Introduction: 

Urban Environmental Encounters is featuring the joint departmental senior capstone class of students from the Environmental and Urban Studies programs including BA students from Lang College, BA and BS students from SPE’s Bachelors Program for Adult and Transfer Students, and dual degree students pursuing BA/BFA degrees at Lang and Parsons. 

This confluence of young activists, designers, social anthropologists, creators, and deep philosophical thinkers created a wonderfully rich arena ground for interrogative, boundary-pushing research projects on topics ranging from study of key infrastructural systems like electric grids and waste to climate disaster recovery to improving the sustainability of food systems to greening death practices to examining social structures tied to gender, class, and race.  The students have considered how public policy effects  food waste and insecurity, gentrification, urban environmental conditions, social stratification, access to sustainable materials, and, more broadly, how we live and can hope to live in the future. 

Throughout the year, this group of young scholars has asked and answered hard questions, supported each other’s work, pivoted and reoriented when inevitable research challenges emerged, and been ceaselessly innovative and full of humor. 

There are 8.26 million people living in New York City as of 2023 and every single one of them depends on electric energy. Whether it be to charge a phone, turn a light on, or cook dinner on the stove, people depend on the electricity grid for every day functioning. The majority of the electricity generated for the grid in New York City is from the burning of natural gas, a fossil fuel, which is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere. As the effects and dangers of climate change are being seen today, governments have started to take action. New York City’s government especially has taken a proactive stance in releasing reports outlining sustainability and emission goals for the City to achieve, and an important one is “80 x 50” which was passed in 2014. “80 x 50” is the City’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 and is the motivator for a lot of the City’s recent work around renewable energy. In particular, the City is looking at solar photovoltaic energy which is being installed on City-owned rooftops and some privately-owned buildings, and offshore wind farms located off the coast of Long Island. 

This project analyzes the inefficiencies in the New York City electricity grid and how policy encourages infrastructure improvements of the grid. This paper aims to critique the City’s electricity grid and how a large part of the inefficiency around the grid is due to the lack of organized action from institutions, despite great strides in solar and wind energy markets for investment.

My thesis examines the ways in which extreme heat intersects with the systems we live under, why certain groups are disproportionately impacted in NYC, the past and current governmental plans addressing extreme heat, and a recommendation for those plans. I make the argument that existing plans to reform the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), a New York statewide organization that helps with heating homes in the winter and limited cooling assistance in the summer, are not adequate to address the unique conditions and needs of NYC within the context of the state because HEAP as a whole cannot effectively distribute needed aid to NYC. Interventions to address extreme heat will vary depending on the local needs, and require long term solutions paired with short term solutions to effectively stop deaths and hospitalizations while systemic reform is pushed for. Therefore, I situate my recommendation in the specific context of NYC and the timelines laid out by the city, both in the past and for the future.

Carlisle Fillat

Mapping Accessibility in New York City: Examining Intersections between Subway Elevator Construction and the Demographics Affected

This project was created in the pursuit of discovering the blind spots of the MTA subway system. In order to do so, a map was built displaying the interactions between the accessibility of each subway station and the demographics of these locations with regards to disability status and poverty status. This map is the centerpiece of the thesis project, supported by materials such as an archival review of the press surrounding elevator construction, a map review of subway maps dating back to the 1990s, interviews with experts in accessibility design and a literary review of academic texts about user experience simulations. Findings reveal disparities in accessibility, budgetary challenges, and persisting issues in rider experience.

It is apparent that green spaces, whether it be parks, street trees, or gardens, are beneficial to people's mental and physical health. New York City along with many other cities has green space. But something that might not be as noticeable is that not every neighborhood has the same amount or quality of green space. Jackson Heights, located in Queens, New York, is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country: over 160 different languages are spoken among its residents. It ranks just 50/51 for green space and park space, however, among the New York City Council Districts. By contrast, in a mainly white demographic neighborhood like the Upper East Side in Manhattan, located near Central Park, 94% of residents live within walking distance of a park or open space. 

This project is a case study on Jackson Heights and examines the current green space in the neighborhood, acknowledges the benefits of green space, and discusses how there could be more green space added to neighborhoods that lack it. Through interviews with residents, site observations in Jackson Heights, reviewing press articles, and looking at historical maps, this thesis arrived at four key findings. 1) 34th Avenue as an Open Street in Jackson Heights is a community space that provides community engagement. 2) Maintaining existing green space is just as important as adding new green space. 3) Less availability of green space creates congestion in existing parks. 4) Residents have ideas about future green space in Jackson Heights that should be adopted by planners. I would like to emphasize that the residents of Jackson Heights have already done a lot in the community to fight for more green space, and with more collaboration with local government, more of their ideas can be implemented. This case study on Jackson Heights and these key findings bring awareness to what other neighborhoods can do that also lack green space.

Western society's apprehension toward decomposition underscores a fundamental disconnect from the cyclical systems of nature. Current burial and funerary practices not only harm the environment but also reflect a broader societal aversion to confronting the natural processes of decay and renewal. By exploring alternative death practices, we can begin to reimagine our relationship with death within the context of the natural world. Evidenced by the ecological crises we face, our society perpetuates a view of humans as separate and dominating forces to nature, and it’s imperative that we reconsider these human-nature disconnects. My research and case studies aim to leverage a handful of biotechnological innovations to pioneer novel green burial techniques, but also revisits our approach to death in general, catalyzing a profound paradigm shift in how Western society conceptualizes death and death practices.  This research utilizes various methods, including interviews, surveys, and case studies, to support the hypothesis that changing our approach to death can transform our relationship with nature. As a culmination, I additionally designed a burial shroud and hosted a community gathering to symbolize this essential shift in perspective. 

