Class of 2023: Thesis and Dissertations

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

THESIS/DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS

DUSP GRADUATES 2022/2023

MCPs

Octavie Berendschot

Alexander Boccon-Gibod

Nicholette Cameron

Shaler Campbell

Maria Castillo Castillo

Yuchen Chai

Dylan Cohen

Alberto Cuellar Ceron

John Devine

Moctar Fall

Ruoming Fang

Abby Fullem

Rebecca Glasgow

Jonathan Goh

Shivali Gowda

Shannon Hasenfratz

Esther Mojolaol Idowu

Melissa Isidor

Sarah Jeong

SM

Christina Last

SMCTS

Paris Charitatos

Xiaotong Guo

Yuzhu Huang

Daniel ONeil

Emma Swarney

PhDs

Rounaq Basu

Jungwoo Chun

Silvia Danielak

Asmaa Elgamal

Daniel Engelberg

Babak Manouchehrifar

Soyoung Park

UGs

Naylah Canty

Emily Fang

Melissa Hill

Natasha Hirt

Trinity Stallins

Eva Then

Gabriel Barrett

Sarah Kalish

Ipshita Karmakar

Gina Lee

Sarah Lohmar

Jay Maddox

Idelcia Mapure

Tara Mohtadi

Maria Muzio

Yingu Pan

Akrisht Pandey

Ana Perez

Pratiwi Prameswari

Daniel Pratama

Romy Saint Hilaire

Amelia Seabold

Ilana Strauss

Mikaela Strech

Ziyi Tang

Sharon Velasquez-Soto

Flavio Vila Skrzypek

Elaine Wang

Rose Winer-Chan

Lilian Xie

Arianna Salazar Miranda

Chandra Shekhar

Darien Williams

Amelia Dogan

Meera Gregerson

Keili Tucker

Kresge Foundation Mel King MCP Thesis Fellowships

Thanks to generous support from the Kresge Foundation, the following students were awarded Mel King MCP Thesis Fellowships in 2022-2023.

MCPs

Shaler Campbell

Dylan Cohen

Juanita Halim

Tara Mohtadi

Melissa Teng

Romy St. Hilaire

Mikaela Strech

Rose Winer

The Kresge Foundation

The Kresge Foundation is a private, national foundation that works to expand opportunities in America’s cities through grantmaking and social investing in arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services and community development, nationally and in Detroit, Memphis and New Orleans.

Kresge works strategically to find the intersections between eight missions areas:

American Cities

promoting effective and inclusive community development practices in American cities

Arts and Culture

positioning culture and creativity as drivers of more just communities

Detroit

collaborating with cross-sectoral partners to promote and expand long-term, equitable opportunity for Detroit’s residents

Education

Each of these projects was specially chosen to represent the overlap between DUSP’s Strategic Objectives and the Mission Areas of the Kresge Foundation.

DUSP’s evolving Strategic Objectives include: achieving racial justice, enhancing multi-racial democratic governance, tackling the climate crisis, closing the wealth gap

Given the timing of these awards and the passing of our dear friend and colleague, we were especially grateful to be able to put this donation to such good use this year, and for the Kresge Foundation’s agreement to name the fellowships in honor of Mel King.

increasing college access and success while reducing inequitable student outcomes in the U.S. and South Africa

Environment

helping cities implement climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches grounded in equity

Health

building equity-focused systems of health that create opportunities for all people to achieve well-being

Human Services

expanding opportunities in American cities by centering racial equity to advance multi-generational social and economic success for families and communities

Social Investment Practice

strengthening neighborhoods and improving the quality of life in America’s cities by addressing barriers to capital

Awards, Achievement

Below is an incomplete list of the many events, awards, and achievements of the graduating class.

Rounaq Basu

Best Presentation Award for Doctoral Research in Transportation Analysis, Planning and Policy

Shekhar Chandra

MIT Presidential Fellowship

MIT Martin Sustainability Fellowship

Nadine Rodwin Fellowship

MIT Center for International Studies Fellowship

American Planning Association Foundation

Scholarship

MIT’s Schwarzman College of Computing’s Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC)

Scholarship

MIT-India Fellowship

MIT-wide Graduate Student Council Teaching Award

Dylan Cohen

William Emerson Travel Grant

Alberto Cuéllar Cerón

Blake Eagle Fellowship

Legatum Fellowship

Design X

IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge

Abby Fullem

William Emerson Travel Grant

Xiaotong Guo

UPS Ph.D. Fellowship

Shannon L. X. Hasenfratz

Charles H. (1951) and A. E. Spaulding Fellowship

William Emerson Travel Grant

Melissa Isidor

MIT Black Graduate Students’ Association, Rising Leader Award

PKG Public Service Fellow

BAMIT Community Advancement Program (BCAP) Fund Recipient

Ipshita Karmakar

Charles H. (1951) and A. E. Spaulding Fellowship

Lloyd and Nadine Rodwin International Travel Fellowship

Idélcia Mapure

Fulbright Foreign Student Program

Lloyd and Nadine Rodwin International Travel Fellowship

Pratiwi Prameswari

Lloyd and Nadine Rodwin International Travel Fellowship

Charles H. (1951) and A. E. Spaulding Fellowship

Arianna Salazar-Miranda

Finalist Fast Company’s 2022 Innovation by Design Awards

MIT Innovators Under 35

American Economic Association Summer Fellow

Sagalyn and Hack Dissertation Research Award

Harold Horowitz Research Fund

Presidential Doctoral Fellowship

Finalist Fast Company’s 2021 Innovation by Design Awards

Flavio Vila Skrzypek

Charles H. (1951) and A. E. Spaulding Fellowship

Emma Pauline Swarney Chicago Transit Authority Funding

Elaine Wang DesignX Delta V

Darien Alexander Williams

Bill Anderson Fund Fellow

Ford Predoctoral Fellowship Honorable Mention

William Emerson Travel Grant

Natural Hazards Center CONVERGE Grant – COVID-19 & Black Communities / Disaster Capitalism

Natural Hazards Center Quick Response Grant Program Recipient

Lily Xie

William Emerson Travel Grant

Gabriel Barrett Thesis Advisor: Jim Aloisi

Night Owl Buses in Boston: A Post-pandemic Reassessment to Determine Whether Overnight MBTA

Bus Service Can Serve Workers Who Currently Lack Any Transit Options

The MBTA operates one of the busiest public transit systems in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people rely on the network of buses and trains to get them to work, school, stores, and anywhere else they need to go. However, the scope of service of the MBTA is limited to the day time and early evening. With most buses and trains shutting down by 1 a.m., anyone needing to travel past this hour is forced to take alternative means of transportation, most often driving. This is an acute problem for night time workers who need to travel everyday outside traditional transit operating hours. By developing a plan to serve these workers, who on average are less white and have lower incomes than day time workers, the MBTA can work to create a more equitable system that meets the needs of everyone at any time of day.

This thesis examines how such an overnight transit service can help workers by using census data to create a transit propensity index (TPI) to predict where night transit demand would be greatest in the Boston region. Then, various proposals both from past pilot programs and suggestions from advocates are evaluated based on how well they cover areas of high TPI according to the methodology. The thesis concludes with an evaluation of best practices for night transit and a recommendation for the MBTA to implement should it decide to start a new overnight bus service that is focused on providing more mobility opportunities to workers at night.

Rounaq Basu

Dissertation Advisor: Joseph Ferreira

Planning Sustainable Cities: Coordinating Accessibility Improvements with Housing Policies

Emerging mobility services (such as mobility-on-demand and micromobility) have expanded the range of travel options available to individuals and offered ways to improve access to various opportunities. Unlike mass transit services, emerging mobilities can be implemented and experimented with rather rapidly. As a result, they are also likely to induce relatively rapid changes in travel behavior and location choices. Several cities across the world are experimenting with car-lite policies that aim to reduce auto ownership and use (and emissions) with the help of emerging mobilities, transit improvements, and/or urban design. Therefore, it becomes important to understand the near-term effects of emerging mobilities on neighborhoods through the lenses of vehicle ownership and residential location choice over the first few years of change.

In my dissertation, I used an agent-based land use-transportation interaction (LUTI) microsimulation model to explore ‘what-if’ scenarios in Singapore

regarding how households might react to policies that restrict private vehicle ownership and improve non-auto accessibility. I found that private vehicle restrictions alone without complementary non-auto accessibility improvements can reduce accessibility and social welfare, even in a transit-rich place like Singapore. Solely imposing a blanket ban on private automobiles to accelerate the transition to a sustainable mobility future will likely do more harm than good. Evidence of accessibility-induced gentrification, to varying degrees, was found in all of the Singaporean neighborhoods I explored. Lowerincome and less auto-dependent neighborhoods seem to be more prone to accessibility-induced gentrification, thereby suggesting that non-accessibility improvements alone may not guarantee equitable outcomes. I then explored two housing policies – upzoning and parking restrictions – as possible strategies to mitigate the gentrification side-effects. Both policies appeared to have limited value by themselves because, at times, they could accelerate gentrification or reduce social welfare. However, they became much more effective policy instruments when combined with affordability constraints (such as income restrictions and price discounts), so that the accessibility and welfare benefits of car-lite policies could be equitably distributed across residents.

