The role of neighborhood organizations in the production of gentrifiable urban space: The case of Wynwood, Miami's Puerto Rican barrio

Partnerships between government and community-based actors and organizations are considered the hallmark of contemporary governance arrangements for the revitalization and gentrification of economically distressed, inner city areas. This dissertation uses historical, narrative analysis and ethnographic methods to examine the formation, evolution and operation of community-based governance partnerships in the production of gentrifiable urban space in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, FL between 1970 and 2010. This research is based on more than four years of participant observation, 60 in-depth interviews with respondents recruited through a purposive snowball sample, review of secondary and archival sources, and descriptive, statistical and GIS analysis. This study examines how different organizations formed in the neighborhood since the 1970s have facilitated the recent gentrification of Wynwood. It reveals specifically how partnerships between neighborhood-based government agencies, nonprofit organizations and real estate developers were constructed to be exclusionary and lead to inequitable economic development outcomes for Wynwood residents. The key factors conditioning these inequalities include both the rationalities of action of the organizations involved and the historical contexts in which their leaders’ thinking and actions were shaped. The historical contexts included the ethnic politics of organizational funding in the 1970s and the “entrepreneurial” turn of community-based economic development and Miami urban politics since the 1980s. Over time neighborhood organizations adopted highly pragmatic rationalities and repertoires of action. By the 2000s when Wynwood experienced unprecedented investment and redevelopment, the pragmatism of community-based organizations led them to become junior partners in governance arrangements and neighborhood activists were unable to directly challenge the inequitable processes and outcomes of gentrification.

"Jazz is Back": Alternative Jazz Venues and Gentrification in Washington, D.C.

Gentrification has dramatically changed the urban landscape of Washington, D.C. Non-profit alternative jazz venues have become important sites for negotiating this complex process that is re-shaping the city. Each such venue aligns itself with one of the two primary factions of gentrification: new urban migrants or long-term residents. Westminster Presbyterian Church’s Jazz Night in Southwest fosters a community of repeat-attendees resisting social displacement. The Jazz and Cultural Society unabashedly foregrounds ties to long-term residents in highlighting a black identity and its local interconnectedness. CapitolBop’s Jazz Loft demonstrates the difficulties that come with trying to cater to a young audience, and at the same time, resist gentrification. These venues present three perspectives on gentrification and together bring light to the overlapping complexity of gentrification.

American studies in Europe; their history and present organization.

Bibliography: p. [660]-668.

Ninth Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies "Dispersed Peoples: The Cuban and Other Diasporas"

This flyer promotes the Ninth Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies "Dispersed Peoples: The Cuban and Other Diasporas" , cosponsored by FlU's Cuban Research Institute, FlU African and African Diaspora Studies Program, Center for the Humanities in an Urban Environment, Exile Studies Program, and WPBT2. This event was held May 23, 2013 - May 25, 2013.

Synthesis, structure, and magnetic studies on self-assembled BiFeO3-CoFe2O4 nanocomposite thin films

Self-assembled (0.65)BiFeO3-(0.35)CoFe2O4 (BFO-CFO) nanostructures were deposited on SrTiO3 (001) and (111) substrates by pulsed laser deposition at various temperatures from 500 to 800°C. The crystal phases and the lattice strain for the two different substrate orientations have been determined and compared. The films grow epitaxial on both substrates but separation of the spinel and perovskite crystallites, without parasitic phases, is only obtained for growth temperatures of around 600-650°C. The BFO crystallites are out-of-plane expanded on STO(001), whereas they are almost relaxed on (111). In contrast, CFO crystallites grow out-of-plane compressed on both substrates. The asymmetric behavior of the cell parameters of CFO and BFO is discussed on the basis of the role of the epitaxial stress caused by the substrate and the spinel-perovskite interfacial stress. It is concluded that interfacial stress dominates the elastic properties of CFO crystallites and thus it may play a fundamental on the interface magnetoelectric coupling in these nanocomposites.

Placing immigrant incorporation: Identity, trust, and civic engagement in Little Havana

Immigrant incorporation in the United States has been a topic of concern and debate since the founding of the nation. Scholars have studied many aspects of the phenomenon, including economic, political, social, and spatial. The most influential paradigm of immigrant incorporation in the US has been, and continues to be, assimilation, and the most important place in and scale at which incorporation occurs is the neighborhood. This dissertation captures both of these integral aspects of immigrant incorporation through its consideration of three dimensions of assimilation – identity, trust, and civic engagement – among Latin American immigrants and American-born Latinos in Little Havana, a predominantly immigrant neighborhood in Miami, Florida. Data discussed in the dissertation were gathered through surveys and interviews as part of a National Science Foundation-funded study carried out in 2005-2006. The combination of quantitative and qualitative data allows for a nuanced understanding of how immigrant incorporation is occurring locally during the first decade of the twentieth century. Findings reveal that overall Latin American immigrants and their American-born offspring appear to be becoming American with regard to their ethnic and racial identities quickly, evidenced through the salience and active employment of panethnic labels, while at the same time they are actively reshaping the identificational structure. The Latino population, however, is not monolithic and is cleaved by diversity within the group, including country of origin and socioeconomic status. These same factors impede group cohesion in terms of trust and its correlate, community. Nevertheless, the historically dominant ancestry group in Little Havana – Cubans – has been able to reach notable levels of trust and build and conserve a more solid sense of community than non-Cuban residents. With respect to civic engagement, neighborhood residents generally participate at rates lower than the overall US population and ethnic subpopulations. This is not the case for political engagement, however, where self-reported voting registration and turnout in Little Havana surpasses that of most benchmarked populations. The empirical evidence presented in this dissertation on the case of Latinos in Little Havana challenges the ways that identity, trust, and civic engagement are conceptualized and theorized, especially among immigrants to the US.