Urban Studies
Honors Theses: 1974-Present
Breadcrumb
Honors Theses: 1974-Present
Theses are available for the research use of all Urban Studies students. However, theses may not be taken from the building under any circumstances.
“Movin’ On Up: A Case for Fare-Free Public Transit as a Vehicle for Upward Mobility and Poverty Alleviation Across Rhode Island” by Josephine Alston
“‘In(nova)tion Lives Here’: Examining Tech Urbanism through Amazon’s HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia” by Klara Davidson-Schmich
“‘Even when there is no reception, there is a Dollar General’: Dollar General’s Impact on Food Access and Community Morale in Rural, Suburban and Urban Iowa Communities” by Eliana Hornbuckle
“BIDness as Usual: Yellowjackets and the Providence Downtown Improvement District” by Tanya Qu
“‘Freight Trains of Mute Boxes’: The 5-over-1 as a Product of America’s Regulatory, Suburban, and Economic Context” by Zoe-Anna Rudolph-Larrea
“Living in the Warming City: An Ethnographic Study of Climate Change Advocates in Providence” by Gabe Sender
“Gay Rhode Island: Space, Place, and Community, 1960-1980” by Joseph Saperstein
“The Last Lilongs of Shanghai: An Ethnographic Study of Urban Displacement under Chaiqian Policies” by Xinyu Yan
“See You on the Green: Landscape and Spatial Construction at Brown University” by Devan Paul
“Redefining the Narrative: Examining Dhaka Informal Settlements as Sites of Climate and Urban Resistance” by Ayan Rahman
“Banking on Progress: Financial Literacy Education as a Tool for Social Change Among Black Urban Youth” by Keiley Thompson
“The Quaint Neighborhood: Exploring the Relationship Between Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing in Providence Through the Residential Historic District” by Brian Thompson
“Heritage Restoration in the ‘Walled City’ of Lahore: Changing Landscapes of Ownership, Livelihood, and Community” by Maryam Ghazala Mallick
“What is normal about normalisasi? Riverside infrastructurization practices in Jakarta, Indonesia” by Matthew Lioe
“The 15-Minute City Controversy: Conspiracy and Debate over New Urbanism Online and in Oxford, England” by Grace Austin
“Public Spaces in Private Hands: Examining the Paradoxes of Privately Owned Public Spaces in New York City” by Hadley Benjamin
"Localizing a Global Network: Urban Internet Infrastructure" by Christopher Sarli
"Rivers and Highways as Urban Corridors: Reimagining their Form, Flow, and Function towards the Practice of Spatial Justice in Urban Design" by Hanna Wells
"Los Angeles and Shared Scooters: A Regulatory and Infrastructural Experiment" by Jeremy Berman
"The "Just City" in Crisis: How Connecticut's Child Welfare Agency Adapted to COVID-19" by Alicia Mies
"Staying True: An Ethnographic Study of the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project" by Hilary Ho
"Developing a “Neighborhood” at Hudson Yards: A Case Study of Manhattan’s Evolving Far West Side" by Emily Winston
"The River of Dreams: The Promise of Potential Along the Detroit Riverfront from 1970 to the Present" by Adrienne Wolff
"Where Movement Meets Practice: Defining the Edges of the Housing Cooperative in the Capitalist Market"
by Nora Gosselin
"The Art of Public Space: Defining Public(s) and Creative Intervention at Cathedral Square and the Addison Gallery"
by Ryan Miller
"City of Champions: An Analysis of Urban Development and Gentrification in Inglewood, CA"
by Garrett Robinson
"When the Levees Broke and the Prison Stood: The Urban History Behind Criminal Justice Reform in Post-Katrina New Orleans"
by Rachel Rood-Ojalvo
"The Dispossessed Metropolis: Towards a Typology of Suburban Poverty, 2000–Present"
by Gray Brakke
“Black Snake/Water Protectors: Extending the right to the city at Standing Rock-#NoDAPL”
