Jia Feng - Urban and Economic Geography and GIS
Since the 1990s, China's large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have become home to both the rising middle class and a growing number of rural migrants. By the year 2005, 24% of Beijing's 15.3 million residents have become migrants without local hukou status (a birth-ascribed household registration system, which entitles urban benefits to non-peasant households while denies them to peasant households). A great portion of these rural-urban migrants in Beijing live in job-specialized and origin-based migrant enclaves, among which migrants from China's Henan province, mainly focusing in recycling business, have formed enclaves in different suburban areas of Beijing. The evolving process of these enclaves has well recorded how Henan migrants are channeled into the recycling business and constrained spatially in migrant enclaves. Further, after about 25 years of mi
grant inflow to Beijing children of first generation migrants, having spent most of their lives in Beijing, are experiencing a changing perception from their parents in migration, hometown and their identities.
My research adopts integrated approaches from urban geography, political economy, migration study and ethnography to examine the interactions between recycling enclaves and migrants themselves in Beijing. Using a combination of quantitative analysis on survey data collected from both recycling actors in Beijing and migrants' families in their major migration origin - Gushi county, Henan province, and qualitative approaches, including archival analysis about Beijing's policies on migration and recycling business, interviews with migrants and local officials, observations on the evolving processes in several enclaves and migration origins, my research intends to answer the following questions: 1) how do Henan migrant enclaves evolve socially, economically, and spatially in Beijing? 2) what is the role of migrant enclaves in sustaining recycling business and migrants' livelihood in the city? 3) how does inter-generational perceptions on migration differ from one another and do these differences indicate that second generation migrants will be more likely to be permanent migrants in cities?
Keumseok (Peter) Koh - Urban Economic
I am a medical/economic geographer from South Korea. Before coming to America, I was a newspaper reporter covering urban policies of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. My study interests include health inequality in the geographic contexts, spatial analysis methodology, an
d urban policies. I am currently studying the difference in obesity prevalence among races in the United States. In the US, obesity and its related illnesses have reached a pandemic level but its prevalence is different among races, regions, or socioeconomic statuses. African Americans, especially, have shown the highest obesity prevalence among any other ethnic groups. The main purpose of my study is to investigate the underlying causes of racial difference in obesity prevalence by decomposing the difference into endowments and coefficients effects. If the analysis results show that the difference comes more from coefficients effects than endowments effects, unfavorable environment or socioeconomic conditions which African Americans have confronted may affect them to be more obese than the white. My study will use two kinds of analysis methods; first, a multilevel modeling will be applied for analyzing two-level structured data (individual-level and county-level); second, the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method will be adapted to confirm racially different obesity prevalence in the US.
Zeenat Kotval-Karamchandani - Urban
Being an Urban Geographer, I am interested in researching cities and how they function. The built environment says a lot about its residents and how they might go about their day to day lives. This includes going to work, school, shopping for necessities, and activities for leisure. People have different behaviors towards these daily acts depending on where they live. The built environment around them enables them to access and indulge in activities in distinct ways. Downtowns or inner cities and outer suburban areas are the most representative of this range in built environments. Differences in densities, amenities, transportation facilities, and work and recreation opportunities reflect upon, and in turn are a reflection of, the residents of the area.
My dissertation topic focuses on metropolitan Detroit, MI. Detroit is a unique case, because its downtown area, once vibrant and economically successful, has gone through drastic social and economic decline. My focus is on the differing travel patterns between residents of the inner city and the outer suburbs. How people are compelled to move around when they live in high (population) density areas compared to low density suburban areas? The lack of a comprehensive public transit system adds to this dilemma. Owning and operating private vehicles has an economic as well as an environmental burden. The economic burden refers to costs associated with gasoline consumption, parking, maintaining, and operating a personal vehicle, whereas the environmental burden refers to the impacts the emissions have on the environment. My research attempts to marry the different but connected facets of the built environment, transportation, sustainability and socio-economic characteristics of places and their residents.
Tim LeDoux - Urban and Economic Geography, Food Security, Critical Social Theory, Quantitative Methods
Spatial inequalities in access to affordable, nutritious food sources has been a growing concern for researchers, public health officials and the public in the United States. In particular, much attention has focused on the phenomenon commonly referred to as “food deserts” in which rural and urban communities have limited or no access to affordable, healthful and culturally appropriate food sources. The concern underlying this research is that restricted access to affordable nutritious food sources, such as large-scale retail supermarkets, makes individuals more dependent on smaller convenience stores, which often have higher food prices and a larger selection of unhealthful foods.
