Better Together

Calls for a nationwide campaign to overcome civic apathy and outlines the framework for sustained, broad-based social change to restore America's civic virtue

Research for applications of remote sensing to state and local governments (ARSIG)

Remote sensing and its application to problems confronted by local and state planners are reported. The added dimension of remote sensing as a data gathering tool has been explored identifying pertinent land use factors associated with urban growth such as soil associations, soil capability, vegetation distribution, and flood prone areas. Remote sensing within rural agricultural setting has also been utilized to determine irrigation runoff volumes, cropping patterns, and land use. A variety of data sources including U-2 70 mm multispectral black and white photography, RB-57 9-inch color IR, HyAC panoramic color IR and ERTS-1 imagery have been used over selected areas of Arizona including Tucson, Arizona (NASA Test Site #30) and the Sulphur Springs Valley

A Guide to Community Food Projects

This guide features case studies of seven diverse and innovative projects funded by USDA's Community Food Projects grant program. It also includes basic information about the CFP program and sources for more information

Deceit: A flexible distributed file system

Deceit, a distributed file system (DFS) being developed at Cornell, focuses on flexible file semantics in relation to efficiency, scalability, and reliability. Deceit servers are interchangeable and collectively provide the illusion of a single, large server machine to any clients of the Deceit service. Non-volatile replicas of each file are stored on a subset of the file servers. The user is able to set parameters on a file to achieve different levels of availability, performance, and one-copy serializability. Deceit also supports a file version control mechanism. In contrast with many recent DFS efforts, Deceit can behave like a plain Sun Network File System (NFS) server and can be used by any NFS client without modifying any client software. The current Deceit prototype uses the ISIS Distributed Programming Environment for all communication and process group management, an approach that reduces system complexity and increases system robustness

Diagnosing A Silent Epidemic: The Historical Ecology of Metal Pollution in the Sonoran Desert

abstract: This research investigates the biophysical and institutional mechanisms affecting the distribution of metals in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. To date, a long-term, interdisciplinary perspective on metal pollution in the region has been lacking. To address this gap, I integrated approaches from environmental chemistry, historical geography, and institutional economics to study the history of metal pollution in the desert. First, by analyzing the chemistry embodied in the sequentially-grown spines of long-lived cacti, I created a record of metal pollution that details biogeochemical trends in the desert since the 1980s. These data suggest that metal pollution is not simply a legacy of early industrialization. Instead, I found evidence of recent metal pollution in both the heart of the city and a remote, rural location. To understand how changing land uses may have contributed to this, I next explored the historical geography of industrialization in the desert. After identifying cities and mining districts as hot spots for airborne metals, I used a mixture of historical reports, maps, and memoirs to reconstruct the industrial history of these polluted landscapes. In the process, I identified three key transitions in the energy-metal nexus that drove the redistribution of metals from mineral deposits to urban communities. These transitions coincided with the Columbian exchange, the arrival of the railroads, and the economic restructuring that accompanied World War II. Finally, to determine how legal and political forces may be influencing the fate of metals, I studied the evolution of the rights and duties affecting metals in their various forms. This allowed me to track changes in the institutions regulating metals from the mining laws of the 19th century through their treatment as occupational and public health hazards in the 20th century. In the process, I show how Arizona’s environmental and resource institutions were often transformed by extra-territorial concerns. Ultimately, this created an institutional system that compartmentalizes metals and fails to appreciate their capacity to mobilize across legal and biophysical boundaries to accumulate in the environment. Long-term, interdisciplinary perspectives such as this are critical for untangling the complex web of elements and social relations transforming the modern world.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Sustainability 201

Picture Rocks multimodal transportation study

The result of an application to the Arizona Department of Transportation Planning Assistance for Rural Areas (PARA) Program to conduct a multimodal transportation study to address transportation issues in the community. The purpose of the study is to identify the most critical multimodal transportation infrastructure and service needs within the Picture Rocks study area and recommend a program of short-range (0-5 years), mid-range (6-10 years), and long-range (11-20 years) improvements

Rio Verde Foothills area plan

abstract: It is important to note that the Rio Verde Foothills Area Plan is not a document that represents ultimate buildout as many municipal general plans typically do. Rather, it prepares for and accommodates growth over the next ten to fifteen years, but will be reexamined and updated periodically to reflect current conditions and changes. While not a complete solution, the Rio Verde Foothills Area Plan helps address the effects of growth and development by enhancing cooperation between government agencies, citizens, and other affected interests, and by considering regional implications.Issued as part of Maricopa County 2020 Eye to the Future, the Maricopa County General Plan

Social Capital in Power Networks: A Case Study of Affordable Housing Development in Winston-Salem, NC

This research unifies studies on macro- and micro-level relationships regarding changes in city-level partnerships and changes in social capital, or ties between community members. Social capital, a concept popularized by Robert Putnam, is often studied apart from issues of power, but power is a crucial component in other constructions of the term (most notably, the work of Pierre Bourdieu). This study uses Putnam’s conceptualization of social capital by using the survey instrument he commissioned, the Social Capital Benchmark Survey (SCBS), to measure social capital across communities. However, this study embeds this data in a city’s power relations, using interviews and document review to determine how relationships and partnerships changed among the city’s powerful. Winston-Salem, NC provides an ideal case study due to its moderate-city size and local investments to grow social capital. The city is studied over two years, 2000 and 2006, for general changes in social capital, intra-sector changes, and diversity within the affordable housing industry. Ultimately, the research suggests that overall growth in social capital will produce more productive partnerships among the powerful, and that sectors governing the spaces with social capital growth will obtain more control and leverage in their partnerships. Weaknesses in social capital, which for Winston-Salem include measures of intolerance, can be noticed within cross-sector relationships as well. The research suggests that changes in social capital are manifested at the leadership level, however increasing social capital in Winston-Salem only strengthened the existing power hierarchies in place, and did little to increase community involvement in decision making