The Southwest Foreclosure Project

CURL worked with the Southwest Organizing Project (and their membership organizations), Neighborhood Housing Services (Chicago Lawn/Gage Park) and the Greater Southwest Development Corporation and examined the causes, effects, and potential solutions of home mortgage foreclosures in the Chicago Lawn and Gage Park neighborhoods. This project sought to identify where in these community areas foreclosures are most prevalent, and to determine what characteristics of these parts of the neighborhood (usually census tracts) make them more likely to experience high foreclosures.

Gage Park and Chicago Lawn Community and Census Tract Profiles

CURL worked with the Southwest Organizing Project (and their membership organizations), Neighborhood Housing Services (Chicago Lawn/Gage Park) and the Greater Southwest Development Corporation and examined the causes, effects, and potential solutions of home mortgage foreclosures in the Chicago Lawn and Gage Park neighborhoods. This project sought to identify where in these community areas foreclosures are most prevalent, and to determine what characteristics of these parts of the neighborhood (usually census tracts) make them more likely to experience high foreclosures.

Southwest Chicago Foreclosure Study

The Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University Chicago was contacted by the Southwest Organization Project to conduct a research project in conjunction with them, their institutional member, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago Lawn and Gage Park, and the Greater Southwest Development Corporation. This project seeks to identify the principles causes of foreclosures in these neighborhoods; to identify areas within the communities with a higher concentration of foreclosure and relate this to demographic, socioeconomic characteristics and housing stock in those areas; and to identify approaches to dealing with foreclosure as an issues. This project seeks to identify where in these community areas foreclosures are most prevalent, and to determine what characteristics of these parts of the neighborhood (usually census tracts) make them more likely to experience high foreclosures. Furthermore, we want to examine the cause of mortgages going into foreclosure – namely whether specific types of loans more likely to result in foreclosures than others, whether specific actors (realtors, lenders, et. al.) connected to higher rates of foreclosure, and what types of borrowers are going into foreclosure. Finally, we seek to sample successful foreclosure prevention programs conducted by community-based organizations elsewhere to attempt to find some best practices that can be applied in Chicago Lawn and Gage Park

Adolescents' Food Choice and the Place of Plant-Based Foods.

A diet dominated by plant foods, with limited amounts of refined processed foods and animal products conveys substantial health benefits. This study sought to explore adolescents’ attitudes and perceptions towards plant-based foods. Semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with adolescents (age 14–15 years) (n = 29) attending an inner city school in Yorkshire, UK. Using a grounded theory methodology, data analysis provided four main categories and related concepts revolving around adolescents’ perspectives on plant-based foods: food choice parameters; perceived drivers and benefits of plant-based foods; environmental food cues; barriers to plant-based food choice. In the emergent grounded theory, a clear disconnect between plant-based foods and the parameters that adolescents use to make food choices, is highlighted. Further, key barriers to adolescents adopting a plant-based diet are differentiated and considered with respect to practice and policy. The analysis offers a framework to remodel and re-present plant-based foods. In this way, it is proposed that a closer connection is possible, with consequent shifts in adolescents’ dietary behaviour towards a more plant-based diet and associated health benefits

Soil carbon sequestration in grazing systems : managing expectations

The inputs of C.M.G., M.H., and P.S. contribute to the project DEVIL [NE/M021327/1]. The input of P.S. also contributes to the following projects: U-GRASS [NE/M016900/1] and Soils-R-GRREAT [NE/P019455/1]. We thank the Centre of Organic Production and Consumption (EPOK) at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences for funding E.R.’s part of the research.Peer reviewedPostprin

Neutral Gas Outflows and Inflows in Infrared-Faint Seyfert Galaxies

Previous studies of the Na I D interstellar absorption line doublet have shown that galactic winds occur in most galaxies with high infrared luminosities. However, in infrared-bright composite systems where a starburst coexists with an active galactic nucleus (AGN), it is unclear whether the starburst, the AGN, or both are driving the outflows. The present paper describes the results from a search for outflows in 35 infrared-faint Seyferts with 10^9.9 < L_IR/L_sun < 10^11, or, equivalently, star formation rates (SFR) of ~0.4 -- 9 solar masses per year, to attempt to isolate the source of the outflow. We find that the outflow detection rates for the infrared-faint Seyfert 1s (6%) and Seyfert 2s (18%) are lower than previously reported for infrared-luminous Seyfert 1s (50%) and Seyfert 2s (45%). The outflow kinematics of infrared-faint and infrared-bright Seyfert 2 galaxies resemble those of starburst galaxies, while the outflow velocities in Seyfert 1 galaxies are significantly larger. Taken together, these results suggest that the AGN does not play a significant role in driving the outflows in most infrared-faint and infrared-bright systems, except the high-velocity outflows seen in Seyfert 1 galaxies. Another striking result of this study is the high rate of detection of inflows in infrared-faint galaxies (39% of Seyfert 1s, 35% of Seyfert 2s), significantly larger than in infrared-luminous Seyferts (15%). This inflow may be contributing to the feeding of the AGN in these galaxies, and potentially provides more than enough material to power the observed nuclear activity over typical AGN lifetimes.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, published in ApJ (article updated 12/30/09

Defining a land boundary for sustainable livestock consumption

The need for more sustainable production and consumption of animal source food (ASF) is central to the achievement of the sustainable development goals: within this context, wise use of land is a core challenge and concern. A key question in feeding the future world is: how much ASF should we eat? We demonstrate that livestock raised under the circular economy concept could provide a significant, nonnegligible part (9–23 g/per capita) of our daily protein needs (~50–60 g/per capita). This livestock then would not consume human-edible biomass, such as grains, but mainly convert leftovers from arable land and grass resources into valuable food, implying that production of livestock feed is largely decoupled from arable land. The availability of these biomass streams for livestock then determines the boundaries for livestock production and consumption. Under this concept, the competition for land for feed or food would be minimized and compared to no ASF, including some ASF in the human diet could free up about one quarter of global arable land. Our results also demonstrate that restricted growth in consumption of ASF in Africa and Asia would be feasible under these boundary conditions, while reductions in the rest of the world would be necessary to meet land use sustainability criteria. Managing this expansion and contraction of future consumption of ASF is essential for achieving sustainable nutrition security.</p

Ancient Latin American objects in the archive: selections from the George and Louise Patten collection of Salem Hyde cultural artifacts at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

https://scholar.utc.edu/exhibition-records/1004/thumbnail.jp