Alex Boccon-Gibod

Thesis Advisors: Mary Anne Ocampo, Jim Aloisi

Re-Stitching the Fabric: Urban Highway Removal as an Opportunity for Equitable, Sustainable Transformation

The detrimental effects of a century of highway construction and use in U.S. cities are clear. From polluting the air, contributing to climate change, encouraging urban sprawl, and entrenching racial and economic injustice in the built environment, urban highways urgently need reimagining as we aim to build a more just and sustainable society. As a result, cities across the country have slowly begun to remove their highways and undo past harms by reclaiming public space, promoting sustainable modes of transportation, and redeveloping newly available land. While past removal projects have undoubtedly improved their urban public realms, they have often missed opportunities to encourage sustainable mode shift and resist community displacement. Given recent calls for highway removal by communities, local leaders, and the federal government, now is the time to ensure the benefits of these projects are shared by all.

This thesis aims to outline a justice-oriented framework which can encourage more holistic highway removal processes. It first uses a case study approach to evaluate past projects through the lenses of sustainable mobility, public realm, and anti-displacement. Through analyses of the removal of part of the Central Freeway in San Francisco, CA and the Cypress Freeway in Oakland, CA, it identifies best practices to adopt and failures to avoid. It then specifies a set of analytical and procedural dimensions necessary for ensuring more equitable and sustainable outcomes. Finally, this framework is illustrated and tested using a proposed highway removal project: the rest of San Francisco’s Central Freeway.

Nicholette Paige Cameron

Thesis Advisor: devin michelle bunten

Implementing [Up]Zoning for Affordability: A Seattle Case Study

Today, U.S. cities are continuing to grapple with housing shortages and the affordability crisis. In the United States, as of 2020, 30% of households were cost-burdened and 14% were severely cost-burdened, paying more than 30% and 50% of their incomes on housing, respectively. One way in which cities are attempting to manage growth and affordability is with zoning changes. Cities can encourage new development and increase affordable housing options by loosening restrictions that allow for more density and tying affordability requirements to that new development capacity. This is also known as inclusionary upzoning. This documents the case study of Seattle’s inclusionary upzoning policy, providing just one example of how cities are using zoning reform as a tool to address the affordability crisis.

The case is presented as two components: Policy and Practice. The Policy section will provide an overview of the policy from ideation to implementation. First, providing what steps were taken to implement both the upzone and the Mandatory Housing Affordability policy. Second, it will outline how Seattle’s upzone

and Mandatory Housing Affordability changed existing policy and if those changes impacted all neighborhoods equally. Lastly, it will provide a summary of what the policy has accomplished so far.

The Practice section provides one example of how a developer has responded to the upzone. I chose this developer because they are utilizing a unique, community-based model instead of the traditional purchase-to-redevelop business model, which allowed me to explore how the developer is supporting current residents and the community, and what challenges the developer and the community are experiencing as they navigate the new policies.

The thesis concludes with a set of recommendations that Seattle and other municipalities should consider when implementing [up]zoning reform for affordability, including implementing upzones citywide and changing the perspective of the role of communities in the development process.

Shaler Campbell

Repetitive Flooding in Riverine Towns: Understanding Responses, Barriers, and Challenges for the Future

Climate change is predicted to increase the intensity of precipitation events and increase inland flooding in the United States in the coming decades (Allan et al., 2020; Easterling et al., 2017; Kerlin, 2019; Mallakpour & Villarini, 2015). Unlike coastal communities, which have seen increased attention in the face of climate change, riverine communities have received far less attention (Jongman et al., 2012). This is despite a long history of repetitive riverine flooding and associated responses and barriers to flood mitigation. Important insights can be drawn from towns that have endured repetitive flooding and how they have responded.

This thesis explores riverine towns with repetitive flooding, the similarities and differences in their flood responses and barriers to mitigation, similarities that can be deduced for other riverine towns, and how policies may be improved to better support them.

To answer these questions, results were compared from semi-structured interviews and historical research from four case study towns in the United States: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Freeport, Illinois; Ellicott City, Maryland; and Athens Borough, Pennsylvania. Firstly, results showed several barriers to flood mitigation, including a lack of institutional capacity, challenges with regionalism, and insufficient federal flood mitigation assistance. Secondly, results showed that mitigating flood risk from multiple flood profiles, managed retreat, and structural flood mitigation solutions are proving successful for some riverine towns as flooding events increase in severity. Lastly, results showed that current federal programs must better fully support smaller riverine towns needing funding for flood mitigation, and modifications to existing programs and new programs are necessary to support their unique circumstances. From a resource allocation perspective, this thesis highlights the need to devote more resources to riverine towns with repetitive flooding to help them mitigate the worst effects of flooding in the face of increasingly worse storm events due to climate change.

Thesis Advisor: Amy Glasmeier

Naylah Canty

Thesis Advisor: Mary Anne Ocampo

Orbital Settlement Design: Reformulating Recommendations for Planned Living Space within a Selfsufficient Habitat

Sustaining permanent human presence in outer space has become a goal of great technological, scientific, economic, nationalistic, and ideological interest in the last half-century. Space settlement potentialized a paradigm shift in humanity’s energy harvesting practices, renewable resource markets, and sociological and physiological evolution. Recent innovation in space construction and manufacturing makes feasible the concept of an orbital free-space settlement that would support thousands of lives as a permanent habitat.

This thesis re-evaluates the free-space habitat design choices jointly proposed by NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University multi-disciplinarians in their 1977 Space Settlement Design Report. Recommendations for determining space allocation per settler, diversification of space-use in residential and commercial zones, and modular construction techniques are put forth to reflect over 50 years’ worth of advancements across several fields. The literature suggests that optimal spatial delegation is highly dependent on settler composition, land use interweaving, and co-location of essential facilities in a polycentric urban design. It also finds that prefabricated structural frame components could offer relatively unsupervised building-design autonomy to settlers within the constraints of pre-planned mobility corridors and public spaces. Although this thesis does not examine the specific political or financial complications of orbital settlement development, the ramifications of sponsorship on urban design within the habitat is explored as a means for defining the scope of the recommendations. Additionally, more in-situ, experimental research is necessary to measure the psychological response to extended stays in extraterrestrial habitats, which is critical for planning a healthy and sustainable orbital city.

Yuchen Chai

Thesis Advisor: Siqi Zheng

Determinants and Interventions for Physical Activity Adherence During COVID-19: A Global Study using Machine Learning Approach

Physical activity (PA) is crucial for maintaining both physical and mental health in urban and regional settings. However, public health hazards, such as pandemics, extreme temperatures, and air pollution, pose challenges for PA adherence due to voluntary or mandatory self-protection measures and the closure of exercise facilities in cities. Existing research on urban health resilience during crises primarily depends on small-scale exercise surveys and fails to consider the multifaceted determinants of exercise, including personal habits, social networks, and local policy or built environments.

In this project, I use COVID-19 as a case study to systematically investigate the drivers of unequal PA adherence and identify opportunities for timely personalized interventions. First, I collect the universe of exercise records for 30 million individuals across more than 200 countries from Strava. Then, I develop advanced neural network methods to automate the identification of

PA adherence prior and during the pandemic based on personal exercise habits and social network interactions, achieving accuracy rates of 89.9% and 82.1% respectively. Lastly, I integrate an explainable neural network approach with econometric analysis to reveal the impact of city-level policies, socio-demographics, and built environment factors on PA inequality.

My findings suggest that regions worldwide experience significant PA shocks at the onset of the pandemic, particularly during lockdown periods, yet followed by a positive rebound in the long term. Males and urbanites in less developed regions tend to experience more negative PA shocks during the COVID-19, likely moderated by exercise preferences and the availability of outdoor sports amenities. Social connectivity also plays a vital role in promoting PA adherence during crises. This study advances the field by combining large-scale digital data with machine-learning to provide in-time prediction of PA adherence and map its complex determinants. My thesis thus provides direct evidence-based support for multi-layered PA interventions from personal nudges, social networks, and city planning perspectives during public health crises.

Shekhar Chandra

Dissertation Advisors: Janelle Knox-Hayes, Lawrence Susskind, Bish Sanyal, Chap Lawson, Sally Haslanger, Asya

Magazinnik

State, Street, and Public Goods: A Theory of Misgovernance

Using extensive fieldwork in three of India’s major state bureaucracies and building on innovative strategies to measure corruption, this dissertation answers the questions of why corruption exists and persists in government bureaucracies. I argue that corruption in government bureaucracies could be better conceptualized in the form of grand and petty corruption and that grand corruption causes petty corruption.

I show that these two kinds of corruption are organized around bureaucratic transfers. The existence and stability of the linkages between grand and petty corruption explain why corruption exists and persists and why anti-corruption reforms meet with limited success in the developing world.

I provide a critique of the agency theory and discuss why the theory is not suitable to capture the dynamics of corruption in large government bureaucracies. Alternatively, I suggest that the dynamics of corruption in government bureaucracies could be better understood as occurring through social networks of rational actors who work to maximize their preferences under structural incentives and organizational constraints. These arguments together help us understand why top-down approaches to addressing corruption are unsuccessful. Finally, I provide a set of recommendations to address corruption based on the findings of my work.

Paris Charitatos

Thesis Advisors: Fabio Duarte, Siqi Zheng

Splitting Rides in Transit Deserts: Ride-splitting Dynamics in Chicago Before, Suring and After the Pandemic

Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) might constitute a solution for transit dependent population who live in areas with limited or even non-existent public transit service, also known as “transit deserts”. Ride-splitting was introduced by TNCs as an affordable on-demand mobility option which offers door-to-door service while sharing a trip with another passenger. Due to its affordability, ride-splitting can increase even more the accessibility of low-income and disadvantaged population. We studied if ride-splitting services compensate for the lack of transit in transit deserts. We leveraged the suspension of ride-splitting services during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine how ride-splitting user behavior changed throughout three time periods: (1) pre pandemic, (2) during the pandemic and (3) post pandemic. By doing so, we study if ride-splitting users switched to single mode during COVID-19 and if ride-splitting levels have recovered in the post-pandemic era.

