Significant Stake Research Articles

Conical Intersections at Interfaces Revealed by Phase-Cycling Interface-Specific Two-Dimensional Electronic Spectroscopy (i2D-ES).

Conical intersections (CIs) hold significant stake in manipulating and controlling photochemical reaction pathways of molecules at interfaces and surfaces by affecting molecular dynamics therein. Currently, there is no tool for characterizing CIs at interfaces and surfaces. To this end, we have developed phase-cycling interface-specific two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (i2D-ES) and combined it with advanced computational modeling to explore nonadiabatic CI dynamics of molecules at the air/water interface. Specifically, we integrated the phase locked pump pulse pair with an interface-specific electronic probe to obtain the two-dimensional interface-specific responses. We demonstrate that the nonadiabatic transitions of an interface-active azo dye molecule that occur through the CIs at the interface have different kinetic pathways from those in the bulk water. Upon photoexcitation, two CIs are present: one from an intersection of an optically active S2 state with a dark S1 state and the other from the intersection of the progressed S1 with the ground state S0. We find that the molecular conformations in the ground state are different for interfacial molecules. The interfacial molecules are intimately correlated with the locally populated excited state S2 being farther away from the CI region. This leads to slower nonadiabatic dynamics at the interface than in bulk water. Moreover, we show that the nonadiabatic transition from the S1 dark state to the ground state is significantly longer at the interface than that in the bulk, which is likely due to the orientationally restricted configuration of the excited state at the interface. Our findings suggest that orientational configurations of molecules manipulate reaction pathways at interfaces and surfaces.

Transforming and Reforming the Indian Education System with Artificial Intelligence

India’s growing economy and population proves its significant stake in the Artificial lntelligence (AI) revolution. India's education and technology sector has grown exponentially over the last few years, particularly in times of Covid-19 pandemic but owing to various reasons, it is accessible to only one in four students in India. AI has proven to be of benefit to all stakeholders alike by (a) enhancing teachers' efficiency and effectiveness in managing Multi Levelled or Multi Graded Learning Units and enabling automated development of customised teaching content; (b) using Intelligent Tutoring Systems to tailor the learning materials to a child's level of competence, style and pace of learning for improving student interactivity and attention rates; and (c) for effective teacher posting and transfer systems and predicting likely student activities such as dropout rates in government schools. The research provides a comprehensive review of the rigorous inclusion of Al in India's education sector through various policy measures. According to the findings, Al increases the efficiency of grading and encourages critical thinking and analytical skills among students. Further studies can assess effective integration of AI with educational practices and policies to increase learning needs.

The importance of self-management for better treatment outcomes for HIV patients in a low-income setting: perspectives of HIV experts and service providers

BackgroundSelf-management is the most important strategy to improve quality of life in patients with a chronic disease. Despite the increasing number of people living with HIV (PLWH) in low-income countries, very little research on self-management is conducted in this setting. The aim of this research is to understand the perspectives of service providers and experts on the importance of self-management for PLWH.MethodsA systematizing expert interview type of qualitative methodology was used to gain the perspectives of experts and service providers. The study participants had experience in researching, managing, or providing HIV service in east and southern African (ESA) countries. All the interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and translated to English. The quality of the transcripts was ensured by randomly checking the texts against the audio record. A thematic analysis approach supported by Atlas TI version 9 software.ResultPLWH face a variety of multi-dimensional problems thematized under contextual and process dimensions. The problems identified under the contextual dimension include disease-specific, facility-related, and social environment-related. Problems with individual origin, such as ignorance, outweighing beliefs over scientific issues, low self-esteem, and a lack of social support, were mostly highlighted under the process dimensions. Those problems have a deleterious impact on self-management, treatment outcomes, and the quality of life of PLWH. Low self-management is also a result of professional-centered service delivery in healthcare facilities and health service providers’ incapacity to comprehend a patient’s need beyond the medical concerns. Participants in the study asserted that patients have a significant stake in enhancing treatment results and quality of life through enhancing self-management.Conclusion and recommendationHIV patients face multifaceted problems beyond their medical issues. The success of medical treatment for HIV is strongly contingent upon patients’ self-management practices and the supportive roles of their family, society, and health service providers. The development and integration of self-management practices into clinical care will benefit patients, their families, and the health system.

Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation: The Case of Western Province, Sri Lanka


 
 
 Sri Lanka, as an island and developing nation, is highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Occurrences of natural disasters due to extreme weather conditions such as prolonged droughts, flash floods and landslides deprive lives and livelihoods of people. Building resilience of vulnerable communities and ecosystems over climate change effects within a broader framework of sustainable development remains the country‘s priority. The Western Province is one of the nine provinces of Sri Lanka. It is the most densely populated Province in the country and is home to the legislative capital Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte as well as to Colombo, the nation's administrative and business center. The Province is located in the southwest of the country and has an area of 3,684 square kilometres and 5,821,710 people. It comprises of three administrative districts; Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara. The Western Province provides the highest contribution to the Gross Domestic Product contributing 41.2% of the Provincial Gross Domestic Product (PGDP), the highest being the service sector (56.5%) followed by Industrial sector (34.6%) and then agriculture (1.7%). With regards to the climate change impacts, the most significant ones for the Province are recurrent flooding as a result of an increase in average rainfall coupled with heavier rainfall events, increase of the minimum temperature and thus the decrease in the difference between maximum and minimum temperatures and also sea level rise as certain parts of the Province borders the coast. The key vulnerable sectors of the Province are food security which comprise of agriculture (including both crops and livestock) and inland fisheries; water resources which includes both drinking water and irrigation, coastal and marine, ecosystem and biodiversity, human settlement and infrastructure, tourism and health. In addition to these sectors there are cross cutting sectors which includes policy, legal, economic and governance, Institutional development and coordination, International cooperation and partnerships and research and development which have a significant stake to the magnitude of impact. Among the adaptation interventions the following are being implemented/proposed for implementation; Climate Smart agriculture/practice and other alternative agricultural systems, increase storage capacity of water, rational management of water distribution and use, collection of data on the endangered/to be extinct/vulnerable fauna and flora due to climate change and protect them, conduct research including citizen research to identify the changes in biodiversity due to climate change, integration of climate change impacts into new and already prepared development plans and construction of salinity barriers. Most of these interventions had been included in the implementation plans of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) by relevant agencies which is in accordance with the Paris Agreement (2015) and submitted to the and the submission of the revised NDC to the UNFCCC with the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers in the country. However, the full implementation of same requires to improve the capacity in institutions including human resources, finances and technological interventions which needs urgent attention.
 Keywords: Climate change, Adaptation, Western Province, Impact, Vulnerability
 
 

Stronger together on the way to rapid RFID growth

The Fedrigoni Group, a global producer of speciality papers for luxury packaging and other creative applications, self-adhesive labels, graphic media for visual communication and RFID solutions, has acquired a significant stake in BoingTech. With the acquisition, the fifth this year, the group continues to diversify it´s premium product offering.

DEALING WITH THE TALIBAN: NEW DELHI’S PREDICAMENTS

Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan (August 2021), the issue of its legitimacy has troubled the international community. However, this has not stopped ‘revisionist’ powers such as China and Russia from engaging with them. With the consolidation of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, it is evident that New Delhi may have little choice but to grudgingly accept that this oppressive regime is here to stay. This article delves into the reasons behind New Delhi’s choice to participate in “back door diplomacy” and reassess its stance on the Taliban. This article argues that external actors will largely limit India’s influence in Afghanistan. It further suggests that despite New Delhi’s humanitarian approach towards Afghanistan, there is no assurance that the Taliban will respect India’s larger diplomatic goals and national interests. Importantly, the Modi administration must be able to convince its Hindu support base and the opposition parties that working with the Taliban would benefit India in the long run. Given the multitude of factors at play, the significant stakes involved, and the “instability” in the region, New Delhi may face considerable challenges in managing its ties with the Taliban.

Von Beispielen lernen. Der Mensch und das Nicht-Menschliche

The paper argues that examples are not only used as rhetorical support for a presented general thesis but also circulate without explanation (whether or not with a hidden agenda). We often encounter particulars (persons, cases, situations, stories, etc.) that only with time assume the meaning of an example of something. Learning from so encountered examples is a lengthy process, based on recognizing serious and significant stakes (often related to essential structures of human life) reflected within them, resulting in i) the ability to trace significant connections to other particulars and ii) acting upon this recognition. It is disputable whether i) and ii) are intrinsically connected. The elusive nature of learning from examples – the difficulty of deciding whether learning has taken place – is illustrated using the example of environment-related actions.

