SAFER (French Land-Use and Rural Settlements Corporation) would greatly appreciate receiving information from governmental officials, persons in academia, and persons serving in the non-profit sector, regarding strategies implemented or proposed which address the problem of incremental or piecemeal urbanization. Municipalities in the more rural areas surrounding Paris are facing the all-too pervasive phenomenon known in France as “mitage,” by which agricultural and natural lands are endangered by the progressive increase of small pockets of illegal or unlawful land uses, including:
- Illegal dumping of waste into the natural environment in such places as rural paths, creeks, streams, fallow lands, and moors.
- The construction or expansion of dwellings and buildings built without permit, in violation of local ordinances, zoning and land use plans.
- The unregulated alteration of land, including forest clearing, fence installation, and infilling.
- Unauthorized settlements of trailers, bungalows and other make-shift housing.
SAFER may find it useful to compare how the problem of piecemeal urbanization has been addressed in the Seattle area, the Puget Sound region, the State of Washington, and/or the Pacific Northwest. Please feel free to email solovylaw@earthlink.net to provide SAFER with information regarding local or regional methods of addressing piecemeal urbanization.
Vanderbilt University offers a 1-year residential fellowship for a scholar interested in participating in a broadly interdisciplinary seminar entitled, “Telling Stories: Modes, Media, and Meanings.” The fellowship pays a stipend of $50,000 and offers additional benefits. The seminar is co-directed by Vanderbilt University faculty members Laura Carpenter (sociology) and Catherine Molineux (history).
This is a broad call for scientifically-sound research and practice projects that will develop information, test strategies, and provide evidence that can be used by communities to enhance their resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change, severe weather, and major environmental disasters, such as oil spills, in ways that also improve well-being. Grants will support the development of research and practices that focus on the human dynamics of resilience, specifically, in projects that enhance community resilience and well-being by accounting for the influence of social, cultural, and health factors on a community’s capacity to adapt and thrive as part of efforts to mitigate and respond to the adverse impacts of climate change, severe weather, and major environmental disasters.
Markets for Good is launching two new grant programs focused on the role of digital data and infrastructure to improve decision-making in philanthropy (particularly individual giving) and in the social sector writ large. Grants will be awarded for two types of projects: scholarly research and practical innovations. These aim to support research, prototypes, and shared learning that can help donors and social sector organizations use digital data safely, ethically, and effectively to improve their work.
Multivariate analysis aims to summarize and describe patterns among multiple observed characteristics. This course provides a theoretical introduction and practical skills to carry out multivariate analysis methods such as cluster analysis, principal components, factor analysis, and latent class analysis.
Prerequisites: SOC 504-505-506 or equivalent
For inquiries, please contact Elena Erosheva at erosheva@uw.edu.
Discover the detailed social, economic, and housing statistics that the American Community Survey (ACS) provides for every community every year. You will learn about basics of the yearly estimates and datasets produced from the ACS, resources available on census.gov/acs, and how to access ACS data products through a variety of tools, with special emphasis on American FactFinder.
Join the Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) fellows as they present the findings from this summer’s ten-week intensive DSSG program. The fellows and their mentors have been working diligently to come up with solutions to urban-focused issues related to poverty, transportation, unsafe food, and much more.
CSDE Affiliate and UW associate professor of Sociology Alexes Harris continues catching eyes with her research on the troubling role fines play in the criminal justice system. Her findings, chronicled and explained in A Pound of Flesh, have far-reaching social implications. They suggest that the current fee system is capable of instigating and worsening violent interactions between police and civilians, particularly civilians of color. The latest media outlet to take note is none other than The New Yorker–check out their apt write-up below.