by Lance Gloss
"Safeguarding Public Participation in the Urban Planning Process: An Empirical Critique of the Collaborative Planning Model"
by Nadia Larasati
"Monumental Issues: The History and Future of the Confederate Flag and Stone Mountain"
by Abigail Tisc
“Rails to Riches: An Historical Analysis of How Growth Machine Politics Introduced Light Rail to the City of Charlotte”
by Edward Mansius
“Urban Eyes: Examining the Development and State of Contemporary Video Surveillance in London”
by Madeleine Matsui
“Reworking the Waterfront: Engaging Development, Preservation and Resilience at New York City's South Street Seaport”
by Ashley So
“History of Displacement and Future of Inclusion: A Story of Affordable Housing in Portland, Oregon”
by Estelle Berger
“Invisible Gates: fear, gentrification and exclusion in Johannesburg, South Africa”
by Ayanda Collins
“Watts Towers and the 1965 Los Angeles Riots: A Moment of Crisis Exposes Community Agency and the Power of Public Art”
by Jenna Davis
“Making Cents of Change: Economic Development on Providence's I-195 Land”
by Ruth Gourevitch
“A New Olympic Urbanism: Rio and Beyond”
by Anna Johnson
“Blurring the National-Local Divide: The Jerusalem Light Rail as a Platform of Transformative Political Interventions at the Local Level”
by Joanna Kramer
“To be ‘Born-Free’ and Black in Langa: Young Women’s Minibus Travel in the New South African Political Economy”
by Margaret Livingstone
“Violently Countering Other Spaces: MOVE and the Branch Davidians”
by Marta Nicita
“Symbols of Inclusion: Combating Violence with Metrocables in Medellín, Colombia”
by Isaac MacDonald
“The Cantankerous River: A Cultural History of the Chicago River in the Nineteenth Century”
by Thomas Schubert
“Inhabiting Precarious Spaces: Spatial Entanglement and Transhuman Ethics”
by Erin Schwartz
“Detroit Gay City: Motown’s LGBT Development Agenda and the Making of a 21st Century Gayborhood” by Benjamin S. Gellman
“The Real Victims of Gang Violence: Local Impacts of Violence on Urban Development in Guatemala City, San Salvador, and Ciudad Juárez”
by Samuel Askin
“Citizen Warriors: Community Action and Maximum Feasible Participation in Detroit's War on Poverty, 1964-1969” by Katherine Blessing
"Measuring Business Improvement Districts: An Empirical Analysis of the Southern New England BIDs as Mechanisms to Facilitate Urban Revitalization and Economic Development" by Samuel Cohen
"Bend-But-Don't Break: An Ethnographic Investigation of the Improbable Existence of Providence's Gay Bathhouses" by Dawson Dohlen
“That’s the Way the School Building Crumbles: How Collaborative Local Governance Can Improve School Quality” by V. Pearse Haley
“Changing the Course of L.A.: Lessons from the Revitalization of the Los Angeles River” by Kate Holguin
“Aerotropolis, New South Wales” by Cody Shulman
“Virtual Cities, Real Significance: Dissecting the Value System of the SimCity Games” by Manu Venkat
"Epidemic of Consumption: Contextualizing Obesity Prevention Efforts in New York City" by Rachel Reeves
"Keeping It Real: Searching for Significance, Authenticity, and Integrity in Three Providence Place Conflicts" by Gene Goldstein-Plesser
"The Vertigo Effect: Alfred Hitchcock’s American Films and Spatial Anxiety" by Margaret Lange
"The Showpiece of Our Nation: The Failure of Architectural Symbolism in the Postwar Urban Renewal of Southwest Washington, D.C." by Daniel Lurie
"Assessing Efforts Toward Socioeconomic Integration in Boston Public Schools" by Allison Pincus
"Before the Big Dig: Boston’s 1948 Master Highway Plan and Its Fortunate Failure" by Sam Speroni
"Black Diamonds: Ecology and Industrial Heritage in Pennsylvania's Anthracite Region" by Greg Anderson
"A Form-Based Zoning Code for Providence" by Sarah Baker
