This study provides an overview of vacancy and blight within communities across the United States and the significance that these factors play in the overall health and prosperity of the neighborhoods and cities in which they exist. The recent housing boom and eventual bust destabilized neighborhoods and led the federal government to provide funds for communities to combat vacancy and blight through the American Recovery Act and the Dodd Frank Act. The City of Muncie utilized these funds to demolish vacant, blighted properties and to aid developers in the rehabilitation of several historic properties for rental and sale to low-income residents. Although these efforts are an excellent starting point for redevelopment of Muncie’s neighborhoods, there is room for improvement in utilizing private-public relationships and funding sources to amplify current successes. / Department of Urban Planning

The sudden and steady increase in the involvement of women in the Mexican labour force beginning in the 1980s, signifies a major shift in gender roles and activities. It is a little studied outcome of Mexico's combination of economic crisis (which served to increase the supply of female labour) and subsequent adoption of neoliberal economic policies (which stimulated the demand for female labour). In fact, what is not known, are the implications of this employment for the Mexican women themselves. The dissertation moves beyond the existing literature on the gendered consequences of employment and economic development, by bringing in the citizenship literature to help define women's status. Specifically, the dissertation proposes a way of determining these consequences by examining three dimensions of women's status, two of which refer to women's roles and capabilities in the public sphere---political and economic---and one which refers to women's status in the private sphere---the household. By disaggregating the status variable, the dissertation highlights the significant improvements in women's status while identifying the remaining obstacles to gender equality. The dissertation develops a number of measures of women's multidimensional status, and assesses the differences between employed and non-employed women using data obtained from a survey of women in Mexico City. In the economic sphere, the findings indicate that employment improves women's status by enhancing women's independence. Employment provides women with the economic resources that enable them to lessen their dependence on men. At the same time, women continue to face inequality in the labour market, signifying the continuing subordination of women. In terms of women's household status, the findings show that women retain the primary responsibility for childcare, and for the maintenance of the home. This inequality is significant, and serves to limit further improvements in

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