PHD, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

Studies of city and suburban relationships have yielded mixed conclusions regarding their interdependence. What makes a city function cannot be fully understood without exploring this interaction spatially. How a central city affects its surrounding suburbs is the purpose of this paper. Using quantitative methods, this study proposes a way of modeling trajectories in cities and suburbs across the United States by using change in population, change in median house values, and change in median income as determinants of a suburb's trajectory (success or failure-decline). These three determinants will be based on the trajectory of the central city, proximity to the central city, any present niches (or specializations), and area attributes. The study then uses case studies to delve deeper into twelve specific areas for further ground investigation in hopes of filling gaps that planners may have missed regarding making their suburb thrive.

Committee: David Kaplan PHD (Advisor); Scott Sheridan PHD (Committee Member); Clare Stacey PHD (Committee Member); Steven Rugare (Committee Member); He Yin PHD (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2004, Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning: Architecture (Master of)

Over the course of our country's history, people have gradually been moving farther and farther away from the city's center. Not only residents, but also retail establishments and places of employment are abandoning the city and choosing to locate on the outer fringe of metropolitan areas. As this trend continues, the lack of people and commercial investment is causing our cities to decay. For the sake of our cities, there is now a greater need than ever to explore ways to reverse this outward pull toward the metropolitan fringe. By exploring the history behind outward migration, current examples of downtown revitalization, and forces that act as a means to attract people back to the central city, this thesis will propose a solution to the blight facing many of our nation's downtowns. Specifically, these findings will culminate in a design project located in a largely abandoned district in downtown Toledo, Ohio.

Committee: Barry Stedman (Advisor) Subjects: Architecture

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2024, Geography

This research conducts an analysis of urban change in Toledo, Ohio. While not explicitly stated in planning, “rightsizing” strategies that are emerging in legacy cities across America's Rust Belt as a response to decline are being implemented in Toledo. Targeted investments, particularly in the form of downtown revitalization, and targeted demolition alike are rightsizing strategies being implemented in Toledo. These strategies are being carried out through various forms of intergovernmental collaboration and public-private partnerships. They are being justified in the name of urban beautification, neighborhood revitalization, productivity, and public safety.

Committee: Yeong Kim (Advisor) Subjects: Geography; Political Science; Urban Planning

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2022, Sociology

This dissertation examines how historical and neighborhood dynamics work their way into the lives of individuals who have aged in place within communities experiencing urban decline since the 1970s. It identifies the various strategies that residents use(d) to maintain a life for themselves in the face of neighborhood change and explores why they stayed. This study moves away from the outcome-oriented approach that many neighborhood effects studies embrace and focuses instead on uncovering various strategies that individuals “adopt to negotiate their social conditions” over the course of their lives (Black, 2010, p. xi). To do this, I take a Millsian approach to connect the lives of the individuals to the structure of their neighborhood over time, as it is clear that “historical time and geographic place are crucial for understanding lives in their full complexity” (Elder, Modell, & Parke, 1993; Laub & Sampson, 2009, p. 47; Mills, 1959). I utilize data from multiple life history interviews and over six years of ethnographic observations with older adults who have aged in place in Cleveland, Ohio. This study is significant as it provides a nuanced understanding of how and why individuals aged in place, even if it is a very “troubled place” (Newman, 2007).

Committee: Timothy Black (Committee Chair); Claudia Coulton (Committee Member); Eva Kahana (Committee Member); Gary Deimling (Committee Member); Dale Dannefer (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Aging; Gender; Gerontology; Sociology

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

The postindustrial cities that comprise the Rust Belt are faced with the challenge of reinventing the city while addressing the ongoing issues of urban blight stemming from economic decline. As a result, a variety of strategies are utilized to improve the built environment of neighborhoods and the overall condition of the city. The issue then becomes how does a city track the effectiveness of those measures? Furthermore, how can a city develop a baseline of condition for a neighborhood from which strategy effectiveness can be measured? This dissertation develops methodologies for capturing fine-scale changes in neighborhoods. Collected spatial video data of Youngstown, Ohio were coded in a GIS using three newly developed coding systems; the condition coding, blight severity classification (BSC), and the modified blight variant. The condition coding and the BSC capture the condition and degree of blight at the parcel-level of a neighborhood. This allows for the occupancy status, parcel use (urban garden, maintained green space, unsecured vacant lot, etc.), and whether a parcel exhibits signs of blight that qualify it for a BSC rating of slightly, moderately, or severely blighted to be recorded. The modified blight variant joins those two coding systems to create a comprehensive system that assigns a scale-rating to a parcel based on its condition and blight. The coding systems were applied to two neighborhoods, Idora and Cottage Grove, that represent opposite ends of the spectrum of neighborhood conditions for Youngstown. The condition coding and BSC reveal that a singular blight-fighting measure, such as creatively painting window scenes on the plywood of boarded homes in Idora, does not have an impact on the aesthetics of a neighborhood, and therefore does not increase order within the built environment. Rather, utilizing multiple measures, especially those that create a nexus for community gathering, improve the visual condition by creating the appearan (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Andrew Curtis (Advisor) Subjects: Geographic Information Science; Geography