Is Your Degree Worth It? Education-Job Transferability and Job Satisfaction of ICT Workers

Education-job match is known to affect employee job satisfaction, as well as their intention to leave the role. Job satisfaction is a critical part of an employee’s motivation to remain loyal to and employed within a company. However, ICT sector faces significant skill gaps, driven by college education lagging behind ICT employers’ expectations of job skills and experience needed in practice. This article hypothesizes that perceived effectiveness of ICT education in learning job skills (“education-job transferability”) in ICT industries can enhance employee job satisfaction and reduce employee turnover. Using a unique dataset extracted from the Labor Force Survey of ICT Workers in South Korea, this article empirically examines the status quo of education-job transferability in ICT industries and its impact on job satisfaction. This article reveals that ICT education is perceived as less effective for learning job skills than other disciplines’ education. Moreover, a significant stake of ICT graduates plan to do vocational training, suggesting that higher education is not enough to secure ICT-specialized jobs. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that an education-job transferability enhances employees’ job satisfaction and reduces their intention to leave their current jobs. This article suggests that education-job transferability in Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) industries has a long-lasting effect on both employees and employers, by enhancing employee job satisfaction and potentially mitigating employee turnover.

Water and Food Sustainability in the Riparian Countries of Lake Chad in Africa

Lake Chad is a strategic water resource shared by more than 40 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the 1960s, it served as a primary source of water for irrigation and fishing in the region, but the capacity of Lake Chad to supply water for irrigation plummeted by 90% at the beginning of the twenty-first century. With some initiatives taken by the neighboring countries, Lake Chad has recovered about 5% of its water volume in recent years. This research conducted an extensive literature review on Lake Chad and its riparian countries. The four major riparian countries were given particular attention due to their significant stake in the sustainability of lake Chad. This review identified and analyzed the water usage trends in this region, both before and after the lake’s decline in water levels. Our research findings revealed that riparian countries around Lake Chad have experienced an 80% increase in population growth and that the lake has now been reduced to 10% of its original size in the 1960s. Animal production in the region has increased significantly, too, particularly in Chad, and this increase of over 75% has contributed to the conflicts between farmers and herders in the region. The possible solutions proposed for the restoration of Lake Chad include increased water harvesting activities in the basin, developing a legal framework for sustainable water use, incentive-based policies for stakeholders to mitigate climate extremes events, establishing a joint water administration for the basin, and introducing regenerative agricultural practices with a highly efficient micro irrigation system.

Local’s Participation in Evolving Gastronomy Tourism in Ubud and Beyond

The Ministry of Tourism has chosen Ubud to represent the UNWTO gastronomy destination prototype. The locals' involvement in creating an inclusive gastronomy destination deserves consideration because they have a significant stake and direct role in integrating its culinary characteristics to create a distinctive gastronomy destination. By evaluating the local's readiness and identifying the potential of its gastronomic features, this study seeks to investigate the locals' participation in developing gastronomic tourism in Ubud and beyond. Through interviews with key informants, such as local leaders, governments, organizations, and associated practitioners, and observations, this research determines the level of locals' participation by evaluating their readiness. In addition, interviews with local's representatives at 13 tourism villages in Ubud and beyond, who are members of BUMDes Bersama Gianyar Aman, were also conducted. Data analysis was performed through the Community Readiness Model approach and analyzed using qualitative descriptive analysis techniques. The results showed that the local readiness level is at the fourth stage. Even though it is still in the pre-planning stages, the locals are prepared to develop gastronomy tourism. The leadership dimension is primarily influencing the level of local's readiness. Meanwhile, the dimension of community efforts needs to be improved in responding to local's readiness by increasing involvement in various efforts.
 Keywords: Gastronomy Destination, Local’s Participation, Community Readiness Model, Tourism Village; Ubud.