"Are We Us? Or Is It Us and Them? Defining and Pursuing Middle Class Interests in Economically Heterogeneous Black Suburbs" by Kaileigh Callender
"Getting Black Boys to College: Strategies for Providence Public Schools" by Amie Darboe
"The Illusion of Wealth: Relationship between Subprime Lending and Foreclosures in Providence Latino Neighborhoods" by Jose Loya
"Rhode Island in the Red: Deindustrialization in Southern New England, 1920-2010" by Scott Middleton
"Bagh-e-Babur: Transforming Kabul's Tragedy" by Samira Thomas
“Can Gentrification Help the Poor? Lessons from South Boston and the South End” by Philip Burns
“Preservation-As-Growth: Historic Preservation and the Politics of Downtown Renewal in Providence, Rhode Island” by Alexander Werth
“How Not to Build an Airplane: Orchestration as an emerging organizational type” by Etan Green
“Hostile Consumption: The Appropriation of Marginal Art in Rio de Janeiro” by Cali Pfaff
“Mass Transit in Rhode Island” by Paolo Ikezoe
“Redefining the Edge: The Evolution of the American Edge City, 1991-2006” by Carrie Nielson
“The Brownfield Daily Herald: Partnering the Developer, the Public Sector and the Community in Urban Revitalization” by Melissa Epstein
“Reconnecting Providence” by Caroline Jordi
“Assessing Access to Teddy Ebersol’s Red Sox Fields: An Equity Mapping Analysis Using Geographic Information Systems” by Kelly Gagnon
“Building Alone: Faith-based Community Development Corporations, Civic Cooporation, and the Urban Regime in Atlanta” by Rachel Lauter
“The Skateboarder’s City” by Rebecca Sauer
“Latinos in the U.S. Northeast and Their Path to Political Office” by Olga Abinader
“Bilingual Education and Public Policy in Providence: The Case Study of Lima Elementary School” by Hannah Bascom
“Resource-Based Power and Participation in Urban Renewal Planning: Downtown Boston and the South End, 1960-1969” by Gabriella Chiarenza
“Member Organizers: Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) and Representative Organizing” by Jessica Lin
“The Promises and Realities of Hosting the Olympic Games” by Louis Lipner
“Leadership and Linkage: The Political Transformation of New York City’s Chinatown Post-September 11th” by Talya Oberfield
“Responses to Past Disasters in Providence, RI: Implications for Bio-Terrorism Planning” by Kerry Meath
“Remaking Urban Renewal: Immigrants in South Providence, RI and Sunset Park, NY” by Aaron Stelson
“The Survival is Illegal: The Regulation of Public Space and the Implications for the Homeless” by Rachel Cotton
“Unfit for Human Habitation? A Study of the Vehicular Homeless” by Laura Baum
“When the City Limits: The Crisis of Race, Class, and Suburbanization in Southern Cook County, Illinois” by Ethan Horowitz
“New Ideas/Old Buildings: Arts-Based Adaptive Re-Use of Industrial Sites” by Joshua Jackson
“The Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program: A Case Study of Rhode Island (1987-2004)” by Yana Kucheva
“Greening Public Housing: A Case Study of the Rebuild American Initiative in Boston” by Robin Ried
“Who Should Lead Our Public Schools? A Case Study of Superintendent Diana Lam’s Tenure in Providence, Rhode Island” by Jessica Jones
“Whose Streets? Business Improvement Districts, the Private Management of Public Space, & The Effect on the Homeless” by Benjamin Donsky
“The Architectural Program of Brown University, 1946-1958: The Work of Thomas Mott Shaw” by Jacqui Hogans
“Chasing a Shadow – Singapore: Trapped in Racial Management” by Yannlih Lim
“The Globalization of U.S. and Law Firms” by Wylie Hight
“The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways and the National Register of Historic Places: A Match Made in Heaven” by Lydia Hill
