Institutional Scholarship :: Browsing by Author "McDonogh, Gary W."

Browsing by Author "McDonogh, Gary W."

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A Tale of Two Edge(less) Cities: Morristown, Princeton, and the Dynamics of Wealth, Sprawl, and Centralization in Suburban New Jersey
(2014) Wohl, Benjamin David; McDonogh, Gary W.
With more than half of Americans now living and working in the suburbs, we must better understand the national and local forces behind metropolitan development and change. This thesis focuses on more accurately modeling the histories and realities of the clusters of suburban commercial office and retail spaces known as edge or edgeless cities. Building on significant research on the general trends leading to the creation of edge(less) cities, I ask how the historic built forms and local elite institutions that predate job suburbanization have shaped the creation of these edge(less) spaces. Therefore, my thesis analyzes commercial real estate reports, histories, planning documents, and journalistic sources in order to examine the intersection of national transportation, economic, and social shifts and existing elite built forms in the historical narratives of Morristown and Princeton, New Jersey. My thesis concludes that overlapping economic, social and transportation trends have shaped New Jersey suburbanization patterns and New Jersey's historic towns and local elites have responded to these larger trends in order to locally structure this suburban growth into a particular sense of place.
Accidental Follies: The Historical Structures of New York City’s Parks and the Stories They Tell
(2017) Trebach, Steven; McDonogh, Gary W.
A large portion of New York City consists of parkland, and as such, the narratives contained within these parks affect the city as a whole. The historical structure is one narrative vector that can be found in many different parks. In addition to preserving knowledge of the location’s functionality prior to its becoming a park, these structures can often be fit into larger social narratives. I argue that through the selective preservation of vestigial structures, New York City park designers have preserved and by extension normalized a narrative of social, technological, and military progress and achievement, while erasing any aberration or challenge to said account. Using a theoretical framework developed from the works historical, social, aesthetic, and urban writers such as David E. Nye, William Cronon, Ellen Stroud, Galen Cranz, and Luke Morgan, I analyze historical structures in several different parks and unpack their visual and historical qualities. The second and third chapters will be devoted to developing the analytical framework for the paper as well as providing some background information. The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters will focus on case studies. I draw the conclusion that the narratives support a hegemony that legitimizes the balance of power in New York society.
Advancing Digital Social Equity Through the Application of Innovative Digital Literacy Programs: A Review on Bridging the Digital Divide in Two Selected Urban Environments
(2010) Kent, Daniel Theodore Ling; McDonogh, Gary W.
As more services and business migrates to the Internet, individuals who lack the ability to effectively and efficiently use computers and the Internet are at an increasingly greater risk for missing out on new opportunities that are available only to those who are online. Historical models for remediating those who are digitally excluded have made progress towards digital inclusion but much work remains. This paper surveys the state of digital literacy programs and identifies and analyzes specific population groups that are less digitally empowered. It then examines three digital literacy organizations including the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association, the Hong Kong Internet Professional Association, and Net Literacy that seek to engage these traditionally digitally excluded populations. From these findings, this paper makes recommendations on how best to advance digital literacy and digital inclusion going forward.
City of Narrowing Shoulders and Big Ideas: Technology and Politics in Philadelphia
(2005) Kingsley, Chris; McDonogh, Gary W.
Mayor Street announced on August 25, 2004 that Philadelphia would provide free wireless access to the Internet from all 135 square miles of the city within two years. The press was understandably slow to respond to Mayor Street’s declaration; not only does Philadelphia’s plan defy all conventional wisdom regarding the role of municipalities in providing telecommunications services to citizens, but the decision had come, seemingly, out of nowhere. There had been no lobbying by businesses, no expectation on the part of Philadelphia’s citizens, and no shortage of companies to provide such services for a fee. What prompted the Mayor to spin off his own Internet Service Provider? The subsequent rationale provided by Philadelphia’s Executive Wireless Committee has been inconsistent. No network in America comes close to equaling the size of Philadelphia’s proposed wireless cloud, and it is plausible that by “throwing its hat into the wireless the ring,” the city is aiming for another of the firsts in innovation for which it was once renowned, but lately incapable of providing. Notoriety, then, may be a factor motivating the city’s support of this high-tech public works project. Also, Philadelphia seems to believe that not providing citywide access will retard its already anemic economic growth. A consensus is growing among policy makers that “just as roads, canals and railroads revolutionized 19th century America by connecting industries and people,” broadband networks are critical to urban economic expansion in the 21st century. Philadelphia wishes to be a participant in that transformation, not a spectator to it. Lastly, experience in other American cities has demonstrated that through “e-government” applications, cities can become more efficient, can provide better education, and can extend new and empowering forms of “electronic citizenship” to its residents. E-government cannot function without the Internet being available to the citizens, and without public intervention of the sort promised by the Mayor it seems clear that Philadelphians will remain particularly disconnected.
