Date of Award
Spring 5-1-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Geography
First Advisor
Marianna Pavlovskaya
Second Advisor
Ines Miyares
Academic Program Adviser
Peter Marcotullio
Abstract
Just as cities have changes, so too have the conversations regarding them. To understand complex phenomena, often one breaks them down into elemental parts. The city is no different. By taking note of these buildings blocks, one is then led into higher order concerns. As the literature shows, these higher order, first order, concerns are denominated by the categorical "labor concerns," and even "housing concerns." In order for scholars to highlight and further their dialogue within their discipline, they draw upon different methods, methodologies, and studies more generally to make a case for the first order concern. This expands the realm of the conversation. Transportation, as this thesis intends to display, functions as a means to an end. This is to say, transportation is seen as a "second order" concern used to validate the "first order concern." This thesis argues that transportation needs to be elevated to the realm of the "first oder." If we elevate transportation to stand independent of the attributive position assigned to it, then the door opens for a rethinking of not only research, and the city, but also policy analysis. It is through this objective that this thesis aims to construct a dialectical way of crafting policy analysis with transportation standing at the helm. This implies seeing a city in all its complexity, in a dialectical manner. This paper utilizes the newly constructed MTA 34th and Hudson Yard line (7-line) as its case study, as a means to think through policy in a dialectical fashion.
Recommended Citation
Klein, Ofir J., "On The Nature of Transportation" (2019). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/458