For our analysis we used TNC trip records, provided by the city of Chicago, transit data from four different transit authorities, as well as demographic and job density data. We identified transit deserts by calculating a transit supply score for every census tract during five time periods: (1) weekday daytime hours; (2) weekday overnight hours; (3) weekday peak hours; (4) weekend daytime hours and (5) weekend overnight hours. We developed cluster and bivariate maps along with spatial regression models to determine the correlation between ride-splitting pickups/drop-offs, transit supply and neighborhood characteristics along these five temporal periods.

Results revealed that transit deserts can occur regardless of the racial and income composition, and spatial sorting of the area. Pooled pickups/drop-offs were negatively correlated with transit route density, transit stop density and proximity to rail station, which means that ride-splitting supplements the role of transit in transit deserts. We found that communities of color and transit-dependent population had a moderate positive influence on ride-splitting. There is little evidence that ride-splitting users switched to single mode during COVID-19, but overall single trips were relatively higher compared to pre pandemic.

Dylan Cohen Thesis Advisors: J. Phillip Thompson, Jason Spicer

Power and Control in Disinvested Affordable Housing: San Francisco’s Limited Equity Housing Co-operatives

The promise of the co-operative housing typology extends beyond providing stable, affordable housing. Co-operatives strive to offer a resident-centered site of democratic participation, where ownership and limited equity combine to provide both collective and shareholder ownership of a valuable community asset. Contentiously, local governments and civic institutions seek certainty and control in housing, prioritizing technical expertise and institutional relationships over deeper investment in resident-owner capacity. Affordable housing practitioners face complex and politicized projects, where co-op health is often threatened by mistrust, institutional failures, and funding scarcity.

In San Francisco, more than 2,000 limited equity housing co-operative units constitute a significant portion of the city’s legacy 1960s and 70s federally-funded housing stock. Co-ops routinely fall into crisis, where residents rely on dysfunctional boards, ill-suited housing management companies, and insufficient government support for their survival. Numerous co-ops face critical survival questions, including deferred maintenance and disrepair, potential redevelopment, political instability, and waning institutional support.

This client-linked thesis delves into the landscape of one local government’s relationship with its co-operative housing ecosystem. Through dozens of interviews, a literature review, policy analysis, and several case studies of existing co-ops, this thesis elucidates present-day challenges and findings, and by discussing peer-city case studies of Vancouver, Canada, and Washington, D.C., proposes viable solutions charting a path forward.

Alberto Cuéllar Cerón

Thesis Advisors: Albert Saiz, Justin Steil Entrepreneurship

as a Catalyzer of Housing Quality Enhancement in Colombia: Tervi

The evolution of cities in Latin America has been shaped by a complex interplay of factors, including political history, informality, geography, and culture. With one of the highest rates of urbanization in the world, the region’s urban centers have experienced a surge in makeshift settlements as governments struggle to meet demand and provide affordable housing. The result is a critical housing deficit, both in terms of quantity and quality, which requires innovative solutions from both the government and the private sector. The narrative in this thesis unfolds exploring the housing deficit in the region, focusing specifically on Colombia’s case and the implications of the existing social housing system on the market. By examining the actors involved, the policy framework, and the current status quo, I sought to reveal the potential for local governments, developers, entrepreneurship, and technology to play a more influential role in addressing the quality gap. In 2021, I co-founded Tervi, a platform designed to provide low- and mid-income homeowners in Colombia access to design, financing, and construction

services to improve their substandard dwellings and dignify their living conditions. Drawing on my experiences in conceiving, developing, and engaging with families, communities, and stakeholders during the deployment of the minimum viable product and proof of concept, this thesis highlights the potential of tech-enabled solutions to have a direct impact on life quality through home improvements. Furthermore, the thesis explores potential alternatives to address housing quality deficiencies and challenges the notion of the qualitative deficit as a fixed threshold for classifying the complex concept of home. It argues that factors such as livability and well-being are equally important in the creation of just and comfortable living conditions, and that policies must take these factors into account to avoid perpetuating substandard housing.

The outcome of the process outlined in this thesis is a digital platform that aims to bridge the gap between much of the homeowner population in Colombia and access to high-quality standard homes. In essence, a platform that provides home improvement as a service supporting social housing homeowners in transforming their incomplete dwellings by using technology to optimize their resources and unlock the full potential of their equity. Ultimately, stating that developing prop-tech platforms in the service of communities can augment their opportunities to progress and contribute to the creation of healthier, more comfortable, and just living conditions.

Silvia Danielak

Dissertation Advisors: Delia Wendel, Gabriella Carolini, John Gledhill

The Infrastructure of Peace: Socio-spatial Planning in UN Peace Operations

My dissertation examines infrastructure building, and the ‘planning for peace’ embedded therein, in the context of United Nations (UN) peace operations. The installation of solar panels, the repair of roads, and the construction of bridges constitutes an important vehicle for conflict transformation and imaginary for the future of a conflict-affected society. Peace operations’ infrastructure projects have a significant, long-term impact on the built environment and ecology in the places of intervention – a logic that is scarcely articulated as part of peace efforts and remains disjoint from the sustainability discourse to which peacebuilding has turned.

My research constitutes a multi-disciplinary inquiry, connecting urban studies and peace studies through an approach informed by historical sociology. I offer an urban planning perspective on peace operations, and specifically its infrastructure building. Through three case studies, this dissertation explores the ‘infrastructural imaginaries of peace’ – infrastructure as promise, risk, and legacy – pursued through engineering and

planning expertise and practice in the UN missions in Cyprus in the 1960s, in Haiti after the mid-2000s, and in Mali after 2013.

The dissertation’s central argument is that peacekeeping operations conduct a significant socio-spatial (re-) organization in pursuit of peace through infrastructure building. The dissertation’s historical perspective on peacekeeping’s involvement in public works highlights that – contrary to the recent uptick in attention to peacekeepers’ ecological footprint and ‘sustainable’ peace efforts – socio-spatial, urban and environmental aspects have always featured in peace operations, albeit through different paradigms. Furthermore, the recent increased attention on ‘greening’ peacekeeping and ‘positive legacy’ after missions’ closure reveals an uneasy positioning of peace operations’ infrastructure building between the pursuit of positive and negative peace objectives. These objectives are not easily reconcilable and challenge us to rethink the spatial and temporal dimension of peace efforts, and the equity planning that might need to gain more traction in peace operations’ infrastructure projects.

Asmaa Elgamal Dissertation Advisor: Delia Wendel

Landing Security: Risk, Endogeneity, and the Archives of Colonialized Planning in Morocco

This dissertation investigates the historical and contemporary relationships between security, development and planning through the lens of collective land tenure in Morocco. Weaving a historical narrative that traces the legal and bureaucratic institutions of Moroccan land management to their colonial roots, I argue that security politics are inextricably tied to the very genesis of development planning.

The title of the dissertation, “Landing Security,” reflects both the centrality of land to my analysis as well as its power to secure allegiances, quell anxieties, and fortify state sovereignty. This power does not only lie in the material possession of land or its potential for economic investment, but also in the bureaucratic processes through which land tenure becomes legitimate, stable, and thus uncontestable. “Landing Security” thus refers to land not as an object or a noun, but as a verb capable of transforming relationships and pacifying the violence of state-building and development.

In contrast to conceptions of planning as a form of state control, I argue instead that development planning is a form of risk management in which a territorialized understanding of culture – including the relationships of subject populations to their land –is constructed as risk. Risk mitigation, in the form of what I call finding “tolerable levels of endogeneity” – or accepting a certain level of locality and tradition deemed necessary for effective control – then becomes the mechanism through which security logics are embedded in state practice. This translates into an obsession with binding development policy to presumably traditional legal, social, and political institutions, thus producing a manufactured path dependency as a proxy for cultural authenticity.

I demonstrate, moreover, that the planning rationalities of the protectorate regime continue to guide the management of collective land in the contemporary Moroccan state, now bolstered by the legal and institutional legacies of the colonial regime. Ultimately, I argue, one of the greatest successes of the French colonial tenure in Morocco was its ability to transform its own archive into the new reference point for cultural authenticity within an ongoing project of modern state-building.

Thesis Advisor: Holly Harriel

The Kids Table: A Report

Conceptualizing Youth Empowerment and Food Planning Methods Through the Case Study of the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition

There is an ageless saying directed towards youth (young adults aged 14-19) that continues to define and dictate their lives. Youth are our future. Yet, many governmental and planning institutions overlook the prospect of integrating the voices of youth, particularly of color, within decision-making processes that directly affect them and their communities. Youth should have the power to make key decisions around food security in their lived environments. In this thesis, I reveal the potential impacts youth of color can have when given adequate support and resources in the planning level - through the prospect of food system and planning.

Building on my former thesis, existing research, case studies, historical analyses and analyzing data from my client partner, the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition (MFFC), this thesis: 1. Delves into the history of youth rights and engagement in the United States; 2. Brings to the forefront the tools of food through the analysis of food planning and its empowering attributes in the community; 3. Shows the impact youth have had on their respective community foodscapes with a primary focus on Mattapan and the MFFC; 4. Builds a framework on the crossroads of food planning, youth empowerment and community decision making; and 5. Calls to action institutions of governance and higher education to not only involve youth of color within urban food system decision making models and designs, but to also support youth and food organizations aimed at improving the landscape and lived environments of their communities.