Creating Community: Italian and Southeast Asian Placemaking in South Philadelphia
(2024) Mabrouk, Tasneem; McDonogh, Gary W.
My thesis explores how the Italian and Southeast Asian communities in South Philadelphia utilized physical spaces to create a meaningful identity and sense of belonging for themselves in a new city. Given the significance of ethnic enclaves to immigrant communities, I wanted to explore what hindered immigrant placemaking efforts and how these issues could be remediated. My research synthesized scholarly work, field visits, and personal narratives from community members to gain insight into the histories and meanings engrained in ethnic enclaves in South Philadelphia, and to then identify the threats they were facing, such as gentrification and predatory development. By comparing the more established Italian Market to the newer Southeast Asian spaces that the community is still fighting to create, my research sheds light on how the city’s cultural and political landscape has shifted over the last century, further marginalizing its immigrant communities and making it more difficult for them to carve a place for themselves.Through these insights, I highlight the continued importance of physical space to urban immigrants, serving as a platform through which they can assert themselves as active citizens, find joy in community, and create sites that cater to their needs and reflect their identities.
Creating Green in the City: the Intersection of “Nature” and Urban Planning in the Metropolitan Region of Valparaíso
(2016) McAlear, Zoë; McDonogh, Gary W.
Relationships between nature and the built environment of our cities often end up simplified and neglected, with urban planning focused on preserving park spaces, but not concerned with the city as a complete ecosystem. Using a metropolitan region within Chile as an example, this paper examines various social meanings and constructions of nature and their inclusion or exclusion in the discourse and practice of urban planning. Drawing on interviews with a range of participants, as well as a careful study of urban planning documents from the region, these studies analyze how these conceptualizations of nature affect urban environmental planning and environmental management in the coastal Chilean cities of Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, and Concón. It becomes clear that nature is still primarily viewed as separate and excluded from cities and that, when included, there exists a lack of systematic planning prioritizing its complex interrelationship with the built environment. These questions of nature’s inclusion in planning processes manifest themselves most strongly in urban environmental conflicts in the port of Valparaíso and the sand dunes of Concón, which are featured in this research as key examples of contested environmental management in the region. Through its analysis, this paper offers an alternative future path in which a reevaluation of Chilean conceptualizations of nature could help to diversify their strategies of environmental planning and management, and ensure a sustainable relationship between the urban and natural components of their cities.
Dream space : a study of architecture in Fellini
(2001) Toth, Benjamin; Cohen, Jeffrey A., 1952-; McDonogh, Gary W.
Beginning with the onset of the industrial revolution, urban spatial issues have become increasingly complex as cities have grown in size and density and technology has changed the way we use and travel through space. In response to those rapidly changing dynamics of architecture and the city, many filmmakers of the twentieth century began to use the modern art of cinema to examine the issues generated by these transitions. A few early silent filmmakers utilized cinematic means to create unprecedented images of architecture and the city. They utilized formal aspects of cinema, such as sets, movement, and composition in order to create new experiences of the space of architecture and the modern city. Films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis are well known examples of such films.
Elite Suburbs and their Social Reproduction: Transportation, Education and Association in the Philadelphia Main Line and the Chicago North Shore
(2016) Kondelis, Peter Nicholas; McDonogh, Gary W.
In the mid-19th century, the spread of commuter rail service converged with growing demand for single-family homes amid open space and bucolic surroundings. By the late 19th century, a national class of elite inner railroad suburbs had emerged outside major cities including Bronxville (New York, NY), Brookline (Boston, MA), Bryn Mawr and the Main Line (Philadelphia, PA) and Winnetka and the North Shore (Chicago, IL). These shared features of distance, cost of land, and architecture and social ties that made them exclusive. Some of these remain among the most elite suburban addresses of the country. However, even those who interact daily with today’s re-creations of these suburbs’ origin mythologies rarely wonder why and how they have held onto such exclusive statuses. In this thesis, I ask both how these suburbs’ residents have recreated their elite statuses for over a century despite national social, economic, and cultural changes and the shifting composition of elites nationally and within these communities. To answer, I analyze social theories, primary documents, and suburban histories as well as sociocultural theories of two cases: the Philadelphia Main Line’s Lower Merion Township and the Chicago North Shore’s New Trier Township. I conclude that early speculative developers, the design of elites’ country estates and early luxury developments, transportation networks, and distinctive social and well-funded educational institutions established this elite status that also became part of a myth of eliteness. Over subsequent decades, civic adaptations to transportation networks and educational and social institutions have perpetuated this status in spite of the rise of the automobile, changes to the American elite, the growth of affluent outer suburbs and exurbs, and the diversifying composition of elite suburbs. While, as Bourdieu (1984) suggests, classifiers have the power of classification, this thesis shows that maintaining this status has been a complex and continuous action involving multiple agents, institutions, and representations.
