Author Archives: Sara

JOURNAL BRIEF: Vacancy and Mobility Implications of Informal Footpaths in Shrinking Cities

This two-page journal brief shares findings from a study that documents and considers the implications of informal footpaths, also known as desire lines, in the Lower Eastside area of Detroit. Using mixed methods—including remote sensing (using Google Earth), physical audits, network and spatial analysis, and qualitative interviews—the study physically maps informal footpaths, documents their change over time between 2010 and 2016, quantifies their impact in increasing accessibility and mobility, and considers how they are perceived by residents.

This brief is adapted from the following peer-reviewed journal article: Foster, A. & J. P. Newell. (2019). Detroit’s lines of desire: Footpaths and vacant land in the Motor City. Landscape and Urban Planning, 189(2019), 260-273. Access the full article here.

Open Position: Data Scientist/Specialist for Sustainability

Application DEADLINE: February 15, 2019

Projected START DATE: April 1, 2019

School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan

The Urban Sustainability Research Group led by Assoc. Prof. Joshua Newell seeks applications for a Data Scientist/ Specialist, beginning April 2019. The successful applicant will perform data analysis and computer programming in support of current and upcoming research projects. Examples of ongoing and planned projects include: 1) analysis of the environmental and social impacts of urban agriculture across multiple scales; 2) urban meat production-consumption patterns and dynamics; 3) a carbon footprint of the United States building stock; and 4) mapping the spatial and temporal dynamics of supply chains using trade data. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to join a growing, dynamic research lab that interfaces with the academy, industry, and society.

Read More about the qualifications and Instructions here.

Contact Dr. Dimitris Gounaridis (dgounar@umich.edu) should you have questions.

Open Positions: Tracking corporate actors across space and time

The Urban Sustainability Research Group is seeking two enthusiastic MS students to help us map the supply chains that connect urban dwellers to ports, factories, mines, forests, farms and other production sites around the globe. The project work involves performing online research to identify and vet potential data sources, and then exploring these data to uncover the corporate actors and locations along supply chains for select commodities. Through participating students will learn new skills, contribute to groundbreaking research on sustainable supply chains and participate in a dynamic research group dedicated to urban sustainability. We are specifically looking for students with:

• Interest in the environmental and social impacts of urban consumption
• Interest in corporate sustainability
• Data management skills
• Experience in computer programming and/or use of geographic information system (GIS) software (preferred but not essential)

We are looking for two students to begin immediately. These positions will be ~20 hours per week at $15-18 per hour.

If you are interested in applying for this position, then please send your CV and a brief cover letter stating why you are interested and well-qualified for this position to Benjamin Goldstein (benjgo@umich.edu).

Josh Newell Featured on Michigan Radio: Re-imagining Infrastructure

Josh Newell Comments on Re-imagining Infrastructure on Michigan Radio.

Cities across the United States and internationally are designing creative new uses for underutilized infrastructure, creating attractive green spaces for citizens to enjoy. However, these transformations also create risks of environmental gentrification through increasing nearby property values and displacing current residents. City officials and communities should always be on guard against environmental gentrification, and Newell encourages planners to involve the communities that will be affected through the process of making urban infrastructural changes.View More

Sara Meerow To Join Arizona State University School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning

Sara Meerow, doctoral candidate in the Urban Sustainability Research Group, has accepted a Tenure Track Assistant Professor position for the Fall of 2017 in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Congratulations and we think ASU is a great place for her to continue her work on Green Infrastructure, Urban Resilience, and Climate Adaptation.

Spatial planning for multifunctional green infrastructure: Growing resilience in Detroit

Meerow, Sara, & J.P. Newell. 2017.

Landscape and Urban Planning, DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2016.10.005

Abstract: Cities are expanding green infrastructure to enhance resilience and ecosystem services. Although green infrastructure is promoted for its multifunctionality, projects are typically sited based on a particular benefit, such as stormwater abatement, rather than a suite of socio-economic and environmental benefits. This stems in part from the lack of stakeholder-informed, city-scale approaches to systematically identify ecosystem service tradeoffs, synergies, and ‘hotspots’ associated with green infrastructure and its siting. To address this gap, we introduce the Green Infrastructure Spatial Planning (GISP) model, a GIS-based multi-criteria approach that integrates six benefits: 1) stormwater management; 2) social vulnerability; 3) green space; 4) air quality; 5) urban heat island amelioration; and 6) landscape connectivity. Stakeholders then weight priorities to identify hotspots where green infrastructure benefits are needed most. Applying the GISP model to Detroit, we compared the results with the locations of current green infrastructure projects. The analysis provides initial evidence that green infrastructure is not being sited in high priority areas for stormwater abatement, let alone for ameliorating urban heat island effects, improving air quality, or increasing habitat connectivity. However, as the Detroit GISP model reveals, it could be developed in locations that simultaneously abate stormwater, urban heat island, and air pollution. Tradeoffs exist between siting to maximize stormwater management versus landscape connectivity. The GISP model provides an inclusive, replicable approach for planning future green infrastructure so that it maximizes social and ecological resilience. More broadly, it represents a spatial planning approach for evaluating competing and complementary ecosystem service priorities for a particular landscape.