“The Emergence of an Issue: The Rise of After-School Programs onto Boston’s Political Agenda” by Daniel Retuccia
“The Urbanization of Suburbia” by Pauline Lauterbach
“To Build or Not to Build: A century of Debate Over Baseball Stadiums as Urban Solutions” by Sara Slovin
“People vs Power: City and Corporation Relations in Nineteenth Century Lowell, Massachusetts” by Claiborne Walthall
“The Politics of Urban Schoold Reform: The Failure of Reconstitution in Philadelphia’s Public Schools” by Gabriel Kuriloff
“From ‘Street Urchins’ to ‘Superpredators’: Propaganda, Policy, and the Incarceration of Children in Urban American” by Sasha Polakow-Suransky
"The Effectiveness of Section 8 Housing Allowances on Moving the Poor to Opportunity" by Lauren Guilmartin
"The Peopleless Piazza – Boston City Hall Plaza: A Case Study of Urban Open Space" by Kate Larsen
“Reinventing the Neon Jungle: Ramifications of the Las Vegas Strip’s Mega-Resort Developments on Class Hierarchy” by Simran Sethi
"The Unassailable Coliseum: The Prolonged Redevelopment of the New York Coliseum Site" by Jonathan Frank
"A Clean Los Angeles: A Hypertext Thesis" by Laura Lee
"Spreading the Gospel of New Urbanism: How to Achieve a New Planning Paradigm" Sara Klipfel
"We Are Not Pariahs: Housing and Neighborhood Improvement in the Villas Miseria of Buenos Aires, Argentina" by Christian Denes
"The Massachusetts Homestead Commission: Twelve Homes, Thirty-Four Planning Boards and a Legacy" by Jill Desimini
"Creating Mixed-Income Community at Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes Housing Project" by Amy Glassman
"New Hope for the Roger Williams Housing Project: The Federal HOPE VI Program and the Providence Housing Authority's Planning for the Comprehensive Redevelopment of a Lower South Providence Neighborhood" by Pria Hidisyan
"Olympic Glory: The Revitalization of Atlanta's Techwood Community" by Adhi Nagraj
"From Vacant to Valuable: Moving Providence's Vacant Lots into Productive Use" by Anna Thomas
"Immigrant Home-Ownership in the United States: Recent Trends and Their Significance" by Sophia Coquillette
"The Role of the Public/Private Partnership in Downtown Development: A Case Study of Downtown Chicago" by Owen Dehoff
"The Development of Social Capital in Public Housing: A Study of the Relationship Between the Residents of Scattered-Site Public Housing and Their Neighbors" by Elizabeth Dever
"Changing the Capital Flow in Low Income Neighborhoods: An Evaluation of Microloan Programs in South Providence" by Deborah Goldstein
"The Rise of a Symbolic Economy in Prague: Meditations On A Post-Communist Landscape" by Tal Halpern
"Pushing the Model: Direct Action for Rights And Equality and Organizing in a Multi-racial Community" by Gregory Nammacher
"Urban Community Responses to the AIDS Epidemic: The Development of Non-Profit Aids Service Organizations in Providence, Rhode Island" by Christopher Cirillo
"The Decaying Mansion: Race, Class and Resistance in the Production of Space" by Maisie Weissman
"Home of the Oppressed Peoples of the World: The Implications of the Immigration & Nationality Act of 1952" by Theresa Romens
"Gentrification & Downtown Development in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor: A Critical Study and Data Analysis of the Development of the Inner Harbor and the Surrounding Area in the Years 1950-1980 and Beyond" by Wendy Kahn
"Minority Groups and Political Participation: Damaged Highways in San Francisco and Oakland, California" by Janice Murabayashi
"Urban Fiscal Crises: The Cases of Providence and Philadelphia" by Barak Richman
"Chicago’s Business Elite: Involvement in City Affairs in a Fragmenting City" by Alison Ranney
Missing from File
by Timothy Lindman
"The Providence Aquarium: Market Analysis and Economic Feasibility Study" by Alice Chen, John DiCola, and Robert Savage