Endless City, Endless Congestion: Interactions Between Urban Form and Mobility in Beijing
(2014) da Silva, Matthew Alexander; McDonogh, Gary W.
This thesis traces the developmental roots of Beijing's current urban form as a sprawling, decentralized metropolis, and analyzes the intersections of this development with transportation and personal mobility in the city. I track Beijing's urban form through the Republic of China era, through the Maoist regime, and into the modern era of reform and opening up as different stakeholders with different priorities HAVE left their mark on the city, marginalizing the economic importance of the historic core and creating a network of decentralized, sectoralized expansion over a wide geographic footprint. I show that this process has led to great challenges in moving people through the contemporary city, creating a transportation system prone to long travel times, congestion, and class-based hierarchy of modal dependence on parallel systems of inadequate connectivity and capacity: a highway system for the wealthy and a subway system for the working classes.
Hedging Discourse: Implications of Federal Reserve Policy Rhetoric
(2015) Tjing, Leslie; Fernald, Theodore B.; McDonogh, Gary W.
Language, as a strategic policy-planning tool, can be meticulously controlled to frame policy decisions and condition policy interpretation. This thesis analyzes Federal Reserve policy rhetoric to understand how the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed’s policymaking body, uses language to communicate its monetary policy decisions through verbal and written discourse. With the interest of examining rhetorical changes in response to financial crises, I analyze excerpts from selected FOMC meeting transcripts and minutes from 2004–2006 (post2001 crisis) and 2011–2013 (post2008 crisis). In recognition of economic uncertainty, economists generally speak with cautious rhetoric and “hedge” when making economic forecasts. I use the term hedging to refer to a linguistic strategy used by the speaker to mitigate commitment to and about a proposition. The presence of hedged statements in economics discourse is generally explicit, if not intentional. I identify the role of hedging in light of recent crises, which have prompted the Fed to provide the markets with greater clarity regarding policy measures and expectations. In the pursuit of improving communication transparency, the Fed has increasingly considered language as a key decision-making tool in its policymaking process. My thesis highlights a particular example—the Fed’s “forward-guidance” language—which was adopted by Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke in response to the 2001 and 2008 U.S economic crises, respectively, as a necessary conduit for communicating the path of accommodative monetary policy measures. I analyze FOMC rhetoric in a post-crisis context, as the height of economic uncertainty during this period of time typically warrants frequent use of epistemic hedging. In general, this thesis demonstrates the critical function hedges serve: they are linguistically necessary for framing “forward-guidance” language as they assist in making the implicit conditionality in both spoken and written language more explicit.
Interrogating Harbor Point: Examining the Effects of Baltimore's Economic Development Policies
(2014) Braxton, Mariah; McDonogh, Gary W.
Harbor Point is a soon to be developed 27 acre mixed-use waterfront development, which will include office buildings, retail, apartment towers, parks, and the regional headquarters of Exelon Corporation. This $1B project will put the City of Baltimore into a debt totaling around $400M, due to the use of Brownfield Tax Credits, Enterprise Zones, and TIF. City Council and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake have justified this public expenditure as a means of economic development. This thesis analyzes the benefit of these programs as tools for job creation and unemployment amelioration. This is not the first time Baltimore and the State of Maryland have heavily contributed to the financing of a private project, yet the city still struggles with deteriorating neighborhoods and high unemployment. If the current models of economic development do not yield results then Baltimore must try a new strategy. This thesis recommends Baltimore think more creatively regarding economic development policy and suggests the theory and policies of other scholars as a way to invoke change.
Pastoral Fantasies, Urban Realities: A Study of Campus Expansions at New York City Universities
(2023) Gonen, Deniz; McDonogh, Gary W.
