Men and women have different priorities and concerns regarding visibility in urban spaces Multifamily residential buildings with multiple floors are common in South Korea. These buildings usually have pilotis—support structures like pillars that elevate the building, creating an open ground floor generally used for parking vehicles. These piloti parking spaces are often risky to navigate...
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When Fire Information and the Desire to Help Collide Online
– Jay Balagna, Alyson Harding, Vanessa Parks The destructive winds and devastating fires that are sweeping through the Los Angeles area this week drove many, understandably, to their phones seeking information—and seeking to help. Downloads of apps like Watch Duty soared as Angelenos anxiously searched for information about evacuation boundaries, evacuation sites, and the fate of their...
‘Crime Suppression’ Policing and Excessive Force at the Memphis Police Department
Recent Justice Department reports on police abuses in Memphis, Louisville, and other cities suggest eschewing crime suppression policing entirely, rather than tinkering with its machinery. During the first three and a half years of the Biden administration, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department reported its findings from three law enforcement investigations and announced...
U.S. Suffers from Low Social Mobility. Is Sprawl Partly to Blame?
Using Census data, researchers untangle interplay between urban development patterns and socioeconomic outcomes. Urban sprawl is not just unsightly. It could also be impeding intergenerational mobility for low-income residents and reinforcing racial inequality, according to a series of recent studies led by a University of Utah geographer. One analysis of tract-level Census data co-authored with...
Detroit’s Reparations Task Force Now Has Until 2025 to Make Its Report, but Going Slow with This Challenging Work May Not Be a Bad Thing
The work of crafting reparations at the municipal level is fierce. Detroiters know. In November 2021, residents voted to create a reparations committee that would make recommendations for housing and economic development programs to address historical discrimination against Black residents. Three years have passed – and Detroiters recently learned the report is delayed. Some folks...
Peaches Spread Across North America Through Indigenous Networks
Spanish explorers may have brought the first peach pits to North America, but Indigenous communities helped the ubiquitous summer fruit really take root, according to a study led by a researcher at Penn State. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that Indigenous political and social networks and land use practices played key roles in the...
Black Men — Including Transit Workers — Are Targets for Aggression on Public Transportation
Black men on buses and trains — whether as passengers or transit workers — face hostile encounters that threaten their sense of safety and well-being, according to a new study by a Keough School of Global Affairs sociologist. By reinforcing racist tropes that they are dangerous or invisible, these encounters can also erode Black men’s sense of...
Major Events Like Presidential Elections Bring Online Hate Communities Together
A new study published today details the ways in which the 2020 U.S. election not only incited new hate content in online communities but also how it brought those communities closer together around online hate speech. The research has wider implications for better understanding how the online hate universe multiplies and hardens around local and...
What Motivates People to Take Action to Prevent Crime?
When private citizens disrupt a criminal event or avert a potentially dangerous situation, they are termed guardians, and the concept of guardianship forms the foundation of various crime-prevention strategies. Although guardianship has been examined by researchers, few studies have considered how guardians make judgments and decisions that are critical to preventing crimes. In a new study,...
Building Deconstruction, Reuse Would Benefit NYS Jobs, Climate
Shifting from wasteful demolition practices to a circular construction economy in New York state could create thousands of green jobs and advance ambitious climate goals – while reducing pressure on landfills, Cornell University experts report in a new white paper that aims to inform proposed state legislation. Published today, “Constructing a Circular Economy in New...