As the natural environment becomes increasingly unpredictable in the face of global climate crisis, architecture and related disciplines will need to establish new tools for thinking that diverge from the traditional extractive methodologies which have exacerbated climate challenges. This project sought to explore environmental systems thinking in the architectural design process, contributing to an ongoing conversation about how to adapt space making processes to be more in tune with the interconnected needs of the environment. I found that systems thinking has utility in the design process as both a framing tool and an analytical one. With increasing frequency, architects and other contributors to the build environment will have to tackle complex, interwoven challenges that they have not been responsible for in recent history. By thinking critically about the implicated elements within social, ecological, and technological systems in the design process, external forces push on the design. Designers must question what they are doing, for whom, why, when, and how, a method of questioning that intuitively results in more considerate work.

How do present understandings of safe spaces and inclusivity work within queer nightlife in New York City? Who is included in these understandings and who is forgotten or dismissed? Queer Nightlife is sometimes understood as being a liberatory space despite working within a capitalist framework to function as a business. The ongoing COVID pandemic has further entrenched queer intra-communal separation along lines of disability. This thesis looks at how utilization of safe space and inclusivity frameworks have been utilized by queer branded sites of consumption-based leisure to further entrench this separation and cause harm to its own communities through COVID re/infection.

Adriana Marte

From Waste to Plate: creating circular systems, supporting local agriculture, and reducing food insecurity & waste in New York City.

As the effects of climate change become more apparent, minimizing waste and promoting sustainable infrastructure is a priority to many. New York State is one of the country's most efficient agricultural states and can produce up to 60% of its food. Despite this, New York City currently only purchases about 5% of local food and lacks sustainable waste infrastructure. As New York City households produce about 8.4 lbs of food waste weekly, the majority ends up in landfills producing methane and worsening the greenhouse effect. With 1 in 10 New Yorkers facing food insecurity and inaccessibility to fresh food, new initiatives have the opportunity to reduce food waste, improve food security, and support state agriculture. Examining New York City policy, state agriculture, and curbside composting, my research aims to propose a circular system that unites state and city in promoting and maintaining sustainability and accessibility for a better city. 

New York City houses a significant challenge as one-third of the 24 million pounds of daily garbage is composed of food and organic waste, a figure that does not include commercial food waste from restaurants and other for-profit businesses that serve food. This surplus not only contributes to environmental concerns, releasing methane into the atmosphere and bolstering urban rodent populations but also places individualized pressure on residents to participate in composting initiatives. Setting aside the slanted efforts by city governance to facilitate composting, the material limitations of aerobic digestion for compost production and its resource-intensive nature hinder the scalability and efficiency of these measures. This research argues that the existing model of individualized and mandatory composting is unsustainable, inefficient, and in need of optimization. The automation of waste separation, complemented by bioprocessing and energy incentives, presents as a viable solution. Moreover, transitioning towards a closed-loop economy, exemplified by anaerobic digestion facilities such as the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, holds promise for minimizing environmental impact and achieving a zero-waste outcome. 

The U.S. is seeing a wave of unionization as workers unite and levy collective power in labor disputes from universities to auto-plants. In light of this widely documented wave, this research attempts to evaluate labor unions on their effectiveness as a form of resistance to racial capitalism. The epistemological framework of this thesis is rooted in the work of Cedric Robinson, who among other scholars of Marxism, capitalism, and the Black Radical Tradition, have put words to an understanding of our world grounded by its historical path of capitalist expansion, spatialized domination and racialization, and extraction and exploitation in all forms. Through primary, secondary, and media source reviews, this research intends to qualify the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of labor unions, contextualizing their victories and downfalls among other forms of historic resistance and collective organization. 

On August 8, 2023, the town of Lahaina, Maui, was hit with a series of deadly wildfires, evolving into the most destructive and fatal urban-related wildfire in U.S. history. Local residential spaces, businesses, historic infrastructure, and essential town-wide services were completely burnt to the ground – leaving toxic waste, debris, and the destroyed legacy of a once-thriving community on the soil. The contemporary wildfire disaster conveys the imminence of climate-induced wildfires destroying urban areas and my project strives to find solutions for uplifting and rebuilding Lahaina’s shattered community. This project is my “Kuleana,” meaning responsibility in the Hawaiian language, to my home state and the broader affected community – bringing awareness to ecocide and urban wildfire destruction, with an emphasis on community resilience, climate change, and historic preservation of the deep-rooted Hawaiian culture and residing people (Kānaka Maoli). Through the utilization of research methodologies in press and social media, maps, other wildfire case studies, and qualitative data, I accumulate possible solutions to physical, cultural, and social redevelopment in Lahaina, whilst looking toward the future of infrastructural and community resiliency measures. This case study analysis provides a raw glimpse into the unfolding issues and unclear future of Lahaina, only months after the wildfire blaze.