A Long View of Polluting Industry and Environmental Justice in Baltimore

Purpose This study examines the density of polluting industry by neighborhoods in Baltimore over the long term, from 1950 to 2010, to determine if high pollution burdens correspond spatially with expected demographic and housing variables predicted in the environmental justice literature. For 1960–1980 we use data on heavy industry from Dun and Bradstreet directories and for 1990–2010 the US EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory to calculate a Hazards Density Index. Drawing on the decennial censuses for 1960–2010, we populate census tracts from corresponding years with data on race, ethnicity, educational attainment, income, and housing tenure. Findings Density of polluting industry is positively correlated with low-income neighborhoods and renter-occupied housing in 1960 and by 2010 with white, Hispanic, and low educational attainment populations. In general, over time density of polluting facilities shifts from an association with wealth to race and ethnicity while educational attainment remains a significant variable throughout. This study confirms earlier analyses on Baltimore that white neighborhoods are more likely than African–American neighborhoods (1990–2010) to contain polluting facilities but reveals for the first time that educational attainment is also significant. The paper concludes with a discussion of the Baltimore Sustainability Plan and its weak efforts to address persistent environmental injustices

Applications of Urban Tree Canopy Assessment and Prioritization Tools: Supporting Collaborative Decision Making to Achieve Urban Sustainability Goals

Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) Prioritizations can be both a set of geographic analysis tools and a planning process for collaborative decision-making. In this paper, we describe how UTC Prioritizations can be used as a planning process to provide decision support to multiple government agencies, civic groups and private businesses to aid in reaching a canopy target. Linkages to broader City-scale sustainability plans are explored. This article represents an extension and update to the UTC Canopy Goal Setting Guide by Raciti et al (2006). We conclude with recommendations for a market-like analysis of neighborhoods to better match planting initiatives to particular neighborhoods’ motivations, capacities and interests in order to improve the adoption of improved urban forestry practices

A simple proof of Perelman's collapsing theorem for 3-manifolds

We will simplify earlier proofs of Perelman's collapsing theorem for 3-manifolds given by Shioya-Yamaguchi and Morgan-Tian. Among other things, we use Perelman's critical point theory (e.g., multiple conic singularity theory and his fibration theory) for Alexandrov spaces to construct the desired local Seifert fibration structure on collapsed 3-manifolds. The verification of Perelman's collapsing theorem is the last step of Perelman's proof of Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture on the classification of 3-manifolds. Our proof of Perelman's collapsing theorem is almost self-contained, accessible to non-experts and advanced graduate students. Perelman's collapsing theorem for 3-manifolds can be viewed as an extension of implicit function theoremComment: v1: 9 Figures. In this version, we improve the exposition of our arguments in the earlier arXiv version. v2: added one more grap

Prioritizing Preferable Locations for Increasing Urban Tree Canopy in New York City

This paper presents a set of Geographic Information System (GIS) methods for identifying and prioritizing tree planting sites in urban environments. It uses an analytical approach created by a University of Vermont service-learning class called “GIS Analysis of New York City\u27s Ecology” that was designed to provide research support to the MillionTreesNYC tree planting campaign. These methods prioritize tree planting sites based on need (whether or not trees can help address specific issues in the community) and suitability (biophysical constraints and planting partners’ existing programmatic goals). Criteria for suitability and need were based on input from three New York City tree-planting organizations. Customized spatial analysis tools and maps were created to show where each organization may contribute to increasing urban tree canopy (UTC) while also achieving their own programmatic goals. These methods and associated custom tools can help decision-makers optimize urban forestry investments with respect to biophysical and socioeconomic outcomes in a clear and accountable manner. Additionally, the framework described here may be used in other cities, can track spatial characteristics of urban ecosystems over time, and may enable further tool development for collaborative decision-making in urban natural resource management

Context matters: influence of organizational, environmental, and social factors on civic environmental stewardship group intensity

Civic environmental stewardship groups actively take care of their local environment and are known to work in urban contexts. Research on the geographies of this urban environmental stewardship is young. Understanding where stewardship groups work and the associated organizational and neighborhood contexts advances the understanding of the environmental outcomes of stewardship efforts. We examine the organizational, socioeconomic, and environmental contexts associated with the number of stewardship groups at the Census block group and neighborhood scales for four diverse U.S. cities (Baltimore, MD; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; and Seattle, WA). We found relatively consistent and strong relationships with both average professionalization (staff and budget index) and diversity of groups’ focus and the number of groups’ activity areas in a block group or neighborhood, suggesting a potential density dependence effect. Overall, the number of stewardship groups correlates with social and environmental aspects at both scales across all cities, but variation across cities for specific variables indicates the need for further analyses to unpack why we observe these different patterns across cities. Strong relationships with organizational factors suggest future directions for stewardship research and that the organizational landscape may affect how many groups work in a place more than socioeconomic or environmental conditions