Moctar Fall

Ruoming Fang

Thesis Advisors: David Hsu, Cong Cong

Application of Deep Learning to Land Cover Classification: Practical Issues and Strategies

Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) change is a process of essential importance to urban studies and planning. Large-scale databases provide comprehensive records, but in many circumstances, they need to be supplemented or substituted by alter- native data sources. The advent of deep learning provides an efficient, low-cost data generation method in which a trained deep neural network (DNN) segments satellite images to classify land cover; in recent years, multiple models have been proposed and tested on satellite imagery.

This study takes a practically oriented approach, in which we train a classic convolutional neural network (CNN) model on a novel labeled image dataset, then use the model to segment Sentinel-2 satellite images and classify the land cover of Massachusetts in 2019. While the model performs very well in classifying land covers at a broad level, the discrepancies between model predictions and reference data increase in distinguishing more nuanced land features due to many localized factors. In addition, model training and classification are highly sensitive to several issues

specific to remote sensing data, such as defects in images and distribution shifts. We devise multiple empirical strategies to address these is- sues, including a progressive technique to select high-quality data samples from the imperfect dataset and the selection of normalization parameters to reduce the impact of covariate shifts.

We contend that good models alone are insufficient to drive successful LULC mapping on remote sensing imagery; sound data engineering also plays a crucial role. Lastly, we explore potential improvements in the field that can benefit future applications.

Abby Fullem

Thesis Advisors: Lawrence Susskind, Ona Ferguson

Collaboration in Unlikely Spaces: The Characteristics and Promise of Successful Collaboration Among Affordable Housing and Environmental Conservation Proponents

There is a decreasing amount of available land and competing priorities for the use of it. Land value appreciation and the effects of climate change reduce the amount of viable land at affordable prices. Sectors and stakeholders with contending interests for land parcels have a choice; they can contest the other, ignore the other and try to maximize their interests, or collaborate to maximize both of their interests on that land.

Two sectors that face this choice are affordable housing developer non-profits and conservation land trust non-profits. Both are land-based, in need of inexpensive land, and struggling to achieve their missions alone. Collaboration, I suggest, is the preferred route for these sectors to take in the face of increasing competition, as it allows each sector to simultaneously

advance their own interests by leveraging the other sector’s strategies and tools, and form a more powerful political coalition to further their shared interests.

I describe and analyze an action research case study I conducted on a cross-sectoral collaboration in the Hudson Valley of New York State. Hudson Valley Affordable Housing and Conservation Strategy (HVAHCS) is comprised of ten affordable housing and conservation land trust non-profits that are choosing to collaborate in the face of increasing competition. Through a review of consensus building, network building, and collective impact theories, as well as interviews and experience as a member of the HVAHCS facilitation team, I look at what enables their cross-sectoral collaboration, and how they approach obstacles to it. I conclude with recommendations for other groups considering collaboration as a means to advance their individual and shared interests in the same physical space.

Learnings from this action research case study point to the importance of employing an interests-based approach, allowing ideas and priorities to emerge from the network of organizations, balancing capacity and diffused leadership within the collaborative, using a third-party facilitator, prioritizing relationship-building, building a shared understanding, and supporting the organizations within the collaborative.

Rebecca Glasgow

Thesis Advisor: Justin Steil

A Case Study: LIHTC-to-Condo Conversion

By the end of the decade, approximately half of LowIncome Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)-funded housing units are anticipated to reach the end of their affordability restrictions. This thesis examines the potential benefits and challenges associated with the transformation of LIHTC rental units into homeownership condominium units through an in-depth case study of Quality Hill Phase IIB, a LIHTC Rental-to-Affordable Condominium project based in Kansas City, Missouri. The case study identifies key regulatory and financial factors that contributed to the model’s initial success. Most significant was the legal theory that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has no jurisdiction after the 15-year compliance period and sole jurisdiction lies with the State Housing Finance Agency (SHFA). This predicate was the basis for a private letter ruling granted from the Internal Revenue Service, with participation with the SHFA, that allowed a LIHTC tenant the right of first refusal to buy his or her unit as part of the condominium homeownership plan after year 15 of the compliance period. Despite the model’s initial success, the project grappled with substantial obstacles related to the 2008-2012 financial crisis, recapitalization of the capital partner, lack of

end loan financing, and tenant eligibility issues that led to its eventual downfall. Despite these challenges, LIHTC-to-condominium conversions hold potential as a strategy for creating affordable homeownership options. The case study provides lessons learned and tools to be applied to its application in a future condominium attempt. These include the use of tax codes sections 108, 183 and IRS Revenue Procedure 2014-12 to tackle feasibility of the model as well as securing mortgage financing from alternative lending institutions that can better accommodate to low-income tenants. In conclusion, this research broadens the academic dialogue on rent-to-own models. By highlighting the primary challenges associated with this approach and offering practical insights, this thesis hopes to provide a valuable resource for stakeholders considering LIHTC for affordable homeownership solutions.

Jonathan Pei-Ying Goh

Thesis Advisors: Brent D. Ryan, Catherine D’Ignazios

Welcome to Cambodia Town

Cambodian American communities are at an inflection point as the generation that arrived in the U.S as refugees start to retire, and the younger generation often have other aspirations than to carry on their parents’ businesses. Cambodia Town—as the largest conglomeration of Cambodians in the U.S—embodies these changes in the form of population decline, and small businesses closing down. However, a new wave of Cambodian American digital creators that seek to use storytelling and design to represent and shape Khmer culture has also emerged out of this transition.

I undertake a product design and development process that uncovers the needs of Cambodian American small businesses, and digital creators related to digital engagement, and develop a prototype of a mobile application to support them. I conduct exploratory data analysis of small businesses in Cambodia Town, and indepth interviews with target users of the mobile app, which I translate into the prototype design.

The heart of this work asks how might we imagine a platform that threads together digital and physical worlds for a geographically fragmented group of people, and what are the implications of such an endeavor for placemaking.

Shivali Gowda

Multifamily Affordable Housing Energy Retrofit Strategy for Richmond, CA

Weatherization, energy efficiency, and electrification upgrades, which combined can be called energy retrofits, can reduce energy burden, provide health improvements through improved indoor air quality and increased comfort in the home, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This study explores how the City of Richmond, CA can incentivize weatherization, energy efficiency, and electrification upgrades as well as solar installation in multifamily affordable housing developments to provide these benefits to low-income residents in the City.

Through interviews with energy program administrators, affordable housing providers, community-based organizations, and government agencies, this study identifies the key motivations, opportunities, and challenges of completing multifamily affordable housing energy retrofits in Richmond, CA. In addition, a comprehensive review of existing and upcoming federal, state, and local energy retrofit funding and resources was completed. Based on building permit data and utility payment structure and appliance fuel source survey data from buildings, existing affordable housing developments that are good candidates for electrification and solar installation in Richmond were identified. Utilizing interview findings, literature review, funding information, and building stock analysis, recommendations were created for the City of Richmond of short, medium, and long term programs that could be implemented to increase multifamily affordable housing energy retrofits, with staff capacity, funding requirements, and implementation timeline information included.

Thesis Advisors: Justin Steil, Samantha Carr, Allison Moe

Xiaotong Guo Thesis Advisor: Jinhua Zhao

Enhancing the Shared Mobility Market: Dissolving Market Segmentation and Understanding Market Friction

Over the past decade, the growth of ride-sharing companies, also known as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), providing on-demand transportation services for passengers, has been one of the fastest worldwide. However, in the governance of the shared mobility market of a city or metropolitan area, two conflicting principles emerge: the healthy competition between multiple platforms and economies of network scale, which leads to higher chances for trips to be matched and thus higher operation efficiency, but which also implies a monopoly. The current shared mobility markets, as observed in different cities in the world, are either monopolistic, or largely segmented by multiple platforms, the latter with significant efficiency loss.

This thesis addresses the efficiency loss issues due to segmentation by proposing new market designs while keeping the competition between platforms. We propose a theoretical framework for describing shared mobility markets and then propose four market

structure designs thereupon. The framework and four designs are first discussed as an abstract model, without losing generality, thus not constrained to any specific city. Then, to assess the real-world performance of these market structure designs, we used a ride-sharing simulator with real-world ride-hailing trip data from New York City to simulate. The proposed market designs can reduce the total vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) by 6% while serving more customers with 8.4% fewer total number of trips. In the meantime, customers receive better services with an on-average 5.4% shorter waiting time.

Platform drivers in the shared mobility market frequently switch or work for multiple platforms, providing a natural way of dissolving the market segmentation. However, the presence of significant market friction preventing platform drivers from multi-homing. In this thesis, we taxonomize and estimates perceived switching and multi-homing frictions on mobility platforms. Based on a structural model of driver labor supply, we estimate switching and multi-homing costs in a platform duopoly using public and limited high-level survey data in a shared mobility market with a transportation network company duopoly. Estimated costs are sizeable, and reductions in multi-homing and switching costs significantly affect platform market shares and driver welfare. Driver labor supply elasticity with respect to platform wage is also discussed considering both multi-homing and switching frictions.

Juanita Halim Thesis Advisor: Eran Ben-Joseph

Re-Thinking Urban Retail: The Design and Planning of “Dark Stores” and Public Spaces

The rapid evolution of the retail industry in response to technological advancements and the sharing economy has given rise to various formats and concepts. One such concept is grocery “dark stores,” which are retail facilities designed for online order fulfillment, primarily located in urban areas.

