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Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / Sport psychologists, seeking to work with a range of performers rather than athletes alone, have stimulated much of the burgeoning interest in performance populations who ply their talent on the public stage. A desire to understand the relationship between performance outcomes and constructs such as stress, coping, and social support have guided much of the early research with these populations. However, one performance population that has attracted little research attention is professional actors. Professional actors experience stress, coping, and social support as a consequence of working in an industry recognized as notoriously insecure (Phillips, 1993). As professionals, actors observe, deconstruct, and reflect on the human experience in order to make their portrayals as realistic as possible (Bryer & Davison, 2001). Thus, the actors' carefully considered insights on stress, coping, and social support as experienced in their field are worthy of documentation. In addition, the actor's perspective will contribute to a more complete understanding of performance populations. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to concurrently examine stress, coping, and social support experiences of actors in order to understand the processes of each construct independently and to explore the complexities of their interdependent relationship. A qualitative research design was adopted in which 17 professional actors (9 male, 8 female) working predominantly in theater in New York City, were encouraged to share their experiences of stress, coping, and social support during two semi-structured interviews. Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) transactional model of stress and coping and Winemiller et al., (1993) integrated approach were adopted as frames for data analysis. A major finding of the investigation was the value of framing stress, coping, and social support in terms of the actors ' major occupational challenges: get the job, do the job, and build a career. A second major finding was the common experiences of stress, coping, and social support identified by a range of performers. A third major finding was the constitution of the actors' unique experience. Implications for psychologists working with actors and related performers were proposed. In addition, a model of career longevity for actors was proposed.

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Beginning in the late 1960s officials in New York City faced a growing financial problem. Revenues collected did not add up to meet the city’s budget. In 1975, that problem became a crisis when the city could no longer meet its debt obligations. On the precipice of bankruptcy, a city once known for its generous welfare state, adopted austerity and structural readjustment in order to access federal aid and stave off collapse. Historians have examined the political and economic causes and social consequences of the fiscal crisis as well as the ways in which the city rebuilt itself as a playground for visitors and through the actions of the city’s financial elite. Do the Hustle: Municipal Regulation of New York City’s Underground Economy, 1965 to the Present, examines the ways in which officials rebuilt and reorganized New York City through revenue. Using New York City as a case study of state development I argue that the state rebuilt and reoriented itself around extracting and protecting revenues through regulation in the final decades of the twentieth-century. City officials rebuilt New York by creating new licensing requirements, offering generous tax incentives to businesses, and instituting regulations that protected what officials considered to be the most important sources of revenue – the financial industry, real estate, and tourism. Beginning with the Lindsay administration and ending with Giuliani’s two terms as mayor, this project traces the ways in which city officials attempted to extract new revenues from previously untapped sources in the city’s informal and semi-formal sectors while simultaneously working to protect revenues generated by finance, development, and tourism from nuisance businesses that might affect their bottom line and thus, municipal revenues. In their pursuit of revenue, officials actively constructed a new New York City that courted business at the expense of average citizens. That transformation has not been limited to New York as other municipalities have also shifted focus to revenue extraction and protection. By the twenty-first century, the extraction and protection of revenue through regulation had resulted in high levels of income inequality, aggressive policing, and a growing homeless population in cities across the country. / History

Transportation planning often takes a one-size-fits-all approach that overlooks hyper-local and personal aspects of mobility. Mobility is frequently thought of as movement from ‘Point A’ to ‘Point B’; however, the concept of mobility cultures reframes mobility as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Thus, culture emerges from and reciprocally informs local travel behaviors. Mobility cultures are a lens through which to understand differences in the experience and practice of movement through the urban environment. This study frames mobility cultures as the confluence of four objective and subjective factors: travel behaviors and routines, attitudes and perceptions, the built environment, and socioeconomics. This thesis explores, compares, and contrasts mobility cultures in two demographically different bus-dependent areas of New York City: Staten Island Community Board 2 and Queens Community Board 12. Through a combination of survey, web-based ethnography, and desktop research the study examines how these four components of mobility culture manifest in the two study areas. The data show that not only is mobility extremely context-dependent, but the experience and practice of mobility are inseparable from a larger landscape of power, which is interwoven with objective and subjective components of mobility cultures.

In response to recent storms like Superstorm Sandy and sea-level rise influenced by climate change, cities, particularly those located at the coast, have taken initiative to combat these growing threats with adaptive urban planning. Although civilians residing in susceptible neighborhoods are often the most vulnerable socioeconomically, there has been minimal evidence that planning has accounted for the characteristics of vulnerability. This thesis evaluates the recent planning efforts and vulnerability of Norfolk, VA and New York City to gauge the progress being made toward reducing citizen vulnerability and raising adaptability and preparedness. The most recent peer-reviewed research is consulted to forge the evaluation framework and also to recognize breakthroughs and conformity. After analyzing the performance of the sets of planning documents in both cities, it is evident that the ability to effectively plan for the public’s vulnerability is contingent in part on inter-governmental capacity, but more specifically on disaster experience.

In the summer of 2016 I worked at The Moore Street Market Farm run by Oko Farms LLC., New York City’s first and largest outdoor urban aquaponics company. Aquaponics is a method of farming that combines the cultivation of aquatic animals and plants in a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship. While the industry is in its infancy, aquaponics is acknowledged to have great potential to change the future of farming for sustainability, as it uses less water than traditional agriculture and can be implemented almost anywhere. This thesis examines current challenges to the industry and the potential future applications of aquaponics in urban environments, through discussion of current developments in aquaponics in Europe; Growing Power’s use of aquaponics for community benefit in the Milwaukee; as well as in the case-studies of Oko Farms and Agtech aquaponics companies in New York City. While eventually concluding that implementations of aquaponics for profit might not be viable in the long run, this thesis ends with a short discussion on hypothetical successful applications the industry could thrive in.