Place and Crowdfunding: An Examination of Two Distressed Cities

Crowdfunding is a relatively new form of funding made possible by Web 2.0. This study examines community-based projects made possible through the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter. Projects were compiled that were successfully funded between the dates of April 28, 2009 and July 26, 2012. These projects were collected for all cities listed on the site in the United States. Subsequently they were compared across three measures: raw numbers of projects, normalized city population, and against the creative class index of Richard Florida. Using these measures, Detroit and New Orleans emerged as cities for further in depth analysis. Interviews with initiators in these two cities were used to determine motivations that initiators had for beginning these projects in these cities. Further examination was made by overlaying locations of Kickstarter projects with demographic data from the US census. Projects were found to be occurring in lower income neighborhoods, filling voids in grantfunding and providing autonomy for Kickstarter initiators to create projects on their own terms in their communities. The types of projects occurring in neighborhoods may also be offering indications of need and of burgeoning industries in the two cities. Many studies taut the value of community involvement for the well-being of individuals, but this is one of the first to examine how people use crowdfunding to engage in their communities and how these projects are geographically distributed. In an economic downturn, grantfunding and government budgets for community projects are often cut. Crowdfunded projects can often direct opportunities for individuals to execute ideas and can be a proxy for cash strapped cities to allocate funding more efficiently

Crowdfunding and Crowdsourcing Initiatives in Detroit

This study examines the role of crowdfunding and community-based initiatives in Detroit, a city that has been hurt by economic distress for several years. We start by compiling the Kickstarter projects initiated and successfully funded all over the US during April 2009-July 2012, and later focus on those occurring in Detroit only. We conduct in-depth analyses to understand the intra-urban characteristics that provide opportunities for such initiatives. By combining the census demographic data with qualitative information collected from online surveys and semi-structured interviews, we analyze the specific roles of crowdfunding initiatives in creating sustainable urban communities. This analysis finds that Kickstarter projects initiated primarily in low-income neighborhoods, and the main motivation had been the autonomy for the Kickstarter initiators who create projects on their own terms and conditions that benefits the local communities. This study is one of the first to examine crowdfunding initiatives. In an age of continuing economic downturn, grantfunding and government budgets for community projects are the first ones to be eliminated. This study suggests that the projects initiated in Detroit’s neighborhoods fill up the grantfunding gaps, thus marking crowdfunding as a contemporary way for creating sustainable processes

Time to Peak Glucose and Peak C-Peptide During the Progression to Type 1 Diabetes in the Diabetes Prevention Trial and TrialNet Cohorts

OBJECTIVE To assess the progression of type 1 diabetes using time to peak glucose or C-peptide during oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTTs) in autoantibody-positive relatives of people with type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We examined 2-h OGTTs of participants in the Diabetes Prevention Trial Type 1 (DPT-1) and TrialNet Pathway to Prevention (PTP) studies. We included 706 DPT-1 participants (mean ± SD age, 13.84 ± 9.53 years; BMI Z-score, 0.33 ± 1.07; 56.1% male) and 3,720 PTP participants (age, 16.01 ± 12.33 years; BMI Z-score, 0.66 ± 1.3; 49.7% male). Log-rank testing and Cox regression analyses with adjustments (age, sex, race, BMI Z-score, HOMA-insulin resistance, and peak glucose/C-peptide levels, respectively) were performed. RESULTS In each of DPT-1 and PTP, higher 5-year diabetes progression risk was seen in those with time to peak glucose >30 min and time to peak C-peptide >60 min (P < 0.001 for all groups), before and after adjustments. In models examining strength of association with diabetes development, associations were greater for time to peak C-peptide versus peak C-peptide value (DPT-1: χ2 = 25.76 vs. χ2 = 8.62; PTP: χ2 = 149.19 vs. χ2 = 79.98; all P < 0.001). Changes in the percentage of individuals with delayed glucose and/or C-peptide peaks were noted over time. CONCLUSIONS In two independent at-risk populations, we show that those with delayed OGTT peak times for glucose or C-peptide are at higher risk of diabetes development within 5 years, independent of peak levels. Moreover, time to peak C-peptide appears more predictive than the peak level, suggesting its potential use as a specific biomarker for diabetes progression