This thesis aims to analyze the proliferation of online grocery shopping and its impact on the urban landscape, specifically focusing on the spatial distribution of grocery “dark stores” and their activities. This research utilizes spatial analysis and interviews to address three key questions: the role of grocery “dark stores” in cities, their location patterns, and their impacts on the urban fabric.

The findings reveal that grocery “dark stores” are predominantly located in neighborhood areas with a high concentration of retail food stores and facilities. In Manhattan, they are primarily situated in Commercial and Manufacturing districts. Despite the rise of grocery “dark stores” and their promise of convenience to customers, they have faced challenges

such as exits attributed to dwindling investor funding, a competitive market landscape, and political influences driven by Russia-backed Venture Capitalists.

In the digital era, strategies aimed at transforming cities digitally must consider the implications of different retail formats and the various stakeholders involved. Urban policies and regulations need to address how new retail platforms reshape the relationship between business locations, their design and function, and the public. This thesis underscores the urgency of such considerations as new forms of retail and businesses emerge within the tech-enabled digital economy and shape urban infrastructure.

By studying the impact of grocery “dark stores” on the urban fabric, this research contributes to a broader understanding of how the digital transformation of cities intersects with retail and business landscapes. It highlights the importance of proactive urban policies and regulations to effectively navigate the evolving retail ecosystem and ensure a sustainable and inclusive urban environment.

Overall, this thesis serves as a valuable resource for urban policymakers, city officials, and researchers seeking insights into the implications of emerging retail formats and their effects on the urban fabric in the context of the digital economy and new urban infrastructure.

Shannon L. X. Hasenfratz

Thesis Advisor: Jim Aloisi

Memorable, Legible, and Accessible Cities: Co-Stewarding Historic Preservation and Public Transportation Agendas in Boston and Hong Kong

This thesis seeks to understand how planners, designers, and policymakers can identify and leverage shared goals between historic preservation and public transit planning to support a memorable, legible, and accessible public realm. Preservation and transportation agendas are often described as inherently opposed to one another, and are generally administered through separate bureaucracies. Rather than being in opposition, I argue that the goals of preservation and transit accessibility are well-aligned through a shared commitment to serving the public interest and fostering sustainable development. I explore this alignment by analyzing how two coastal cities, Boston and Hong Kong, have accommodated transit needs alongside the cultural legacy of their built environments—resulting in positive and negative impacts on achieving sustainable development goals.

Insights from Hong Kong and Boston neighborhoods, gleaned through interviews, on-site observations, and mapping exercises, inform a set of opportunities for better fostering the synergies between historic preservation and transit planning. These recommendations, organized around opportunities for collaborative governance structures and processes, seek to improve the usability and enjoyment of public transit system and historic sites to create memorable, legible, and accessible cities for the long-term.

Melissa Hill Thesis Advisor: Jeff Levine

Building the New Stadium Complex: Three Case Studies of Place, Process, and Best Practices

In this thesis, I explore three case studies of team-driven or team-involved mixed-use districts near National Football League stadiums. Using primarily document analysis, archival, and personal observation sources, I develop narratives of the places and processes associated with Titletown, Patriot Place, and Westgate Entertainment District.

I investigate the financial and zoning environments in particular and theorize on the implications of this new trend in sports real estate. I conclude with suggestions of how best to navigate the new developments coming to cities across the United States. I propose that in this new era where pro sports and mixed-use real estate are inseparable, municipalities must be aware of their opportunities and constraints in order to negotiate optimal spaces for their futures. Further, while there can be substantial benefits to this mixed-use development, cities and developers must pay special attention to equity and displacement concerns and should not consider these new spaces to substitute for a rich public realm.

Melissa Isidor

Thesis Advisor: Holly Harriel

CROSSROADS: Exploring how micro organizations that leverage design shape urbanism practice

Crossroads is an exploration into the role micro organizations (1-10 people) that leverage design play within the greater urbanism field. At large, this research serves to build synergies between creative practitioners within or adjacent to the urbanism field, while providing insights and resources both from a philosophical and operational perspective. The research aims to think expansively about the definition of what design means, mainly conceptualizing design as a way of thinking and process.

Using a case study approach, my investigation brings together the voices of six micro organizations based in the United States—including BlackSpace Urbanist Collective, JIMA Studio, Broad Community Connections, Design Studio for Social Intervention, Civic Studio, and Hector Design. Each conversation dives into the nuance of each organization’s foundations, process, and vision for the future. In understanding each group’s internal organizational practices, we begin to uncover the possibilities and challenges of practicing at this scale. At large, the findings lead me to believe that such organizations serve as the instigators and experimenters within the greater urbanism ecosystem.

Sarah Jeong

Thesis Advisor: Catherine D’Ignazio

Digital Tools and Design: Improving Participation in Policymakings

This thesis examines how digital tools and design principles can be used to improve public participation in policymaking. I begin by identifying the problem that government consultations often fail to engage the public in policymaking because of their inaccessibility. I then explore ways to make government consultations more accessible and engaging, taking findings from: a literature review; interviews with policy practitioners; and case studies of real-world consultations that were effective in engaging the public. I apply these learnings to design and conduct an online survey as an alternative to the typical form of government consultation, using a recent New Zealand consultation on recycling as my comparator. The thesis evaluates the results of my survey and concludes with implications for incorporating digital tools and design principles into the consultation process.

Sarah Kalish Thesis Advisors: Amy Glasmeier, Jeff Levine

Awarding Equitably: A Process design Framework for City Grantmakers

Internal processes such as hiring, procurement, and grantmaking are the hidden engine that power the delivery of local government services. My research begins with a case study on designing the City of Boston’s organization-wide grantmaking process to standardize procedures. This effort became a priority due to the influx of ARPA funding, among other drivers related to digital transformation and a new mayoral administration. Through interviews with grants program managers, I documented the steps in the grants process and codified shared best practices in a grants process user guide. This initial exercise was a mechanical one, which was limited as other considerations and values, namely equity, were integral to work but only implicitly embedded in grantmaking.

In my research to develop a more holistic process design framework, I discovered a gap in the literature on internally focused process design in public sector organizations. The process improvement discipline comes closest, but still lacks a systematic discussion of factors that influence process, including values, structures, norms, practices, and politics. In identifying these

influences, I construct a framework that serves as an actionable toolkit for practitioners across government settings. I define five influences: philosophical values, organizational structures, cultural norms, operational practices, and political forces. For each, I outline definitions, principles, guiding questions, and complementary exercises. Then I apply the framework to analyze the Community Preservation Act (CPA), a Massachusettswide municipal grant program.

There are further opportunities to apply the “five influences” framework to other internal processes across organizational contexts in public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Most importantly, the framework application must be user-friendly and actionable, and thoughtfully integrated into internal operations.

Ipshita Karmakar

Thesis Advisors: Gabriella Carolini, Lawrence Vale, Mary Anne Ocampo

Disaster Diplomacy: The Spatial Impact of International Reconstruction Aid in the Aftermath of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal

This thesis aims to investigate the spatial implications of international reconstruction aid in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake of Nepal, particularly in the urban municipality of Lalitpur.

I explore how emergency reconstruction aid, operationalized as support from international NGOs, bilateral agencies and multilateral organizations, has a spatial impact and imprint on cities. I examine the impact of the aid community on the rent, land values, and infrastructural/amenity distribution within the wards of their operation. Second, I examine the impact of post-earthquake reconstruction projects leveraging international funding on urbanization patterns in the wards in which they are situated. To understand counterfactual trends, I examine the overall patterns of neighborhood change in earthquake affected wards of Lalitpur where no international aid funded projects or aid personnel are located.

The argument advanced includes two suppositions that decipher the spatial implications of aid project presence and operational presence: 1) The increasing spatial cluster of physical outposts of international aid organizations’ headquarters, i.e. what I call here their operational presence, creates neighborhood change that is privileging the rentier class rather than distributing housing, amenities, and infrastructure equitably to the city; 2) The presence of international aid funded reconstruction projects, i.e their project presence, creates a change in both amenities and small business distribution within wards within which they are situated to create neighborhood change, which accelerates inequity, but in ways unlike that of operational presence. Two wards within Lalitpur show significant neighborhood change due to the presence of international reconstruction aid as opposed to the rest of the municipality i.e. Ward no.2 and Ward no.16.

Particularly, these wards saw an exponential increase in rent and housing values (in the case of Ward no.2), a change in the nature and function of locally owned small businesses, and a tendency to cater to a rentier class that comprises international aid workers and tourists, as opposed to the rest of the municipality (both Ward no.2 and Ward no.16).

Sarah Lohmar

Thesis Advisor: Lawrence Susskind

Strengthening Consumer and Retailer Responsibility for Textile Reuse and Donation in Cambridge and Boston

According to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (Mass DEP), Massachusetts residents dispose of approximately 230,000 tons of textiles each year. In Boston and Cambridge, almost all household trash is incinerated due to at-capacity landfills. This presents a critical need to divert textile waste towards secondary uses, avoiding the release of greenhouse gases and toxins from the incinerated clothes. Following the 2022 Mass DEP ban on disposing mattresses and textiles in municipal trash, there has been an increased emphasis on textile recycling in the two cities. However, existing strategies for textile reuse focus on the actions of individuals and municipalities which is at great odds with the global scale of textile waste generation.

Through data collection, stakeholder interviews, and policy analysis, this work examines relations and roles of the existing textile landscape’s donation, collection, and resale actors spanning both public and private sectors. Drawing from this investigation, I propose a bundle of recommendations to improve the textile recovery space in three key categories: responsibility and stewardship, educational messaging and outreach, and potential policy actions. To effectively address and reduce the issue of textile waste, this work concludes that clothing manufacturers and retailers must take greater responsibility for end-of-life disposal of textiles. At the same time, individual consumers, residents, and cities must be mindful of consumption, continue to participate in existing textile recovery programing, and advocate for longer term change in material waste culture.

