"Let the People Have a Victory": The Politics of Transportation in Philadelphia, 1946-1984

Urban transportation planning in the United States underwent important changes in the decades after World War II. In the immediate postwar period, federal highway engineers in the Bureau of Public Roads dominated the decision-making process, creating a planning regime that focused almost entirely on the building of modern expressways to relieve traffic congestion. In the 1960s, however, local opposition to expressway construction emerged in cities across the nation, reflecting growing discontent with what many citizens perceived to be a closed planning process that resulted in the destruction of urban neighborhoods, environmental degradation, and inadequate attention paid to alternative modes of transportation. Local freeway protestors found allies in the new U.S. Department of Transportation, which moved in the mid-1960s to absorb the Bureau of Public Roads and support legislation promoting a planning process more open to local input as well as a greater emphasis on federal aid for urban mass transportation. The changing culture of transportation planning produced a series of freeway revolts, resulting in the cancellation or modification of interstate highway projects, in major American cities. Changes in transportation planning played out differently in every city, however. This dissertation examines controversies over Philadelphia's major expressway projects - the Schuylkill Expressway, the Delaware Expressway, and the never-built Crosstown Expressway, in addition to major mass transit developments such as the city's subsidization of the commuter railroads, the creation of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and the building of a railroad tunnel known as the Center City Commuter Connection, in order to trace the evolution of the city's transportation politics between 1946 and 1984. Significantly, Philadelphia's own freeway revolt succeeded in eliminating the proposed Crosstown Expressway, which would have created a daunting racial barrier while decimating several low-income African American neighborhoods. The Crosstown Expressway revolt, however, failed to change the overall trajectory of Philadelphia's transportation planning politics, which continued to be dominated by an exceptionally strong alliance between City Hall and large business interests. Philadelphia's turn to mass transit in the 1970s, in contrast to those of other cities, failed to redistribute transportation resources to its low-income residents, mainly because the city chose to devote a massive percentage of its federal funding to the Center City Commuter Connection, a downtown rail tunnel designed to serve approximately 8% of the region's commuters. The prioritization of a rail system serving predominantly affluent white suburbanites left Philadelphia's lower-income population saddled with a crumbling urban mass transit system, demonstrating that, despite a more open planning process and a greater emphasis on mass transportation, fundamental inequalities persisted

The Fight Against Platform Capitalism: An Inquiry into the Global Struggles of the Gig Economy

So far, platform work has been an important laboratory for capital. Management techniques, like the use of algorithms, are being tested with a view to exporting across the global economy and it is argued that automation is undermining workers’ agency. Although the contractual trick of self-employment has allowed platforms to grow quickly and keep their costs down, yet it has also been the case also that workers have also found they can strike without following the existing regulations. This book develops a critique of platforms and platform capitalism from the perspective of workers and contributes to the ongoing debates about the future of work and worker organising. It presents an alternative portrait returning to a focus on workers’ experience, focusing on solidarity, drawing out a global picture of new forms of agency. In particular, the book focuses on three dynamics that are driving struggles in the platform economy: the increasing connections between workers who are no longer isolated; the lack of communication and negotiation from platforms, leading to escalating worker action around shared issues; and the internationalisation of platforms, which has laid the basis for new transnational solidarity. Focusing on transport and courier workers, online workers and freelancers author Jamie Woodcock concludes by considering how workers build power in different situations. Rather than undermining worker agency, platforms have instead provided the technical basis for the emergence of new global struggles against capitalism

Ecotourism in Appalachia: Marketing the Mountains

Tourism is the world’s largest industry, and ecotourism is rapidly emerging as its fastest growing segment. As interest in nature travel increases, so does concern for conservation of the environment and the well-being of local peoples and cultures. Appalachia seems an ideal destination for ecotourists, with its rugged mountains, uniquely diverse forests, wild rivers, and lively arts culture. And ecotourism promises much for the region: protecting the environment while bringing income to disadvantaged communities. But can these promises be kept? Ecotourism in Appalachia examines both the potential and the threats that tourism holds for Central Appalachia. The authors draw lessons from destinations that have suffered from the “tourist trap syndrome,” including Nepal and Hawaii. They conclude that only carefully regulated and locally controlled tourism can play a positive role in Appalachia’s economic development. Winner of the 2004 Harry Caudill Award (given by Bookworm & Silverfish) recognizing outstanding contributions to reporting Appalachian life and values. This well-written book contributes to the active debate about the sustainability of tourism/ecotourism and will serve well as assigned reading or a case study in advanced-level undergraduate or graduate courses in tourism, ecotourism, or regional planning and development fields. . . . Highly recommended. —Choice The authors of this important book not only provide a positive vision, they also supply a telling critique of tourism as it is promoted currently, and they do all this with a profound international consciousness and helpful comparisons from all over the world. —Appalachian Heritage The authors argue that tourism can help the economy and preserve the environment only when local communities control the development and government regulates business practices. —Idaho Falls (ID) Post Register , Topeka (KS) Capital-Journal , Lexington Her Suggests many ways in which real ecotourist activities can provide meaningful and enjoyable engagement with the natural world, while making vacations, for both travelers and host communities alike, the regenerative, enriching experiences they should have been all along. —Modern Mountain Magazine Encompassing history, economics and culture, and using examples of other tourism areas such as Hawaii and Alaska, Fritsch and Johannsen lay out a comprehensive . . . treatise of the importance of fostering green tourism. —Publishers Weekly An argument for taking advantage of the possibilities offered by tourism to invigorate the economy of Appalachia and preserve the unrivaled environment. —Berea College Appalachian Center Newsletter A useful book. . . . Its overall tone almost echoes that of a how-to book for tourism developers to promote sound tourism activities and for tourists to correct their tourism behavior and choices. —Appalachian Journal \u27Ecotourism\u27 conjures exotic images of beautiful places in the world, but as this book forcefully points out, it also brings up a slew of questions about the preservation of nature and of culture, and the inherent conflicts between economic development and community rights. The book brings these questions home to the highlands of Appalachia. Beautifully written, filled with anecdotes and illustrations, Ecotourism in Appalachia engages the reader in a search for \u27green tourism\u27 in America’s own backyard. The book makes an important contribution to our understanding of tourism in Appalachia and beyond, and will be invaluable to people who study or practice tourism. —David Zurick, Eastern Kentucky University Thoughtful, packed with enthusiasm and ideas. It is refreshingly readable, genuinely useful work, and offes recommendations to shape ecotourism in the 21st century. . . . It is a fundamental first step for tourism planners, environmentalists, academics and policy makers. —P.P. Karan, University of Kentucky, editor of Japan in the Bluegrass An important contribution to tourism studies, largely because this is the first attempt to examine tourism development (past, present, and future) within the Central Appalachian region. The authors provide both positive and negative scenarios for future tourism development in the study area that are well reasoned and thought provoking. —Richard Alan Sambrook, Eastern Kentucky University Does not disappoint. The authors usefully maintain a tension between the salutary potentials of \u27eco\u27 and the damaging consequences of tourism, now the world’s largest industry. [It is] written in clear, accessible prose. —Journal of Appalachian Studieshttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_appalachian_studies/1019/thumbnail.jp

