<p> Immigrant communities in Massachusetts Gateway Cities face a number of economic and social challenges that can be difficult to understand or quantify through traditional research methods. This thesis explores the use of sentiment analysis of microblogging data as an alternative method for assessing well-being of immigrant communities, with a focus on Portuguese speaking immigrants. I collected Tweets from four key cities in Massachusetts and analyzed them using two sentiment lexicons, one in Portuguese and one in English. I compared results between languages as well as correlated with a number of traditional indicators of well-being gathered from U.S. Census data. I found that the results from the English analysis were overall more positive than those from the Portuguese analysis, but most differences were not statistically significant. I also found some correlations between the demographic data and the sentiment analysis results with promising implications for further research. </p>

Between 1960 and 1991, the population of Rondonia, Brazil increased from 70,000 to 1.3 million. This increase occurred during the thirty-year period bracketing the rise to statehood, during which a rural population also became largely urban. Simultaneously, the loss of tropical rain forest in the state progressed at unparalleled rates. This dissertation examines some of the ways in which these two rapidly changing aspects of Rondonia's landscape are related to each other. The research project employs a framework grounded in realist philosophy, a flexible approach that facilitates research into processes that are unfolding at a regional scale but which occur within the context of broader national and international structures. Several kinds of connections between urban population growth and deforestation are examined, including land conversion for urban use, food consumption in urban areas, wood consumption for housing in urban areas, and power consumption in urban areas. Urban sprawl is found to be significantly and positively correlated with deforestation at the municipio level, but the absolute magnitude of urban sprawl is very small relative to total deforestation. No spatial correlation is found between urban settlement and the dedication of land to food crops. A weak but positive correlation is found between urban demand for timber and total deforestation, but the absolute magnitude of local timber demand is found to be very small in comparison to forest clearing. The recent diversification of the timber industry in order to absorb urban labor may have profound implications for demand on forest resources in the future. Electricity generation has been destructive of rain forest, and capacity already under construction is likely to have further such impacts. The cultural landscape of Rondonia reflects an orientation that is increasingly outward-looking. Rondonia's cities and towns are becoming more closely connected with one another and more fully integrated with the outside world. Early incentives to settle in Rondonia contributed to deforestation, but the curtailment of these incentives did not curtail deforestation. Rondonia is a place caught between two opposite pressures: the pressure to preserve the rain forest and the pressure to participate in the world economy as consumers.

Since the end of federal funds from the Water Resources Planning Act of 1964, it has been largely the responsibility of the states to plan for their water resources. This study will report on the current status of state water planning, suggest some variables that may have an influence on a state's decision to prepare a state water plan, and test the variables through statistical analysis. Some of the variables that are suggested as having some influence on state water planning are precipitation, population density, large metropolitan areas, median per capita income (as a measure of state affluence), and percent of land irrigated. Among these, it is only precipitation that has a clearly significant correlation to the preparation of a state water plan. It is concluded that no single variable is an accurate predictor of state behavior, but that a combination of variables act together to influence state behavior.

The purpose of this study was to develop a flexible multidisciplinary participatory development model for practical application. This design emphasized the indigenous information and communication systems for the duration of the project. The model was practically applied to three distinct rural Native American communities. Each community chose a separate development project. Technology, resource awareness and training emerged as the common goals. Project determination was made through multiple session focus groups and written surveys. The success of each of the model application processes and projects was determined by participant outcomes and follow-up surveys. It was found that project participants viewed their project as successful and the process which they had engaged in positively affected their attitudes regarding future projects.

Our present society does not actively promote ideas of segregation. We all confront one another at some point in time, regardless of race, sex, or financial status. However, the majority of designs for today's housing complexes does not reflect the balance of the societal structure. Residential segregation is plentiful. By disregarding present-day norms, and by analyzing different housing typologies with various densities and income statuses, a synthesis of ideas will produce a more financially-diverse housing complex. The concepts of private and public space, territory, boundary, extension, and interaction suggest spatial situations that will enhance the entire site in terms of design to maximize security, identity, and neighborly friendliness.

The proportion of a unit of government's budget devoted to labor costs determines whether cost reductions at the metropolitan level are achieved through fragmentation or consolidation. Consolidating capital intense functions at higher levels of government is the optimal cost-reducing strategy. Fragmenting labor-intense functions to lower levels of government is the optimal cost-reducing strategy. This organizing principle explains the results of previous research and allows a cross sectional analysis of all units of government within US metropolitan statistical areas based on their labor ratio. The hypothesized optimum form of metropolitan government structure for cost efficiency, few capital intense units of government and many labor intense units of government, is correlated with a five year net change in private sector jobs. The hypothesized relationship between metropolitan government structure and economic development is rejected.

The April 1994 elections in South Africa, which witnessed the ANC gain a determinant majority in national government, shifted the struggle in that country from national liberation and enfranchisement to economic empowerment for the black majority. The South African Government, facing millions of restitution of land claims and a national demand for effective access to land and adequate housing, has had to elaborate concrete legal implementation mechanisms to deliver land and housing for the majority of the population. Constitutionalism, through the entrenchment of land rights in a bill of rights, and the creation of a national socio-economic program to meet the basic needs of landless and homeless South Africans (Reconstruction and Development Program or RDP), have been the methods favored by the Government of National Unity (GNU) to address land and housing issues in the new South Africa. Strong pressure has been put on Mandela's Government to bring about fundamental economic and social transformation. The GNU presently has the responsibility to ensure a speedy advance with its programs of housing and land redistribution and restitution. The international instruments on economic and social rights have inspired Chapter 3 of the Interim Constitution, which contains a Bill of Rights, as well as the drafting of the Reconstruction and Development Program. Although these two national legal documents guarantee substantial economic and social rights, the difficulty that lies ahead is the establishment of a process to implement these entitlements. The socio-economic transformation that will take place in South Africa in the coming years will serve as a test-case and will hopefully encourage legal scholars and practitioners to become more sensitive to the importance of designing delivery mechanisms for these rights. With the high level of expectations and violence experienced in South Africa's rural and urban areas, a great deal is at stake in relation to land reform and t