Babak Manouchehrifar

Dissertation Advisors: Bish Sanyal, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, John Forester

Urban Planning and Religious Practice: Three Challenges

Religion in urban planning is conventionally viewed as a non-spatial, pre-theoretical, or extra- legal phenomenon. This view has been questioned recently by research in religious and pluralism studies and by the increasing religious diversity and activism in Western and non-Western cities. Yet, the challenge remains that urban planners usually don’t understand how to address religious concerns and practices of urban communities without compromising their statutory and political responsibilities. In this dissertation, I take up three aspects of this challenge.

First, I analyze the conceptual and practical connections between religion, secularism, and urban planning in liberal democracies to argue that understanding religion in urban planning entails understanding religion’s constitutive other: secularism. This paper questions the assumption of religious indifference as an adopted disciplinary ethos in planning, arguing that this assumption has made it more difficult for planners to confront the ways that the spatial structures of cities are getting reshaped by religious and deep cultural differences. It has also prevented planners

from addressing the consequences of a secular process of power for the organization of social life in urban communities.

Second, I evaluate the conception of “religion” incorporated in past international development initiatives. I analyze developmental efforts led by the United States in the Philippines (1898), Albania (2003), and Iraq (2003) to argue that Protestantism has been viewed as the normative template or the “gold standard” against which other religious practices are measured as free, modern, and civil. This view has dragged North American planners working on international development into the age-old missionary conceit of “good vs bad religion” and drifted their attention away from working with local communities to address developmental challenges.

Third, I recognize that religion and urban planning intersect with each other on firm ground, rather than in thin air. I thus propose a theory – i.e., a “weak theory” – of how urban planners can approach religion as lived and experienced in the dynamic interplay of everyday practices, i.e., as “lived religion,” rather than as mere belief, pathology, or ideology. This approach, I argue, invites planners to employ ethnography and examine the actual lived situations (in courtrooms, planning offices, or public meetings) wherein competing conceptions of “lived religion” surround specific substantive planning issues, e.g., zoning or public health deliberations.

Idélcia Mapure

Thesis Advisor: Gabriella Carolini

Universities, Communities, and Service-Learning for Urban Development: Rethinking the Work of Kaya Clínica in Maputo, Mozambique

Urban areas in low-income countries are confronted with major challenges, including poverty, urban deterioration, unemployment, and informality. With the low capacity of local governments to respond to the increasing demands of a growing urban population, anchor institutions are called upon to leverage their permanent strategic positions to contribute to social and economic development in their areas of influence. Universities are distinctive anchor institutions with a strategic position to use their expertise and resources to drive change in the communities in which they operate, mainly for the underserved. However, academic-local community relationships are historically rooted in extractive practices, with little or no contribution to improving local people’s lives.

This thesis explores alternatives for building strong and mutually beneficial collaborations between universities and their surrounding neighbors that can effectively create long-lasting community welfare

through service-learning. Through service-learning, students gain valuable experience for their careers, faculty learn to improve their curriculum to match emerging needs and advance their scholarship, and communities get the support they need to address issues they lack the expertise or resources to act on independently.

In this thesis, I specifically examine the work of Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) in the Mozambican capital of Maputo and its relationship with the informal communities of the George Dimitrov neighborhood through a service-learning organization called Kaya Clínica.

I find that an effective academic-community partnership in this context requires a new paradigm of trust and respect between the university and the communities being studied in order to promote fairness and equality in deliberation, mutual support featuring co-production, dissemination, and to advance the use of knowledge to address real-life needs. More time and dedicated effort are needed to build strong, lasting connections and collaborations between UEM and local communities. This involves active listening, demands effective participation, entails continuing negotiation, and calls for solid win-win strategies to be defined and co-designed from the start.

Tara Mohtadi

Thesis Advisor: Lawrence Vale

Imagining and Building Aore

Equitable and Democratic Systems: Lessons from Bay Area Organizations

America’s democratic system has been built atop politics of exclusion and oppression. While strides have been made in enfranchisement and inclusion, communities continue to be systematically marginalized, dispossessed and disempowered. Processes illuminate the often invisible purpose and values that underlie systems, but as this research discusses, an overemphasis on process as the problem and solution has limited the potential to create substantive change.

To build a true democracy requires both imagining and building alternative political and economic systems that rest on the premise of equity and collective power. Social movements are at the forefront of transforming oppressive systems, and marginalized communities in particular are often on the frontlines of the struggle for justice. Collective and cooperative organizations have emerged within and alongside movements as explicit infrastructures that both embody and support social change. They form to respond to unjust material conditions in their communities related to land, labor,

wealth and housing, while simultaneously being embedded in sustained movements, coalition building and policy advocacy efforts to address the root cause of these injustices.

Through numerous conversations with organizations located in the San Francisco Bay Area, this research highlights how systems that foster shared power are not only imaginable, but are being built. In sharing learnings from these organizations, this research tells the story of their challenges and visions, their various approaches to enacting change, and how they are linked to broader networks of mobilization. As microcosms of a truer democracy, collectives and cooperatives have implications for reshaping the relationship between people and power, at the individual, organizational, and societal level. Ultimately, this thesis presents these models as a pathway for transitioning from an extractive to a regenerative economy, and from concentrated to collective power.

Jimena Muzio Thesis Advisors: Siqi Zheng, Justin Steil

Understanding Housing Supply under Stringent Energyefficiency Regulations

Massachusetts’s commitment to a 50% emissions reduction by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050 is reflected in the Green Communities Act of 2008, which requires the adoption of the Stretch Energy Code for every municipality that is designated as a Green Community. This appendix to the base building code adds more stringent energy-efficiency requirements, such as including the HERS Index rating system in every new residential construction. Despite their obvious environmental benefits, more stringent energy-efficiency building regulations can also lead to increased construction costs and negatively impact housing production and affordability.

In this study, I investigate the tension in the housing supply resulting from the adoption of the Stretch Energy Code by analyzing municipalities’ staggered designation as Green Communities to identify the causal mechanisms behind quantity and price effects in the residential real estate market. The results indicate that more energy-efficient properties command a positive sales price premium and that the Stretch Code adoption is associated with a decrease in the housing quantity and an increase in the average housing prices.

Yingu Pan Thesis Advisor: Brent D. Ryan

Proposal for New Commuter Rail Service and TOD Master Plan Along Guangzhou Shenzhen Railway

This thesis will focus on the corridor of GuangzhouShenzhen Railway (GSR) as an urban design challenge and explore the possibility of adapting commuter rail service to complement the current high speed rail service. After closer look at the current rail network, evaluating the outstanding challenges and improvement opportunities, the main part of the thesis is to propose a commuter rail service with masterplan around the existing and newly proposed stations. By resume local services along GSR, this new commuter network aims to reconnect smaller towns and subcenters to further enhance economic and development integration of cities in the Greater Bay Area.

Akrisht Pandey Thesis Advisors: Siqi Zheng, Juan Francisco Palacios

Decarbonizing Metropolises: Analyzing New York’s LL97 and Boston’s BERDO Net Zero Policies

Carbon neutrality and net zero have emerged as critical goals in global climate governance, seeking to address human activities annvironmental and social implicasocial Earth. This thesis provides a captivating exploration of urban decarbonization by critically examining New York’s Local Law 97 (LL97) and Boston’s Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) through the lens of system thinking. The study assesses the impact of these pioneering net zero policies on office spaces, residential conversions, and renewable energy integration while highlighting their heterogeneous influence on different segments of the built environment Real Estate Market.

The narrative unfolds by analyzing the challenges faced by pre-1985 office buildings in Manhattan. It employs system thinking to decipher developers’ decision-making prowhen choosing choose between renovation and demolition in pursuit of more sustainable buildings. Using this framework, the study also explores the potential of repurposing aging office

spaces into residential units, considering the complex dynamics at play.

Focusing on Boston’s BERDO, the research investigates the effectiveness of green retrofits on existing residential buildings and spotlights developers’ experiences using system thinking. The analysis portrays BERDO’s influence on older facilities at the neighborhood level, illustrating the unintended consequences of a one-size-fits-all policy approach.

The study examines federal and state-level policies across the United States, investigating their potential to bolster decarbonization efforts in New York and Boston. It unravels the economics of sustainable construction, contemplating ripple effects on housing prices and exploring pioneering practices of developers embracing circular building materials.

This thesis synthesizes the effectiveness of LL97 and BERDO policies in driving urban decarbonization while acknowledging their good intentions and the pressures they exert on big players. However, the research also emphasizes the need for policy refinement to address unintended consequences and better cater to diverse segments of the built environment. By highlighting areas for policy enhancement and future research, the study contributes to understanding net zero policies as catalysts for a greener, more sustainable urban built environment.

Ana María Pérez Carrillo

Thesis Advisor: Garnette Cadogan

Hacer la vida en Ciudad Verde: Bringing Participatory Action Research to Colombia’s Affordable Housing Macro-projects

Housing macro-projects have been central to Colombia’s urbanization tradition over the past century. The past decade has seen a new wave of affordable housing macro-projects built through public and private cooperation that are characterized by their immensity. Located on the outskirts of Bogotá, Ciudad Verde, an affordable housing complex that houses over 53.000 households, exemplifies the complexity of these new macro-projects. Vastness and complexity are fertile ground for an anonymity that can feed loneliness and disconnection. In this urban-suburban immensity, how, then, do the stories, experiences, and voices of residents get heard as they try to contribute to a heated national debate about the future of the housing and urbanization policies that made these macro-projects possible? How do we make room for community-planning and resident self-determination in these spaces?