The college campus is a uniquely American place. Often designed in the style of neoclassical academic and residential buildings surrounding green quads that are meant to emulate a sense of peace and admiration from its students, it was largely considered a “pastoral retreat” for elite young men until the later half of the 20th century. When both city and university space began to expand greatly, universities had to grapple with the reality of being located in urban centers and became “total worlds” to their students by sheltering them in a closed campus environment. This thesis looks at Columbia University and New York University (NYU), both located in New York City, to understand how university expansion projects lead to emulating a secluded campus within an already thriving urban framework. These institutions are contrasted to the City College of New York, part of the city’s main public university system, which has historically served more local populations and preserves a certain degree of openness within its campus. Ultimately, these university expansions show the desire to control land at the expense of usable public city space, and the resulting prestige attached to creating a cohesive campus image. The possibility of forming a college without a campus is explored in the conclusion as a way of imagining higher education in a more community-oriented and inclusive way.
Pipe Dreams, and Other Such Structures: Technology, Space, and Power in Utopian Urbanism from 1888 to 2018
(2019) Rhodes, Nicholas A.; McDonogh, Gary W.
Alphabet Inc.’s Sidewalk Toronto, a ‘smart city’ project under development in the Quayside district of Toronto, is touted as a utopian panacea, promising to use ubiquitous Internet-connected sensors to redefine urban life. However, the ways in which this plan imagines controlling civic data and invisibly restructuring systems of power has provoked public outcry. This thesis positions Sidewalk Toronto within the chronology of technological utopian literature as a means to examine how historical visionaries have conceptualized models of citizenship in changing technological landscapes, and consequently to ask what contemporary visionaries can learn from these implications. In paralleling utopian spatial and societal form with changing modes of telecommunication technologies, I find that the ways in which flows of urban information are controlled have the power to create or destroy publics, and establish or erase notions of democracy. From these perspectives, this thesis aims to warn of the dangers of the ‘smart city’ typology if a more interdisciplinary mode of thought isn’t established — for as visions of the utopian city veer towards images of technocratic control, so too will our realities.
PLANNING FOR EAST PARKSIDE
(2021) Hager, Madeleine Park; McDonogh, Gary W.
Planning for East Parkside studies the history of exclusion, neglect and disconnect in the Philadelphia neighborhood of East Parkside and explores how its history shapes contemporary development. An analysis of three recent development plans for the district within which the neighborhood lies demonstrates how East Parkside is often planned for in the context of its large neighboring institutions, including the Philadelphia Zoo, the Please Touch Museum, the Mann, and Fairmount Park as a whole, which reflects and results in the prioritization of these institutions over East Parkside in a way that contributes to further disconnect and isolation. As a result, the very institutions that might serve as amenities to a community end up working against it. However, throughout its history, individualsand communities have created meaningful change through their neighborhood focused work, and it is through this block-by-block method that residents and organization of East Parkside continue to positively impact their community.
Prayers for Politicians Religion and the Public Sphere
(2020) Staruski, Joseph; McDonogh, Gary W.
Polarization and divisive politics have led to a distrust in American institutions and contributed to a decline in social capitol. For over a decade, the academic literature has ignored the topic of declining social capitol assuming that new forms of connection have replaced the old. Social media and digital technologies, however, are not a sufficient replacement for in-person forms of interaction. This study focuses on two cases of protestant religious institutions in a major American city and analyzes their power structures and communication methods using observations and thematic analysis. It finds that the church can be seen as a ‘nexus of community engagement' because it can help congregants to build social capitol and connect to community resources. That very social capital is also a pre-condition for the rational-critical discourses in the public sphere. Churches, as morally-interested institutions, will sometimes struggle with accessibility among individuals who do not share their moral convictions, but they can be successful at reducing the influence of power dynamics in discourse by democratizing their power structures. Churches will naturally vary in their acceptance of rational-critical discourse and in their levels of solidarity, as do the two case studies. This study explains the embattled relationship between social solidarity and the public sphere, providing useful insights for American citizens and civic leaders.
Precarious Neighborhoods: Interclass Spaces and Interactions in Contemporary Buenos Aires
(2014) Reinhardt, Max; McDonogh, Gary W.
This thesis examines relationships between adjacent but unequal neighborhoods in Latin American cities, a recent phenomenon of increasing frequency. Drawing on a case study from Buenos Aires where Barrio Rodrigo Bueno, a squatter settlement facing the threat of eviction, and Puerto Madero, a luxury neighborhood for the elite, share a border, I examine how Latin America's urban lower class, despite fragile living conditions, may try to use elite development projects to claim a right to the city. To do so, I provide two case studies of interstitial spaces: the church and a green space. I found that while people of different economic classes are brought together in these spaces, their interactions are limited. I then contrast these instances of interclass contact with those of the workplace, which are more consistent, but more hierarchical. I found that the people of Barrio Rodrigo Bueno repurpose these spaces to fit their needs, habits, and desires, but they do not establish strong alliances with their wealthy neighbors. Nonetheless, this ability to re-purpose urban spaces may be one of the final connections Latin America's increasingly "severed" (Auyero 2001) shantytowns have to the city as a whole.