<p> The overarching goal of this thesis is to explore and assess infrastructure-environment-health interactions in Indian cities, addressing social factors such as wealth and literacy, as well as the provision of multiple infrastructures. </p><p> Five main studies are conducted. First, exploration of Delhi all-cause mortality data and survey of local experts on associations between infrastructures, environment, and health outcomes. Key findings include: a) that 50% of deaths in Delhi are reported with cause not classified (demonstrating the need for bottom-up study to supplement hospital data) and b) that ~19% of classified deaths by cause in Delhi, India could be related to infrastructure or infrastructure-related environmental factors. </p><p> Second, review of epidemiology studies relating health outcomes to infrastructure and pollution exposure in Indian and Asian cities is conducted to help identify initial evidence and gaps for infrastructure-related health effects and quantification of differential risk based on social factors (e.g. low socio-economic status (SES)). </p><p> Third, top-down analyses using national survey of under age-five mortality rates (U5MR) by multiple infrastructure conditions are studied while addressing confounding social factors. A key finding is that the relative risk for under-five mortality rates are 860% higher in Urban India for those lacking multiple basic infrastructure provisions relative to improved conditions for low SES condition and limited literacy households. These analyses demonstrates limited literacy household sensitivity and importance of considering multiple infrastructures together over single infrastructure improvements. </p><p> Fourth, bottom-up comparative community study helps characterize infrastructure, environment, extreme weather conditions and local sustainability priorities. A key finding was that households deprived of infrastructure provisions would prioritize that first over pollution or extreme weather conditions. In addition, both low SES communities studied were different in their coverage of all infrastructures except cooking fuels. In the high SES area, infrastructure conditions were ranked as a highest priority (e.g. drainage) with pollution and climate-related extreme weather events still higher priorities than low SES areas, which selected water supply, parks and open space, and drainage as highest priorities. Multiple dimensions of access to healthcare conditions in the same neighborhoods were explored next with findings indicating the two low SES areas to have similar travel costs to reach care and different abilities to pay for care. The high SES area also had higher accessibility to care yet with quality of care less acceptable relative to low SES areas that had issues with wait times, affordability, and access- suggesting future study should address such factors and effects on health outcomes. </p><p> Finally, data availability, needs, and challenges are explored for computing health benefits of multiple infrastructure interventions, while also identifying preliminary intervention scenarios and who may benefit more or less by age, gender, and SES. </p><p> These efforts offer a preliminary approach to helping prioritize future decision-making in Asian cities by demonstrating initial methods that can be useful for modeling risks and interactions between infrastructure provisions, environment, and health.</p>

<p> Throughout the nation, grocery retailers are reentering underserved communities amidst growing public awareness of food deserts and the rise of federal, state, and local programs incentivizing urban grocery stores. And yet, even with expanding research on food deserts and their public health impacts, there is still a lack of consensus on whether grocery stores truly offer the best solution. Furthermore, scholars and policymakers alike have limited understandings of the broader neighborhood implications of grocery stores newly introduced into underserved urban communities.</p><p> This dissertation analyzes how local organizations and agencies pursue grocery development in order to understand the conditions for success implementation. To do this, I examine the historical drivers, planning processes, and outcomes of two extreme cases of urban grocery development: a Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market (a chain value store) in San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point and the Mandela Foods Cooperative (a worker-owned cooperative) in Oakland's West Oakland districts. </p><p> Through a comparative institutional analysis, I find that both Fresh and Easy and Mandela Foods reflect distinctive neighborhood revitalization legacies, critical moments of institutional capacity building, localized versions of national policy narratives, and the role of charismatic leaders in grocery store implementation. While national narratives shape the rhetoric of urban grocery development, ultimately local context dictates how food access issues are defined, who addresses them, and how. These findings suggest that federal grocery incentive programs should: 1) maintain a broad framework that enables local communities to define food access problems and their solutions on a case-by-case basis, 2) encourage diverse solutions not limited to grocery stores and supermarkets, and 3) emphasize community reinvestment goals.</p>

<p>Oregon&rsquo;s Statewide Planning Goals embody Smart Growth in their effort to revitalize urban areas, finance environmentally responsible transportation systems, provide housing options, and protect natural resources; yet the State defers to its municipalities to implement this planning framework. This research focuses on Goal 14 (Urbanization), linking most directly to Smart Growth Principle 7 (Strengthen and Direct Development toward Existing Communities). It assesses Eugene&rsquo;s, Keizer&rsquo;s, Salem&rsquo;s, and Springfield&rsquo;s growth management policies that specifically target infill development of single family homes against this Goal and Principle. Though these municipalities must demonstrate consistency with the same Goals (see Supplemental File 1 for this context), this research questions whether sufficiently different policy approaches to curtailing sprawl yield significantly different results. The primary analytical method is a logistic regression that uses parcel-level data to understand how administration affects development by isolating these policies&rsquo; direct effects on observed outcomes (see Supplemental File 2 for this theory). </p>