This thesis suggests a framework to challenge immensity through bottom-up, participatory, and action-focused research processes, as attentive to time as they are to space, that can help us understand this multiplying new urban form, so big in scale it threatens to overwhelm. It tells the story of how we put into place a Participatory Action Research approach to create the Resident Researcher Group of Ciudad Verde with the resident researchers who over four months collected qualitative data around the experiences of habitation, coexistence, community, belonging and governance that take place for residents of Ciudad Verde, as well as their joys, pains, hopes, and fears. Our hope is that these stories and testimonies will inform decision making for the future of Ciudad Verde, future affordable housing macro-projects in Colombia and the overall Housing Policy scheme that made these projects possible in the first place, and that this Resident Researcher group, through the connections and practices of maintenance and kinship that we have built, will continue to exemplify community-based action research and planning over time.

Pratiwi Prameswari

Thesis Advisor: Lawrence Vale

Affordable Housing Provision for Workers Constructing Nusantara, The New Capital City of Indonesia

Indonesia is an important ongoing example of a country relocating its capital city for economic and environmental reasons amid numerous challenges. The new capital city site is located far from existing cities, with limited infrastructure and only a small population. One major challenge entails how and where best to house the large population of construction workers coming to build the city. Learning from global experiences, some new capital cities had thought about providing affordable housing for people but failed to recognize the importance of housing for the construction workers who built the city. As a result, informal settlements have proliferated inside and around the cities, posing challenges for a long time.

This thesis explores the efforts in providing affordable housing for construction workers in Nusantara and the challenges that come with ensuring equal access to housing for all, particularly around the aspects of (1) the adequacy of housing for construction workers; (2) stakeholders involved in the provision; (3) procedures of the housing provision. To address the issue of providing accommodation to construction workers in Nusantara, the government of Indonesia has built housing for construction workers called Hunian Pekerja Konstruksi (HPK). However, there is a possibility of quantitative inadequacy of this housing both in the short and long run. The housing is the responsibility of the Nusantara Capital City Authority and Badan Usaha Milik Otorita (BUMO), with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing assisting them in constructing the housing. It is a good step worth appreciating for the Indonesian government to develop housing for construction workers that can lower the possibility of informal settlement. Nevertheless, it is also important to acknowledge some challenges that need to be addressed despite the effort.

Daniel Caesar Pratama Thesis Advisors: Andres Sevtsuk, Fabio Duarte

Balancing Accessibility & Affordability in Indonesian Transit-Oriented Development Projects, Case Study:

TOD Tanah Abang, Indonesia

The Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) concept has been hailed for successfully increasing public transit ridership and improving residents’ accessibility. Its approach involves capturing the increase in property values by redeveloping areas surrounding transit stations to fund public transit investment. However, when proposed TOD neighborhoods are already densely populated and home to low-income residents, development-based value capture mechanisms can worsen the housing affordability crisis and increase the risk of gentrification and displacement for existing residents.

This thesis examines the ‘Tanah Abang TOD Urban Design Guideline (UDGL),’ a newly proposed TOD area in Jakarta proposed by PT MITJ, a joint venture company of Jakarta’s Commuter Line and Jakarta’s Mass Rapid Transit companies. PT MITJ is appointed as a TOD operator responsible for regulating land-use changes and leading the development process. Tanah Abang TOD UDGL then presents an example of how an urban design proposal is used as a mechanism of urban regeneration. By evaluating the proposal’s impact on accessibility and affordability compared to the existing state, this thesis aims to provide a framework for anticipatory planning measures that balance potential gains and losses for communities in Indonesian TOD projects.

Romy Saint Hilaire Thesis Advisor: Delia Wendel

BLACK ART PLANNING: an exhibition manifesto

Black Art Planning: an exhibition manifesto, honors the many modes and forms of knowledge that inform Black artists acting as informal planners, designers and urbanists working to harmonize spatial urban realities for marginalized communities. This is a focused introspection of Black liminal realities and how art is used as a tool to challenge, redress and inform the healing of vulnerable communities in the United States. This thesis is in the form of an exhibit showcasing a series of manifesto posters highlighting the key elements of a Black Art Planning framework. Accompanied by a short film capturing the essence of what has informed this thinking through travel and research in Saint Martin and South Africa.

This thesis intends to combine an academic and practice-informed approach to synthesize the phenomena of Black artists and creative collectives cultivating planning solutions through an arts practice in cities across the US and abroad. In highlighting an approach that is intersectional in both the planning field and the art sector, Black Art Planning is positioned in conjunction with curatorial critique, black critical thought, and city planning pedagogies that inform possibilities for thriving communities through the arts. Essentially exploring who has the right to Art in the city?

Arianna Salazar-Miranda

Dissertation Advisors: Albert Saiz, Eran BenJoseph, Carlo Ratti, Emily Talen

Building Sustainable and Inclusive Cities: Analyzing the Impact of Planning Paradigms in the US

The three papers in this dissertation study how different urban planning paradigms—normative ideas used by planners to shape the built environment—can support more sustainable development patterns. To investigate this topic, I analyze large-scale, high-resolution data using various analytical methods.

The first paper examines the sustainability implications of the 15-minute city model, which emphasizes local living. Using large-scale GPS data from US cities, the study examines the relationship between trip length, access to nearby amenities, and segregation. The results suggest that less restrictive zoning rules, such as allowing more mixed-use development, could make it easier for people to access nearby amenities without traveling long distances. However, such policies also run the risk of increasing the social isolation of the poor.

In the second paper, I investigate the consequences of developing suburban neighborhoods using the garden city model, a historical paradigm emphasizing urban form as a key driver of neighborhood well-functioning. I develop and validate a methodology to measure the key attributes of the garden city model at scale and over time by inferring it from neighborhood layouts. Combining neighborhood design measurements with data on individual mobility and emissions, I demonstrate that residents of neighborhoods designed using the garden city model are more sedentary, more socially isolated, and produce more greenhouse gas emissions due to longer commutes induced by the street network.

Finally, the third paper tests the idea that neighborhood form persists over time in the context of the United States Housing Corporation, the first housing initiative funded by the federal government in 1918. Comparing neighborhoods that were planned but canceled with others that were planned and constructed, the study shows that street shape and block configuration persist via path dependence, while other urban design features like the composition of blocks do not. Overall, these papers highlight the critical link between physical form and sustainability in urban planning.

Amelia Seabold

Thesis Advisor: Gabriella Carolini

Learning by Doing: Transitioning Healthcare Technology

Innovations from MIT Labs to Resource-Scarce Communities

The affordability and accessibility of healthcare innovations is critical for the well-being of resource-scarce communities around the world. Yet little research centers on precisely how and when financial, material, and logistical resource constraints enter the design cycle producing such innovations. MIT labs across engineering and science departments, where novel research on healthcare technologies is strong, offer an ideal environment from which to explore how technological innovations from an academic lab translate into the real world and whether the resource constraints of low-income communities are used as a design input.

This study is especially pertinent to my own work in healthcare technology innovation: I am designing and building a low-cost sickle cell disease diagnostic to be used in sub-Saharan Africa where sickle cell disease prevalence is high but there is a lack of diagnoses due in part to the cost of testing. As a student currently designing a product for explicit use in resource-scarce areas, I aimed to learn how MIT faculty, research scientists, and students have designed and implemented

their products to be valuable to communities in need. My diagnostic project thus acts as the client project for this thesis. By interviewing women across Africa and Asia about women’s and children’s health in slums, settings of deep and growing income and resource scarcity and inequality, I gained an understanding of the need for accessible and affordable healthcare in areas where my diagnostic would be implemented. Through qualitative interviews with MIT scholars, the thesis explores how and when scarcity on the ground influences work, but also highlights the importance of incorporating the ability to manufacture and distribute new technologies, to consider systemic constraints, and to understand the needs of potential partners and stakeholders in the design of an innovation. Informed by participatory principles and a prioritization of situated knowledge in urban planning, this thesis shows how research and practice can be combined reflexively in the fields of global health and engineering to create a practical and implementable product in an academic lab with impact for some of the most marginalized communities in need of healthcare improvements.

Flavio Vila Skrzypek Thesis Advisor: Gabriella Carolini

The Story of Rubina: Lessons on Self-governance in Peruvian Informal Settlements and Considerations for Community Land Trusts

Since the 1990s, the Peruvian government has introduced two policies to address informal settlements’ property and housing challenges: the formalization titling policy and the certificate of possession policy. Both have caused adverse side effects such as land speculation and land trafficking, respectively.

This thesis studies the failure of these past policies and proposes that a new property regime - Community Land Trusts (CLTs) - might be the optimal way to address these property and housing challenges. First, I study why previous property policies failed to intervene in urban informality. Second, I conduct interviews to gather evidence on the self-governance of an informal settlement in Lima and compare it with the core components of different global CLT theories and models. Finally, I intersect both sections to learn about the potential and challenges of establishing a CLT such informal settlement. The implications of this thesis are a set of recommendations and additional research that the Peruvian government should consider when regulating CLTs in Peru.