"Confronting the Crisis: Building Affordable Housing in the Nineties" - A Case Study and a Proposal by Susan Friedland
"Housing the Mentally Disabled in Elderly Public Housing: An Unplanned Housing Alternative Encountering Many Difficulties" by Joshua Kirschenbaum
"The Columbus Circle Redevelopment Project: In Everyoneâs Backyard" by Amy Nye
"Gentrification: Cultural Clash and Conflict of Identity in Fox Point and City Hall" by Carma Reed
"A Community Takes Root: Social Life in the Desert of the Nursing Home" by Seth Lieberman
"Sunlight Access to Urban Open Spaces" by Jane O'Leary
"The Residential Reuse of CBD Buildings: Considerations for Providence, Rhode Island" by Eric Dobson
"Regional Malls and CBD's: The Impacts" by Nancy Federspiel
"Transportation Development, Urban Growth and Political Change in Yugoslavia 1850-1987" by Catherine Fiedler
"Design Review: A Study for the City of Providence" by Susan Levestein
"Managing Public Housing for Profit: In Whose Best Interest?" by Martha Nicholson
"Festivals of Value" Toward a Modern Theory of Urban Celebration" by Edward Sweet
"The Changing Fox Point Neighborhood" by Ilene Gelch
"Adaptive Reuse: A Study of the Feasibility and Benefits of Adapting Old Buildings to New Uses" by James Ives
"Mixed Use Development and Urban Revitalization in Three New England Cities" by Michael Ryan
"Urban Gardening in Inner-City Black Neighborhoods: A Case Study of the Urban Garden Project in South Providence" by Keith Spears
"Evolution and Revolution in the Elmwood Neighborhood Housing Services: A Case Study of Organizational Development in a Small Non-profit Organization" by Robin Auchincloss
"Historicist City: Tradition and Typology in the City" by Christopher Calott
"Purchasing of Developmental Rights as a Means of Preserving Rhode Island Agricultural Lands" by Renée McKinney
“Housing Discrimination in the Private Sector of Providence, Rhode Island" by Troy Wilson
"The Squattersâ Movement in Great Britain" by Robert Berkman
"Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making" by Jan Reitsma
"Housing, Neighborhood, and Community in Barcelona, Spain" by Donna Shapiro
"Reinvestment Displacement: Its Effects on Low Income Housing; A Case Study of the South End, Boston" by Charlotte Hartwell
"Fifteen Years of Urban Riots: A Comparison of Watts, Los Angeles, 1965 to Liberty City, Miami, 1980" by Rebecca Lipkin
"The Providence Arcade: Architecture in a Changing Urban Environment" by Susan Newman
"The Smith Hill Neighborhood: An Integrated Approach" by Thomas Carr
"Tenant Participation: Social Housing in Denmark" by Cathy Miller
"An Economic Analysis of Current Housing Rehabilitation Financing Techniques" by Anthony Miller
"Disaster Planning: The Blizzard of '78 and the City of Providence, Rhode Island" by Nancy Wolpert
"The Deterioration of a Northeastern City: Lynn, Massachusetts in the 20th Century" by Jeffrey Bernstein
"Use Variances as an Indicator of Land Use Change: A Study of Zoning in Providence" by Richard Clarendon
"Complexity and Value Systems in the Urban Environment" by Duncan Fuller
"Parking and the Kennedy Plaza Plan: A Parking Survey and Examination of the Effect of the Kennedy Plaza Plan on Plaza Parking" by Jeffrey Freudberg and David Hochstim
"The Kennedy Plaza Plan: Kennedy Plaza as an Auto Restricted Zone and Retail Catalyst" by Norman Sieman
"Land Management: Approaches to Regional Problems" by David Strouss
"Community Organizations: Hope for the Poor and Powerless" by Stephana Colbert
"Fox Point: A Case Study in Neighborhood Rehabilitation" by Kevin Fisher
"The Politics of Consensus: The Formation of a Regional Transit Authority" by Cory Zucker
"Some Aspects of Metropolitan Growth and Planning" by Yuri Kalina