Keywords: Green infrastructureEcosystem servicesResilienceDetroitSpatial planning

New Paper by Meerow and Newell on Spatial planning for multifunctional green infrastructure in Landscape and Urban Planning

A new paper by Sara Meerow and Joshua Newell in Landscape and Urban Planning introduces the Green Infrastructure Spatial Planning Model (GISP), a GIS-based multicriteria approach that integrates six benefits of green infrastructure and allows for the consideration of stakeholder priorities. The model is applied to Detroit, revealing that current green infrastructure projects are not being optimally located. The GISP model provides a replicable approach for evaluating competing and complementary ecosystem services for a given landscape. Read the article here.

2017 American Association of Geographers Sessions: Reweaving the Urban Socio-ecological Fabric: Green infrastructure, urban agriculture, and social justice

Sara Meerow and Alec Foster are co-organizing a group of paper sessions at this year’s American Association of Geographer’s Conference, April 5-9 2017, Boston, MA. Joshua Newell is serving as a discussant.

Reweaving the Urban Socio-ecological Fabric: Green infrastructure, urban agriculture, and social justice

Organizers
Sara Meerow, University of Michigan
Alec Foster, University of Michigan

This session seeks to advance theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of green infrastructure and urban agriculture in cities. Of particular interest are papers that conceptualize relationships between these often divided research streams. Green infrastructure and urban agriculture have been heralded as solutions for diverse urban environmental and social issues, from amelioration of air and water pollution and urban heat islands to food insecurities and enhanced urban resilience (Beatley and Newman 2013; McClintock, 2010; Rouse and Bunster-Ossa 2013; Tzoulas et al. 2007). However, as numerous scholars have noted, both green infrastructure and urban agriculture (and urban green spaces more generally) can lead to gentrification (Pearsall, 2010; Qastel, 2009). This highlights the need to examine questions of social justice.

We seek theoretical and empirical papers that examine the benefits, trade-offs, scalar, political and justice dimensions of reweaving urban socio-ecological fabrics. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• Green agriculture, green infrastructure, and gentrification
• Efforts to make cities ‘just green enough’ (Wolch, Byrne, and Newell 2014)
• Potentials and challenges associated with ‘scaling up’ green agriculture and green infrastructure
• Urban agriculture as a form of green infrastructure
• Varying perspectives on ecosystems services and urban green space
• Urban agriculture, food production, and food sovereignty

Discussants
Joshua Newell (University of Michigan)

Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to Alec Foster (alecfo@umich.edu) and Sara Meerow (sameerow@umich.edu) by October 21st.

References
Beatley, T, and P Newman. 2013. “Biophilic Cities Are Sustainable, Resilient Cities.” Sustainability 5 (8): 3328–45.
McClintock, N. 2010. Why Farm the City? Theorizing Urban Agriculture through a Lens of Metabolic Rift. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 3 (2) 191-207.
Pearsall, H. 2010. From Brown to Green? Assessing Social Vulnerability to Environmental Gentrification in New York City. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 28(5) 872–886.
Qastel, N. (2009). Political Ecologies of Gentrification. Urban Geography 30(7): 694–725.
Rouse, David C., and Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa. 2013. Green Infrastructure: A Landscape Approach. Chicago: American Planning Association.
Tzoulas, Konstantinos, Kalevi Korpela, Stephen Venn, Vesa Yli-Pelkonen, Aleksandra Kaźmierczak, Jari Niemela, and Philip James. 2007. “Promoting Ecosystem and Human Health in Urban Areas Using Green Infrastructure: A Literature Review.” Landscape and Urban Planning 81 (3): 167–78.
Wolch, Jennifer R., Jason Byrne, and Joshua P. Newell. 2014. “Urban Green Space, Public Health, and Environmental Justice: The Challenge of Making Cities ‘just Green Enough.’”Landscape and Urban Planning 125: 234–44.

Sara Meerow receives three research awards

Sara Meerow was recently awarded a Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, the Menakka and Essel Bailey Fellowship, and first place in the AAG Human Dimensions of Global Change Specialty Group Student Research Competition.

The Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship supports outstanding doctoral students in their last year working on dissertations that are unusually creative, ambitious and risk-taking.

The Menakka and Essel Bailey Fellowship is awarded to graduate students pursuing research, field work, cultural experience, or other study relevant to their graduate degree, preferably in the areas of public health, health care, or environmental work in South or Southeast Asia (excluding China or Japan).

The American Association of Geographers Human Dimensions of Global Change Specialty Group Student Research Competition provides an annual award to support graduate research in the area of human dimensions of global change.

New USRG publication on defining urban resilience

A new paper by Sara Meerow, Joshua Newell, and Melissa Stults in Landscape and Urban Planning reviews the existing literature on urban resilience and proposes a new, inclusive definition. Read the article here.