The state of broadband 2012: achieving digital inclusion for all

With this Report, the Broadband Commission expands awareness and understanding of the importance of broadband networks, services, and applications for generating economic growth and achieving social progress. High-speed affordable broadband connectivity to the Internet is essential to modern society, offering widely recognized economic and social benefits (Annex 1). The Broadband Commission for Digital Development promotes the adoption of broadband-friendly practices and policies for all, so everyone can take advantage of the benefits offered by broadband. With this Report, the Broadband Commission expands awareness and understanding of the importance of broadband networks, services, and applications for generating economic growth and achieving social progress. It has been written collaboratively, drawing on insightful and thought-provoking contributions from our leading array of Commissioners and their organizations, foremost in their fields

Our Kentucky: A Study of the Bluegrass State

Originally published in 1992 in conjunction with Kentucky\u27s bicentennial observations and designed for use in the high school classroom, Our Kentucky remains one of the most concise, well-written introductions to the Bluegrass State. While the focus is on history, specialists in other fields contribute chapters that provide a comprehensive description of Kentucky\u27s people and their past, present, and future. This expanded edition brings the scholarship up to date, ensuring the book\u27s continued availability for students and general readers. James C. Klotter is State Historian and professor of history at Georgetown College. He is the author of several books, including, with Lowell H. Harrison, A New History of Kentucky. A national context while describing what makes the state distinctive. —Indiana Magazine of History Our Kentucky is an impressive text. —Indiana Magazine of History Revised to meet the needs of Kentucky students. —Kentucky Monthly For a handy source of information about Kentucky, you can hardly do better. —WHAS Radio, Louisvillehttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/1138/thumbnail.jp

Winona Daily News

https://openriver.winona.edu/winonadailynews/1951/thumbnail.jp

Winona Daily News

https://openriver.winona.edu/winonadailynews/1375/thumbnail.jp

Intimate Immensities: The Poetics of Space in Contemporary Australian Literature

Much of Australia’s literary landscape reflects a quest to represent its immense space. Empirical modes of investigation and Eurocentric literary models have resulted in alienation. Australian space, for non-Indigenous Australians, remains an unsettling and unsettled space. Colonial erasures, legal fictions and national mythologies have failed to turn space into place. Too much remains unresolved to write from the perspective of a place literature. A lack of intimacy with Australia’s immensities has led to much misrelation, with devastating consequences for Indigenous Australians and the non-human environment. The Aboriginal Turn of the 1980s and postcolonial literary theory have been invaluable to progress towards more ethical modes of representation. Yet, we live in the settler colonial present. My thesis makes connections between authors, modes and genres to offer a compelling case for a complementary poetics of space that embraces intimacy with immensity. Ross Gibson’s nonfiction, Tim Winton’s fiction and Nicolas Rothwell’s narrative essays position the reader in front of temporal and spatial hinges that need to be apprehended anew: the colonial archive, the age of exploration or the 1988 Bicentenary. Key to their poetics of space is a reorientation towards Country so that Indigenous thought and culture may reform settler society. As well as writing back to Empire, Gibson, Rothwell and Winton write from and to the settler colonial present, decolonising modes of perception, representation, time, space, the sacred, as well as relationships with Indigenous people and the non-human realm. Their works double as critical tools that serve to forge a poetics of Reconciliation. My methodology draws critically from concepts developed in the fields of postcolonial studies, ecocriticism and trauma theory. Because French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century were instrumental in reforming spatial theory, I use concepts developed by Gaston Bachelard, Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, to identify principles which inform contemporary spatial representations. From within the colonial present, Intimate Immensities evokes the possibility of a post-settler dynamic of non-belonging, with placelessness and movement as key markers of a renegotiated identity

Coordinated Transit Response Planning and Operations Support Tools for Mitigating Impacts of All-Hazard Emergency Events

This report summarizes current computer simulation capabilities and the availability of near-real-time data sources allowing for a novel approach of analyzing and determining optimized responses during disruptions of complex multi-agency transit system. The authors integrated a number of technologies and data sources to detect disruptive transit system performance issues, analyze the impact on overall system-wide performance, and statistically apply the likely traveler choices and responses. The analysis of unaffected transit resources and the provision of temporary resources are then analyzed and optimized to minimize overall impact of the initiating event