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2019, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

The city of Youngstown, Ohio has seen a dramatic decrease in population since its heyday in the mid-20th century. From 1950 to 2010 Youngstown's population dropped by 60%. This decrease in population has resulted in urban decay and subsequent changes to the city's planning strategy. The city of Youngstown's plan to deliberately shrink may have altered land cover in the area. These land cover changes can be detected from variety of different techniques with the use of remotely sensed imagery. The objective of this study was to compare methods of change detection in a post-industrial environment. Post classification techniques were used to assess the extent of change Youngstown has experienced over the last three decades. The results of the analysis described the impacts that deindustrialization and population decline has had on the city of Youngstown and surrounding area. The remote sensing techniques used in this study proved to be effective at providing a synoptic view of intricate land surface patterns. NDVI and DBI analysis provided surface patterns of greening and developed surfaces. These techniques are capable of aiding in the detection of land cover change patterns as a result of the shifting urban environment and were capable of supporting the environmental characterization of a shrinking city.

Committee: James Lein Dr. (Committee Chair) Subjects: Remote Sensing

MCP, University of Cincinnati, 2007, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Community Planning

Urban voids are to blame for the loss of the ideal density of urban cities. The excessive amount of these vague open spaces has affected many post-industrial American cities that are in the declining stages of their life-cycle. Urban voids create a negative image feeding the need to fill the void. Their presence is undeniable to the point of affecting all that surrounds them. They are caused by economic, social, and physical changes to the city. This study is a critical evaluation of the meaning behind urban voids as previously developed spaces in contemporary cities, while concentrating on strategies taking place in post-industrial American cities.

Committee: Frank Russell (Advisor) Subjects: Urban and Regional Planning

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, City and Regional Planning

This dissertation presents five essays dealing with the utilization and abandonment of a city's assets, in particular two key assets: agglomeration economies and legacy capital. The first essay traces out the causes and effects of agglomeration economies by disentangling economies of agglomeration. It disentangles amenity and productivity effects of agglomeration; it decomposes aggregate scale effects into agglomeration factors of interest to policy makers; and it estimates own effects and spillovers to neighbors. It proposes a spatial simultaneous equations model in a spatial equilibrium framework with three agents – worker consumers and producers of traded goods and housing. Results for Ohio counties estimate economies resulting from population size, agglomeration causes, and public service quality and cost on each of the three agents in own and neighboring counties. The second essay theoretically models the abandonment and reuse of legacy capital in the process of industrial restructuring. It aims to identify the conditions for abandonment and the factors that determine the length of abandonment. The model is based on investment theory and game theory. It shows that abandonment is impacted by conversion costs of legacy capital, the rate of growth of industries involved in the restructuring, and policy variables such as tax rate. The third essay empirically verifies the theoretical model developed in the second essay, using data of industrial and commercial properties (ICPs) in the Cleveland city-region in Ohio. It shows that in declining industries or regions, ICPs experience tax delinquency of longer duration and are more likely to be abandoned than elsewhere. Also, ICPs with higher conversion costs are more likely to experience longer spells of tax delinquency and are more likely to be abandoned than others. Abandoned ICPs are spatially concentrated either as a result of negative spillovers or shared history. The fourth essay theoretically models the extern (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Burkhard von Rabenau (Committee Chair); Jean-Michel Guldmann (Committee Member); Philip Viton (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics; Urban Planning

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Educational Policy and Leadership

Historical research has provided scholars with a strong foundation for understanding the sport-city nexus in American culture. These studies have focused primarily on two distinct eras. The first links the rise of modern sporting and leisure practices with the birth of the American metropolis from the early nineteenth century to the early-to-mid twentieth century. The works of Melvin Adelman, Stephen Hardy, Steven Riess, and Gerald Gems have enriched this area with studies on sports growth in some of the key American metropolises at the turn of the past century: New York, Boston, and Chicago. The second area of study reflects the evolution of American professional sport as a business following World War II. These studies documented cases of league expansion, franchise relocation, and stadium construction in a specific city. Socio-cultural research addressing sport and the city has tended to look more at community-based issues for the aforementioned themes. Missing from these scholarly treatments is an examination of the plight of the postwar American city undergoing urban decline and the place of professional sport within that context. Looking at Cleveland, this study revisits the questions used in the existing body of sport-city scholarship to see if and how they can be translated to the modern city in decline. The intersection of sport and city addresses issues of civic policy, local economics, and racial relations as found in scholarly works, city records, newspapers, and archived manuscript collections. This study also examines the creation of civic image through the presence of professional sports and the meanings extracted from that image, as seen in Cleveland's shift from “The City of Champions” to the “Mistake on the Lake.” Furthermore, the Wirth-Hardy categories of the city—physical structure, social organization, and shared beliefs—and Isenberg's argument that human actors were at the core of downtown's decline frame visions of the city. These underlying n (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Melvin Adelman (Advisor) Subjects: History, United States