Making space for experiences

Leisure and retail providers need to understand the elements of the visitor experience and the way in which they evaluate their satisfaction. This article suggests a holistic prism model of the interaction between the management and the visitor in a leisure space. This is applied to a netnographic study of visitors to a folk festival to illustrate the interconnectiveness of the different attributes causing dissatisfaction. It found that the physical and operational attributes were evaluated not through a checklist of individual features but as hindrances to the visitor's desire to make best use of the time. Visitors also evaluated the experience in the light of their own values and concerns, passing judgement on the values communicated by the management. At the heart of the experience was the enjoyment of choosing from an abundant offer and discovering something new. The main attraction is often only the pretext for enjoying the company of friends so places to meet before and chill-out afterwards are vital to the experience. The distinctiveness of the setting, the food and drink can become the sensory cues which give the event or location its uniqueness. The challenge to retail and leisure organisations is to design these elements of a memorable experience into their offerings

Effects of Human Choices on Characteristics of Urban Ecosystems

Most urban ecology in cities remains an ecology in cities rather than an ecology of cities. Accomplishing the latter requires the inclusion of humans within the concept of ecosystem, both how humans alter the properties of urban ecosystems and how these alterations in turn influence human well-being. These influences are both direct (e.g., physiological and psychological influences on the human organism) and indirect, by influencing ecosystem sustainability. For the 2007 ESA meeting, Larry Baker, Loren Byrne, Jason Walker, and Alex Felson organized a symposium to address the relationships among human choices and urban ecosystems. In the introductory talk of this symposium, these authors discussed how the cumulative effect of individual household choices can have major effects on the properties of urban ecosystems

A phase IIA randomized clinical trial of a multiclade HIV-1 DNA prime followed by a multiclade rAd5 HIV-1 vaccine boost in healthy adults (HVTN204)

BACKGROUND: The safety and immunogenicity of a vaccine regimen consisting of a 6-plasmid HIV-1 DNA prime (envA, envB, envC, gagB, polB, nefB) boosted by a recombinant adenovirus serotype-5 (rAd5) HIV-1 with matching inserts was evaluated in HIV-seronegative participants from South Africa, United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. METHODS: 480 participants were evenly randomized to receive either: DNA (4 mg IM by Biojector) at 0, 1 and 2 months, followed by rAd5 (10 10 PU IM by needle/syringe) at 6 months; or placebo. Participants were monitored for reactogenicity and adverse events throughout the 12-month study. Peak and duration of HIV-specific humoral and cellular immune responses were evaluated after the prime and boost. RESULTS: The vaccine was well tolerated and safe. T-cell responses, detected by interferon-γ (IFN-γ) ELISpot to global potential T-cell epitopes (PTEs) were observed in 70.8% (136/192) of vaccine recipients overall, most frequently to Gag (54.7%) and to Env (54.2%). In U.S. vaccine recipients T-cell responses were less frequent in Ad5 sero-positive versus sero-negative vaccine recipients (62.5% versus 85.7% respectively, p = 0.035). The frequency of HIV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses detected by intracellular cytokine staining were similar (41.8% and 47.2% respectively) and most secreted ≥2 cytokines. The vaccine induced a high frequency (83.7%-94.6%) of binding antibody responses to consensus Group M, and Clades A, B and C gp140 Env oligomers. Antibody responses to Gag were elicited in 46% of vaccine recipients. CONCLUSION: The vaccine regimen was well-tolerated and induced polyfunctional CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells and multi-clade anti-Env binding antibodies. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT0012597

The changing landscape : ecosystem responses to urbanization and pollution across climatic and societal gradients

Author Posting. © Ecological Society of America, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of Ecological Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6 (2008): 264–272, doi:10.1890/070147.Urbanization, an important driver of climate change and pollution, alters both biotic and abiotic ecosystem properties within, surrounding, and even at great distances from urban areas. As a result, research challenges and environmental problems must be tackled at local, regional, and global scales. Ecosystem responses to land change are complex and interacting, occurring on all spatial and temporal scales as a consequence of connectivity of resources, energy, and information among social, physical, and biological systems. We propose six hypotheses about local to continental effects of urbanization and pollution, and an operational research approach to test them. This approach focuses on analysis of “megapolitan” areas that have emerged across North America, but also includes diverse wildland-to-urban gradients and spatially continuous coverage of land change. Concerted and coordinated monitoring of land change and accompanying ecosystem responses, coupled with simulation models, will permit robust forecasts of how land change and human settlement patterns will alter ecosystem services and resource utilization across the North American continent. This, in turn, can be applied globally.We thank the NSF LTER program for its support