Production of Knowledge, Consumption of Space: Exploring Gentrification and Philadelphia's Collegiate Institutions
(2014) Partridge, Simone A.; Cohen, Jeffrey A., 1952-; McDonogh, Gary W.
With over 80 colleges and universities within the greater Philadelphia area, academic institutions are a dominant feature of the urban landscape. This thesis considers the relationship between metropolitan academic institutions and their surrounding neighborhoods. Focusing on narratives of gentrification, this thesis asks how the presence of colleges and universities serves as an agent of social and spatial change in Philadelphia. Analysis of campus expansion as a gentrification of space and the institution's role in promoting Philadelphia's growing young adult population, suggests that university-driven gentrification fosters spatial identities that have consciously aligned Philadelphia with Richard Florida's model of the Creative City, but in doing so have excluded the preexisting urban context and furthered spatial segregation. This thesis does not offer a moral evaluation of gentrification, but rather aims to illuminate the university's role in the changing spatial identity of Philadelphia and the consequences that may follow.
Redefining Boundaries: A Design Proposal for a Migrant Worker Communal Housing Plan in Al Quoz, Dubai, UAE
(2022) Singh, Shreya; McDonogh, Gary W.
Being born and brought up in the UAE, I had the privilege of watching Dubai transform from a desert port into a thriving metropolis with the third-most skyscrapers in the world. With the increased demand for migrant workforce due to large projects like Expo 2020, the UAE and the rest of the Gulf are going through a transformation that could affect their migrant workers. Since 2014, about 34,000 laborers have died in the Gulf due to exploitative working and living conditions. I believe it is crucial to evaluate the impact of design, and for this thesis, I am proposing a redesign of the UAE's migrant worker housing to provide more humane housing conditions for the low-income, diasporic migrant worker population living in the UAE. The current 'labor camps' in the UAE are extremely overcrowded and lack basic amenities. The design solution aims to meet the needs of the migrant workers in the effort to provide humane living conditions. I will propose a portable, sustainable, and flexible communal housing model that will serve the current migrant workers and possibly their families in the future. The site will include integrated introverted-extroverted spaces, which will be built up of modular typologies that can change over time as demographics and needs change. The spatial arrangement of the building typologies with mixed functions could contribute to the social and cultural integration of the migrants in various ways.
Rush Hour in Rio: How the Development of Transportation for the 2016 Olympics is Affecting the City
(2016) Vámos, Csilla Krisztina; Cohen, Jeffrey A., 1952-; McDonogh, Gary W.; Stroud, Ellen; Voith, Daniela Holt
As Rio prepares for the 2016 Olympics, the city and national government have tackled various issues that will define the city as “modern” on a global stage. This thesis examines how the redevelopment of transportation systems in Rio over the last few years affect the city as a whole. I conclude that public transit and road installations will affect parts of the city differently, reproducing social and spatial inequality. While the new High Performance Transit Ring will help to alleviate some of the heavy traffic experienced daily (and facilitate Olympic connections), issues arise concerning the geography of the city, the organization and functionality of public transportation and their routes, and different social classes. To substantiate these claims, I analyze Rio’s Olympic candidature files, transportation reports, and relevant newspaper and journal articles. The results show that there is a discrepancy between what Rio and cariocas view as an ideal progression to a city of tomorrow, with inclusion and social integration of all its citizens, with what is actually happening, which is lower income classes being robbed of the benefits of transportation upgrades. Rio is leaving behind a large percentage of its population as it tirelessly continues to strive for modernity, order and progress, and creating an ideal image of itself to the rest of the world through branding.
Searching for Belonging in Ethnic Identity: Young Second-Generation Chinese-Peruvians in Lima, Peru
(2019) Chang, Rebecca Mu Jie; McDonogh, Gary W.
Within Latin America, Peru has one of the largest populations of Overseas Chinese* that is mostly concentrated within the capital city of Lima and traditionally centered in the Chinatown area dating back to the 1850s. In this thesis, I choose to focus on the consequences of renewed Chinese migration in the 1980s and 90s through the perspectives of second-generation Chinese- Peruvians whose parents arrived during that time frame. Through qualitative interviews supplemented with urban historical and spatial analyses, I demonstrate the complex nature of youth ethnic identity construction through factors such as individual and group identity, assimilation, family, heritage language, heritage schools, and extracurricular activities rooted in Chinese culture. On a broader level, this project questions local re-creations of a global Chinese identity and issues of belonging in urban society.

Browsing by Author "McDonogh, Gary W."

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