Mikaela Strech

Thesis Advisors: Brent D. Ryan, Eran BenJoseph, Alan Berger

Design for More Equitable Neighborhood Adaptation: Climate Resiliency and Public Space Planning in U.S. Border Colonias

The relationship between environmental harms and the political and economic marginalization of communities cannot be easily disentangled in today’s world. Consequently, this thesis reexamines the relationships between planners, designers, and communities in response to envionmental challenges that marginalized communities face. I advocate for beginning with incremental advancements in adaptation in design using community organization and a site and services approach as a way of contending with resource constraints and urgent issues. Acknowledging that this design work simultaneously enhances social resiliency, I argue that the timeliness of this approach promotes resilience.

The research analyzes design and planning strategies for neighborhood-scale environmental design, drawing from case studies in Puerto Rico, Detroit, Nairobi, and Texas. These insights inform conceptual design frameworks in three neighborhoods to test what an incremental, nature-based approach to environmental hazards might accomplish, and how. This thesis has a specific focus on US border colonias in Texas, where flooding and disparities in adaptation and recovery resources are especially relevant. Considering the projected growth of fringe neighborhoods across the United States, this study contributes to the dialogue on equitable resilience.

Emma Pauline Swarney

Thesis Advisors: Anson Stewart, Awad Abdelhalim

Measuring Place-Based Transit Service Equity in Chicago

How to equitably distribute public transit service is a highly topical subject facing transit agencies operating in North America. Recent social movements have reignited the debate around Civil Rights on public transit and resulted in increased scrutiny of transit planning practices. While many agencies are striving to incorporate more progressive equity analyses, these equity assessment methods have several shortcomings. For example, they have not addressed important questions such as how service levels can be meaningfully compared between city areas differing in geospatial characteristics (e.g. residential neighborhoods versus Central Business Districts), and what a sufficient level of transit service should be for an area to be considered equitably served.

The goal of this thesis is to develop a new method for assessing place-based equity on a city-wide level, using Chicago and its transit system, the Chicago Transit Authority, as a case study. This method addresses several gaps in literature and practice, using historical passenger trips closely reflective of true system conditions, to measure the state of transit service. This thesis develops a method for determining what an equitable level of transit service should be while accounting for where an area is situated within the greater city geography.

This method is applied to two datasets from different time periods, September 2019 and October 2022. The two time periods are compared to understand if and how service quality has changed. Two types of analyses are performed on the data, one illustrating the service quality of all trips originating in an area, and the other to specific destinations, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the transit system. A quantitative equity score for each area in Chicago is presented, demonstrating a full execution of the method. The method is also applied to a project under proposal, the Red Line Extension, quantifying the projected equity benefits, and demonstrating how the method can be applied in different contexts.

Keili Tucker

Thesis Advisor: Eran Ben-Joseph

Making Way: A Series of Case Studies on Suburban Active Transportation Plan Production and Institutionalization

TSuburban form produces car dependency with its circuitous routes, segregated land uses, and sprawling development. Active Transportation (AT), defined as non-motorized travel modes such as walking and cycling, has the potential to provide suburban residents with alternative mobility options. In 2021, Spring Hill, Tennessee, a city with suburban form and no dense urban core, adopted a “Bicycle and Greenway Plan” to develop an AT network.

This thesis seeks to understand how AT network plans are institutionalized, maintained, and expanded through policy and other implementation tools. The methodology includes four case studies: Spring Hill, Tennessee; Jefferson County, Alabama; Apex, North Carolina; and Mississippi Mills, Ontario, Canada. In each case, I analyze the goals/objectives, methodology, design, and implementation techniques of a local AT network plan. The analyses resulted in an understanding that greenway placement is usually opportunistic (i.e., a rail corridor or large park already exists), but once recreational facilities are placed, their presence may encourage new connections. Additionally, infrastructure, policy-making, and social programs must go hand in hand for a successful network. The findings of my initial investigation provide a basis for future research on suburban active transportation networks, particularly in identifying how newly developed plans can prioritize facilities separate from cars such as greenways.

Elaine Wang

Thesis Advisors: Andres Sevtsuk, Brent D. Ryan

Hong Kong Time: Rethinking Sustainable Mobility and the 15-Minute City in the Context of Equity

Cities around the world are going car-free. With concepts like the 15-minute city, planners and policymakers are investing in more sustainable transit modes: walking, biking, and public transit. Though this shift is critical to reducing emissions, it raises important equity issues that need to be explored. How does the move toward sustainable mobility impact equity? How might it address existing inequality or create new sources of inequality? And how can we ensure an equitable shift to sustainable mobility?

This thesis explores these questions, using Hong Kong as a case study. By using spatial analysis, it introduces a Sustainable Mobility Score that quantifies access to urban amenities via sustainable transport modes, like walking and public transit. It then analyzes the relationship between this scoring system and neighborhood income levels. The results show that walkability is linked to spatial segregation, but public transit serves as an equalizer across different neighborhoods. Finally, this thesis discusses the implications of these findings to inform an equitable shift to sustainable mobility.

Darien Alexander Williams

Dissertation Advisor: Erica Caple James

Locating a Black Planning Tradition and Spatializing Black Nationalism

This dissertation explores the Black planning tradition and how Muslims, particularly those in Black nationalist organizations, utilize newspapers and land to critique urban planning practice and offer alternative models of planned organization and development.

The first essay discusses the Nation of Islam’s use of the press as an instrument to develop critiques of Black life in the United States and present viable alternatives. Political artists in the Nation of Islam were key in the organization’s reach, supporting the Nation of Islam in building a national network of distribution sites and a committed membership, which helped the organization to grow and claim membership of over 200,000. By focusing on the Nation’s midcentury publication Muhammad Speaks and its use of political cartoons, this article explores art as a means to reorient Black geographic thought and political action. Overall, this essay suggests that the Muslim-organized Black press of the 1960s and 1970s played an important role as a counterpublic institution, providing space for Black communities to share experiences and connect their local political struggles to global anticolonial liberation movements.

The second essay explores the Nation of Islam’s model of counterpublic economic development in the pre-Civil Rights Act United States, and the geographies produced by such efforts. Using a novel approach of analyzing advertisements in Muhammad Speaks newspaper and mapping these businesses across the United States, I contextualize the Nation’s theologically oriented economic development mission by spatializing the organization beyond the mosque. The paper argues that the work of the Nation of Islam can be considered a kind of religious governance that hovers between religious congregation and sovereign state.

The third essay interrogates the history of a single parcel of land, 35-37 Intervale Street in Roxbury, Boston Massachusetts, through archived letters, photos, financial records, maps, planning documents, ephemera, and secondary texts. The essay traces the use history of the building from English Christians to Polish Jews to African American Muslims and focuses on its role as a hub of Jewish and Muslim communal life. It also contextualizes the endeavors of Jewish Zionist fundraising and Muslim nationalist fundraising, positioning religious nationalist movements as central to the wider story of Boston urban planning history. The article provides insights into the complex and layered histories of urban development and religious organizing in Boston to understand the diversity of actors involved in simultaneously shaping the local built environment and global religious nationalist movements toward self-determination.

Rose Winer-Chan

Thesis Advisors: John Fernandez, Lawrence Susskind

Nature-Based Coastal Adaptation: A Comparative Assessment to Inform Effective Implementation

As coastal adaptation planning becomes the new normal, governments have increasingly shifted a significant portion of new infrastructure from hardened “gray” structures toward natural and “nature-based” solutions (NbS): restored or constructed ecosystems that, by enhancing or mimicking natural processes, mitigate coastal hazards while offering socioeconomic, environmental, and public health benefits. However, the use of NbS remains limited due to uncertainty over cost and performance, a fragmented regulatory landscape, inconsistent planning tools, and the context dependence of NbS design.

This thesis aims to explore these diverse uncertainties in detail by shedding light on the key factors and processes that may pose critical barriers or drive success during the implementation of nature-based coastal adaptation (NBCA) projects. This study employs stakeholder interviews to explore and compare four NBCA case studies from design through implementation: Hunter’s Point South Park and West Pond in Queens, New York; Rose Larisa Park in East Providence, Rhode Island; and the Sand Motor in South Holland, the Netherlands. By identifying the common challenges, success drivers, and success metrics shared across these projects, this thesis hopes to provide useful early insights that help NBCA decision-makers thoughtfully define and measure success, anticipate key challenges, and take steps to overcome those challenges and achieve more successful implementation.

Lily Xie

Thesis Advisor: Karilyn Crockett

Art, Repair, and Spatial Justice in Boston’s Chinatown and Seattle’s International District

There is a growing overlap between the fields of urban planning, art, and social justice. Projects within the realms of urban planning and socially engaged art seek to bring about changes that redistribute socially valued resources and opportunities, especially among racial and spatial lines.

This thesis analyzes how socially engaged public art accomplishes these goals of spatial justice in Boston and Seattle’s historic Chinatowns. Building off of planning scholars Rashad Akeem William and Leonie Sandercock’s work framing the role of affect and emotions in healing planning conflicts, I will analyze how these projects support their community’s efforts to repair past spatial harms, and what distinguishes their function from other forms of political and social activism. Using a case study approach, I present a series of research findings from interviews with individuals who facilitated, created, and/or participated in public art projects in Seattle’s International District and Boston’s Chinatown.

Through my research, I illustrate the unique capacity of public art to influence the important emotional and relational aspects of transformation, and the opportunity that public art presents for residents to directly shape the built environment. Public art, as a uniquely place-specific art form, offers an opportunity for communities pursuing spatial justice to shift the affective aspects of transformation and engage in the radial reimagination of how power is distributed in space. Art is an important and often underutilized strategy in the spatial justice toolkit, and this thesis presents opportunities for artists, community organizers, and planners to think creatively about how art can support their efforts to disrupt racial planning, dismantle White supremacy, and support the continued flourishing of urban communities.