consciousness, and it was eventually deemed to be “eradicated” in the Western world thanks to advances in antibiotic therapy. In the past twenty years, however, tuberculosis has “returned,” in virulent, multi-drug resistant forms. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has played a role in this comeback, as weakened immune systems are unable to ward off tubercle bacillae. Perceptions of tuberculosis are very different in the current global era and reflect the anxieties about globalization today.
- ItemOlympics and Housing: A Look into the Treatment of Underserved Populations Before and After the Games(2009) Kapadia, Sarita; Arbona, JuanEvery four years, the world unites for a friendly few weeks of international sports competition, the summer Olympics. A different city is given the honor of hosting this world wide, mega-event each time. Many years of preparation goes into each Olympics, from changes in transportation and technology to building of new housing structures, monuments, and venues. It is the perfect opportunity for cities to renew and revive themselves, both structurally and culturally, and most hope that the costs and changes in which they invest will have a positive, everlasting effect. However, what is often good for the city's population as a whole cripples those on the margins of society even further. These marginalized people include minority groups, low income workers, and the homeless. Often, host cities put so much effort into creating a perfect image of themselves, that they disregard how their actions affect impoverished populations, for example through the displacement of people in building of Olympic venues. My thesis investigates the question, "In regards to housing, do Olympic cities implement positive changes for all of its citizens, or are the needs of the marginalized populations ignored?" To answer the question, I will look at the efforts of three host cities, Barcelona, Atlanta, and Sydney. The question will be analyzed through four different viewpoints of housing; displacement of people in preparing for the games, the Olympic Village and its after use, treatment of homeless populations throughout the Olympic process, and finally affordability of housing in the city in response to the Olympics. My thesis will conclude with a brief look at the preparations going into the 2012 London Olympics, and will make recommendations as to how Olympics might better tackle the issue of housing and marginalized populations in the future.
- ItemTruck Drivers and Fisherfolk in Sub-Saharan Africa: Understanding and Comparing their Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS(2013) Freudenberger, Maia; Arbona, JuanIn sub-Saharan Africa, truck drivers and fisherfolk are two mobile populations that are disproportionately affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. What individual behaviors or structural environments influence these populations’ vulnerability to HIV/AIDS? After reviewing truckers’ and fisherfolks’ sexual behaviors through primary epidemiological studies and comparing them to those of the general population through Demographic Health Surveys, I found that truck drivers and fisherfolk have multiple sex partners and high rates of commercial sex which increase their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. But they exhibit safer sex practices than the general population, proving that individual sexual behaviors cannot solely explain their sustained HIV/AIDS vulnerability. It is important to recognize the high-risk structural environments in which they are embedded; this includes fish-for-sex transactions for fisherfolk and lengthy border delays for truckers. I conclude that high-risk environments are more important than individual behaviors in explaining both truck drivers’ and fisherfolks’ vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. It is only by focusing on these structural factors that public health programs will decrease these populations’ vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
- ItemWho Owns History? The Construction, Deconstruction, and Purpose of the Main Line Myth(2007) Grant, Michael; Stroud, Ellen; Arbona, Juan; Hein, CarolaThis thesis analyzes class duality in suburban Philadelphia between 1870 and 1930. The story below begins with the creation of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1846 and the subsequent construction of a “main line” to Philadelphia. In response to urban industrialization – a push – and the emergence of a suburban pastoral ideal – a pull – social elites fled from Philadelphia during the second half of the nineteenth century and constructed country estates atop the hills overlooking the rail line. The society that the elites mythicized on the Main Line crumbled in the hands of the 1929 Great Depression, marking the end “the Golden Age.” This thesis argues that the Main Line social elites, on account of exclusionary town planning and estate architecture, spawned a myth that masked the existence of a suburban servant underclass, which the elites themselves created and sustained through the maintenance of their country estates. Questions concerning the myth’s definition, makers, and ultimate purpose and societal function frame the argument.