Despite recent efforts to document the health impacts arising from spatial inequalities in access to nourishing food sources, little is known about the long-term health, economical and social impacts of food deserts. Moreover, scholars have made little effort to discern the processes underlying the formation of urban food deserts. It commonly is accepted that the emergence of urban food deserts is linked to retail and residential suburbanization, racial residential segregation and the economic restructuring of the supermarket industry. Yet, few empirical studies have attempted to link these broader processes to the formation of urban food deserts.
My dissertation research fills these gaps by studying the historical formation of food deserts in tri-Metro Detroit, Michigan from 1960 to 2010. In particular, it scrutinizes how rates of retail supermarket accessibility have changed in relation to changing levels of neighborhood deprivation and racial residential segregation throughout tri-Metro Detroit. It also explores how changing levels of accessibility are impacted by the broader patterns of retail and residential suburbanization and the economic restructuring of the supermarket industry. Last, it explores whether or not existing diet related health impacts for Detroit's East Side residents are associated with restricted access to food once personal characteristics, dietary intake and travel behaviors are controlled. By so doing, it is hoped that this research will inform the creation of self-sustaining, socially acceptable and economically viable long-term solutions.
Jieun Lee - Urban Built Environment and Gendered Travel Behavior
Suburbanization in the U.S. has created built environment topology characterized by low density, single-use zoning, and disconnected street networks which requires an automobile for people to reach their destinations. Unfortunately, longer distances between spreading and dispersing destinations in most U.S. urban areas aggravate travel burdens of women, minorities, and lower-income populations with lower access to a car. Urban transportation researchers have argued that a dense, mixed land use, and highly connected urban area is more likely to encourage the use of more sustainable modes of transport, such as walking, cycling and public transport.
Such sustainable transportation alternatives are particularly important for the 'transportation disadvantaged' with the lower access to a private car. Therefore, ensuring equitable accessibility and mobility is essential to allow all people to reach their economic, social, and recreational opportunities. However, socio-economic, ethnic, and gender dynamics of accessibility and mobility have tended to be marginalized in urban transportation modeling.
This Ph.D. dissertation will examine the difference in travel behavior between men and women within the context of differing urban built environment characteristics. Gender difference in travel behavior will be examined explicitly using travel data from a detailed household travel survey within the Detroit region. The study will also explore different travel patterns, and resulting costs, among women themselves based on their ethnicity, socio-economic status, and neighborhood structure. Thus, women's accessibility and mobility in urban space will be evaluated in the full array of travels including those for work, shopping, service and leisure within the urban built environment by age, race, class and household types in 6 Detroit region neighborhoods. Thus, understanding the complexity of trips in daily activities and the effect of greater fear of urban minorities will help to suggest more equitable transportation planning strategies to improve their accessibility and mobility in the urban space.
Cristina Leuca - Investment in the Infrastructure of Play and Social and Physical Upgrading in Chicago
My dissertation explores the relationship between the public investment in the infrastructure of play and social and physical upgrading processes in the City of Chicago between 1960 and 2000. Since the 1960s, amid considerable residential decentralization taking place throughout America, a number of U.S. inner-cities, and particularly those with a growing service economy, including Chicago, began to experience an influx of upper-income residents. These residents show a heightened valorization of culture. Research has shown how artists and cultural professionals create an artistic and cultural environment attractive to the new middle class gentrifiers. Their return into the cities was coupled with increased urban reinvestment and a physical upgrading of the built environment visible with new construction and renovations. Since 1960s, Chicago's neighborhoods and downtown area have experienced significant social and physical upgrading enabled by processes of gentrification, locally-driven urban renewal projects and blockbusting.
Into the 21st century, facing an eroded economic and fiscal base, Chicago engaged in active redevelopment initiatives to rebuild its urban core and recapture its lost population, investing considerably in its infrastructure of play. The infrastructure of play includes a whole array of facilities involved in the production of entertainment or cultural activities, including: stadiums, renovated waterfronts, entertainment districts, museums, performing arts centers, art galleries, theaters, and convention centers.
