The paper presents a model of the market for commercial or industrial real estate at the local level that is used to derive an equation for the property tax rate that maximizes tax revenue – given that demand for real estate at the local level is highly elastic and capital is mobile in the long run.
The Ecological City: Metaphor versus Metabolism GCP-07-05
In this study – a textual and visual analysis – I look at the ways the term “ecology” has been used to motivate western-style modernism in a global context and to prescribe and advance design decisions based largely in formal, compositional, and stylistic assumptions.
Preparing Adolescents to Read-To-Learn in the 21st Century GCP-07-03
This paper explores ways to remedy adolescents’ failure to acquire reading-to-learn skills and explains the importance of being able to understand texts from diverse disciplines in order to be successful in the professional workplace and enhance overall life chances.
Optimal Leverage in Real Estate Investment with Mezzanine Lending GCP-07-02
The paper presents a theoretical analysis of the optimal leverage for the purpose of investing in real estate under the condition that borrowing in excess of a standard amount such as 70 to 80 percent of the purchase price must be accomplished through a mezzanine loan with a high rate of interest.
Does Form of Fiscal Governance Matter: Fiscal Practices and Outcomes in Chicago Suburbs GCP-07-01
This paper explores the extent to which government performance varies between traditional council-mayor structures and reformed council-manager structures. Little research exists on the linkage between type of government and financial management practices outside of budgeting or performance measurement.
Urban Aesthetics and the Excess of Fact GCP-06-05
The “excess of fact” describes the complexity and crowded nature of un-staged photography, where many factors aside from the single subject interact to create meaning. This essay examines the ways in which three modes of “excess of fact” in urban life—echoes, encounters and exchange—create an urban aesthetics. Taking back the right to the city and dialogic occasions are explored in this discussion of the construction of meaningful urban existence.
The New Chicago School – Not New York or L.A., and Why It Matters for Urban Social Science GCP-06-04
Michael Dear et al's "LA School" builds on a critique of the old Chicago school. This paper extends the discussion by incorporating broader theories about how cities work, stressing culture and politics.
So called Girl-on-Girl Violence is Actually Adult-on-Girl Violence GCP-05-03
As arrests of girls for violent offenses rose in the 1990s, public concern about adolescent girls’ aggression grew around the notion of girl-on-girl violence. This research briefly explores that idea and argues that young women are indeed experiencing violence, but not necessarily from each other, as much as from the effects of racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and poverty.
Marketing Safe Sex: The Politics of Sexuality, Race and Class in San Francisco, 1983 – 1991
This paper explores the growth of two AIDS organizations in San Francisco: the San Francisco AIDS Foundation started in 1982, the largest AIDS service organization in the city and one of the largest in the nation, and the Third World Advisory Task Force (TWAATF), a community based organization formed in 1985 to focus attention on AIDS in communities of color to understand both the evolution of AIDS prevention work as well as how that process elucidates the larger political landscape of the 1980s.
From Daley to Daley: Chicago Politics 1955 – 2006 GCP-06-03
In the past fifty years Chicago has been transformed socially, economically, governmentally, and politically.