SUS 8000S - Socioecological Resilience in Urban Parks

Spring 2022

Monday evenings 
Room

Elaine Mahoney
Emahoney@ccny.cuny.edu

Office hours: W 11-12 or by appt.

This course provides an exploration of the interdependent relationship between communities and nature in urban areas. We will study the relationship of parks to the city and various political ideologies from the 18th century through today. Students will study the benefits of parks to communities through examining literature, studies, and vulnerability assessments. Students will use a variety of digital tools to evaluate vulnerability of parks and adjacent communities to climate change and extreme weather. Drawing from the foundation of the readings and vulnerability assessments, students will work in teams to draft a formal research proposal. Students will work in teams to produce formal proposals to undertake research in NYC’s Gateway National Recreation Area (GNRA) in summer 2022. This course is a pre-requisite for a paid, full-time summer research fellowship in GNRA with the National Park Service, Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, and the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College.

Learning Objectives

This course has four purposes: 

  1. teach students to evaluate evidence and data critically and analytically
  2. teach students to evaluate geography within context 
  3. Apply contextual and scientific knowledge to a specific site to create data set  
  4. Present and organize findings in a meaningful way  

Each week will be devoted to discussion of a selection of texts – usually 2, occasionally 3 - that all students must read in common. Two students will be responsible for introducing the common readings for a given week, as well as writing 700-900 word summaries of the readings and distributing copies of these summaries to the other students. The focus of this seminar is community resilience in the face of climate change. In order to assess and define community, we will have to engage in the community of the classroom.  Active, informed participation in class discussions counts as 35% of your final grade.

Weekly summaries should be emailed to all class participants by noon on the day of class.

Students will be expected to complete a 5 page risk and vulnerability report. The report will include an overview of the neighborhood, an assessment of existing conditions of the people, ecology, housing, and infrastructure, mapping products illustrating vulnerability and risk, findings and recommendations for the community.  Once you have chosen the neighborhood you will be expected to submit a preliminary bibliography and an outline by the date indicated on the syllabus. This paper counts as 20% of the final grade.

At the end of the semester students will be asked to submit a 10 page formal research proposal. The research proposal will include proposed methodology and mapping, a timeline, literature review, and bibliography. This proposal will be worked on in small teams and executed during the paid summer research seminar.

Class participation: 20%

Response papers: 25%

Risk and Vulnerability Report: 25%

Research Proposal: 30%
 

All readings for the course are on reserve in the Graduate Center Library. Note: An * denotes a supplemental reading 

An additional appendix for the course will be provided by SRIJB  

Schedule of meetings

Jan Introduction to the course 
History of Parks and the Commons  
Derek Wall, The Commons in History p. 1-59 
Carr, Ethan, Wilderness by Design, Chapter 1
Feb Parks & Public Health in the 19th and 20th Centuries 
Burrows, Edwin, Gotham, Jacob Riis Chapter
Koohsari, Mohammed (Re)Designing the built environment to support physical activity: Bringing public health back into urban design and planning, PDF 
Rosenzweig, Roy, and Elizabeth Blackmar. The park and the people: A history of Central Park. Cornell University Press, 1992. 
Feb Parks & Economic Development in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Low, Setha, Rethinking Urban Parks
Rothman, Hal, National Parks and Urban Development, Chapter 3
Feb Environmental Vulnerability
Pninit Cohen, Oded Potchter, Izhak Schnell (2014), “A methodological approach to the environmental quantitative assessment of urban parks,” Applied Geography, Volume 48,
 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143622814000071
NOAA digital coast
NPCC p. xx -xx 
SLR viewer NOAA
Feb  
March Human Vulnerability
Cutter, Suzanne, Social Vulnerabilty and Community Resilience Assessment https://www.cnid.cl/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/SUSAN-CUTTER.pdf 
March

Capacity for Risk
Mexia, Teresa, Joana Vieira, Adriana Príncipe, Andreia Anjos, Patrícia Silva, Nuno Lopes, Catarina Freitas et al. "Ecosystem services: Urban parks under a magnifying glass." Environmental research 160 (2018): 469-478. 

Maantay, Juliana, and Andrew Maroko. "Mapping urban risk: Flood hazards, race, & environmental justice in New York." Applied Geography 29, no. 1 (2009): 111-124. 

March Socio Economic Indicators   
Bowen, Robert Socioeconomic indicators and coastal zone management https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0964569103000085… 
Rebai, Noamen & Cheikh, Zeineb Ben, Mapping & Spatial Analysis of Sustainable Development Indicators to Optimize the Quality of Life Chapter 2  
https://www.amazon.com/Socio-economic-Environmental-Indicators-Sustaina… 
March Public Health Indicators  (EPA)  
Flowers, Julian, Public Health Indicators
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15733682/ 
Lane, Kathryn, Kizzy Charles-Guzman, Katherine Wheeler, Zaynah Abid, Nathan Graber, and Thomas Matte. "Health effects of coastal storms and flooding in urban areas: a review and vulnerability assessment." Journal of environmental and public health 2013 (2013). 
April Designing an Indicator Study   
Szewarnski,Szymon, Socio Environmental Vulnerabiltiy Assessment https://www.google.com/books/edition/Socio_Environmental_Vulnerability_… 
April Spring Break
April Classes follow Friday schedule 
April Risk & Vulnerability Report Presentations
Risk & Vulnerability Report Due
 

Parks and Economic Development in the 21st Century
Loughran, Kevin, Parks for Profit: The High Line, Growth Machines, and the Uneven Development of Urban Public Spaces https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12050

Wolch, Jennifer R., Jason Byrne, and Joshua P. Newell. "Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’." Landscape and urban planning 125 (2014): 234-244.
Xie, Jing, Urban parks as green buffers, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6751

Gould and Lewis, Green Gentrification 

May Guest Lecturer (NPS or Waterfront Planning NYCDCP)  
Gateway Park NPS Strategic Plan p. 1-68
May

Parks as Green Infrastructure Case Study: Jamaica Bay  
Rosenzweig, Cynthia & Parris, Adam, Prospects for Resilience, Resilience Indicators and Monitoring: An Example of Climate Change Resiliency Indicators for Jamaica Bay 
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.5822/978-1-61091-734-6_7

Miller, Stephanie, Stakeholder Perceptions of ecosystem services and GI    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212041617307994

May Research Proposal Presentations

Last Updated: 01/06/2022 15:24