While theoretical approaches have conceptualized social and physical upgrading as being driven by either the cultural preferences of the gentrifiers or by the economic rationales of private sector developers, the literature has been silent until recently on the role of the public sector in affecting both investment decisions driving physical upgrading and the consumption patterns of gentrifiers themselves. Moreover, little is known about how the public investment in the infrastructure of play shapes the social and physical upgrading processes in urban areas. Only recently, research has pointed to the role of state in affecting the relative attractiveness of a place as critical in the social and physical upgrading processes. Therefore my research hypothesis is that, since 1960, local, state, and federal investment for the construction and performance of arts and culture, sports and entertainment activities and facilities has shaped the physical and social upgrading in Chicago.
For this research, I am using both quantitative and qualitative data to explore in detail the complex processes of social and physical upgrading. Social and physical upgrading is explored using census tract demographic, socioeconomic and housing data and other secondary sources (newspapers) and primary (observation) sources of information. The infrastructure of play is explored using public investment data regarding local, state, and federal subsidies for the infrastructures of play in Chicago.
Puyang Li - Urban Migration / Poverty
The “urban village” as a phenomenon rarely emerges in the process of urbanization and suburbanization in other countries. In China, however, it is commonly seen in many big cities, especially in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and the entire Pearl River Delta where I have been studying and living for 8 years.
The urban village is not only a common phenomenon but a hot topic in Pearl River Delta. In recent years, the industry and cities in this area have experienced a period of expansion, which has been referred to as the reason for the emergence of urban village. However, in the process of urbanization in many other countries, slum areas have developed for migrant people, unlike the urban villages that have been developed in China. Therefore, there must some unique internal factors closely related to China’s specific situation. One factor may be the household registration system for residence (Hukou System) in China which results in the distinct isolation between urban and rural area, h
owever, this sort of system is shared by all the villages throughout China. Therefore, there must be some other specific mechanism and driving forces behind the emergence of these urban villages. In my research I am seeking to comprehend the universal reasons and principles of the emergence and existence of urban villages.
My dissertation research centers on exploring the interrelationship between the urbanization process of villages and the urbanization process of peasant people who are living in these villages. There are three types of urban villages in China in terms of their relative location to the central city. The first type of village is located around the boundaries between rural and urban areas, in which large piece of farmland is still preserved, the second type is distributed around the suburban areas where there still remains some small pieces of farmland and the third type is located in the inner city or in the urban areas, there is almost no land for agricultural use. These three village types can be used to describe the evolution process of urban villages from the initial erosion of urban expansion, which leads to the question; is it a simultaneous process for peasant people who live in these villages to be totally urbanized? If so, how do you measure or quantify this process? With regard to this question, I have a hypothesized that the urbanization of villages, as a changing life style and network of social relationship, might lag behind the urbanization of peasants which is characterized by the transformation of occupation, residence status and lifestyle.
Minting Ye - Urban Geography and China
Many inner-cities around the world have faced increasing physical and social decline since the 1960s. In an attempt to revitalize deteriorated inner-cities, public and private sectors have engaged in various initiatives and programs to physically upgrade the downtown and surrounding areas. Various physical upgrading projects include locally-driven urban renewal, private-sector ‘block-busting’, and gentrification. Processes and effects of physical upgrading have been documented in existing literature, but the literature discussing upgrading processes has typically neglected the negative social consequences that have emerged from redevelopment. In most cases, physical upgrading is also coupled with extensive social changes in the make-up of the neighborhoods experiencing redevelopment. Yet the by-product of upgrading - the displacement of the urban poor - has not attracted much attention. Along with removal of the original structures in these neighborhoods, many of the traditional residents of the central city are also displaced; the majority of whom are low-income industrial poor, the non-working poor, and a growing number of women.
For my dissertation, I will explore the physical and social transformation of Hong Kong before and after 1997, examining various types of physical and social upgrading processes as well as addressing their negative social consequences. Hong Kong has experienced similar urban reinvestment processes as in North American and European cities. Despite rapid urban development in this region, urban decay had become a significant problem. These pockets of decay became problematic for the new vision of the region as a service and high-tech oriented global city. Considerable efforts and resources have been concentrated on the redevelopment of these sites in recent decades. In these revitalization processes, residents living in these neighborhoods, who are often low-income, have faced considerable redevelopment pressures in their traditional communities. Historically in China, even more so then in the West, the focus of physical upgrading has been placed on reinvestment and redevelopment and not on the displacement of the marginalized.