Cultural Capital: Reflections from a Latin Americanist

<i>Cultural Capital</i>: Reflections from a Latin Americanist

To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. ed. by Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry

Reviewed by: To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. ed. by Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry Erin R. Pineda Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry, editors. To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020. Pp. 464. Paperback, $20.00. In the summer of 2020, as cities across the globe erupted in protest after the murder of George Floyd, references to Martin Luther King, Jr. abounded: while a familiar cast of politicians evoked his memory to scold riotous protestors, others issued King's rejoinder that "the riot is the language of the unheard" (King, "The Other America," 1967). Many such invocations no doubt smacked of the "ritual celebration" and "intellectual marginalization" [End Page 339] that, as Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry observe, have long marked King's reception as a political thinker (2). But in another sense, the seemingly inevitable return to King points to the significant stakes of taking his thought seriously and the political danger of laying claim to interpretive mastery. Struggles over King's legacy and the terms of his thought are not just about King but form part of the discursive terrain on which struggles over the demands of racial justice and the means of transformative collective action are waged. Shelby and Terry's ambitious, illuminating volume, To Shape a New World, first published in 2018 (timed to mark the fiftieth anniversary of King's assassination) and released as paperback in 2020 (amidst the George Floyd uprisings), invites us to take King seriously in just this sense: with an acute sensitivity to the stakes and an embrace of an interpretive pluralism that refuses the certainty of a singular, definitive reading. The collection facilitates rigorous engagement with King's thought in its own time and place but also presses the question of what we ought to do with it in this current "age of impunity and mendacity," standing amid the "unraveling" edges of "American empire," as Cornel West puts it (331). In posing and answering this question across its fifteen essays, the collection seeks to do justice to King as both a political philosopher and a political activist—a religious and political thinker whose philosophies were worked out not only behind the pulpit or within the academy, but also (and perhaps primarily) in concert with others on the field of political action. Indeed, one of its primary contributions is to challenge mainstream presumptions about what counts as political philosophy—its boundaries as a genre as well as the spaces where we imagine political philosophizing to happen and the figures we position as its primary producers. The volume is organized into four sections. The first, "Traditions," is devoted to exploring some of King's diverse intellectual influences. Here, the emphasis is less on making the case for particular traditions as the essential ones, and more on exploring the use of different interpretive lenses for shedding new light on his ideas. Three essays put King in context with thinkers he directly engaged: Robert Gooding-Williams places him in conversation with W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington to reveal the structure of King's account of dignity amid the constraints of racial injustice; Bernard Boxill shows how King's theory of civil disobedience builds on—and collectivizes—Frederick Douglass's account of comparative freedom; and Karuna Mantena explores the theory of nonviolent action that King, through figures like Benjamin Mays and Howard Thurman, adopted and adapted from Gandhi. In contrast, Paul Taylor argues that we should read King in the company of moral perfectionists Stanley Cavell and Christopher Lebron—as showing us how practices of self-criticism, self-transformation, and experimentation enable "citizens to remain dissatisfied with things as they stand" while remaining "open to the possibility that justice will require reconstructing both society and the self" (41). In the next section, contributors turn their attention to King's "Ideals"—the ethical and political imperatives that shape the ends and means of the struggle for a new world. Like Mantena, Martha Nussbaum reads King alongside Gandhi to focus on King's insistence on channeling righteous...

Creating A Reliable Digital Maternal Health Platform Using Maslow's Hierarchy and Nielsen Heuristics

This research seeks to build on previous efforts to serve the needs of expectant mothers in terms of providing effective digital healthcare. The first task in accomplishing this was to determine a list of basic features needed to completely satisfy all key performance indicators and needs of a maternal healthcare website. Once this was completed and each category of the established hierarchy had been addressed, the second task could be approached. This was to ensure the platform’s usability by designing sub features with the Nielsen Heuristics in mind. The result of these tasks is a complete framework for an all-in-one platform powerful enough to assist women through pregnancy. This research is intended for doctors, specifically those interested in the evolving virtual landscape, and other healthcare professionals. We believe these people have a significant stake in the development of virtual platforms and welcome their interest and criticism. The significance of this research lies in its future potential: the actualization of the platform. A sound framework for the feature set has been established, so what follows is the implementation, which will prove useful to doctors and expectant mothers alike.

COMMUNICATION CHANNELS IN INCREASING PATIENT RETENTION AND MARKETING

Every medical expert strives to ensure that their health facility has the highest patient retention rate. Patients and their family caregivers have a more significant stake in the healthcare provision. This paper dwells on research conducted on a section of the population and the results on the impact of communication channels on patient retention recorded. The research was conducted on a population and results were recorded on communication channels on increasing patient communication and retention. This study focuses on explaining how communication channels can improve patient retention and patient marketing. We led an efficient survey of worldwide logical writing and zeroed in on the effect of social correspondence. The examination showed the inadequacies of clinic correspondence through web-based entertainment and recognized improvement techniques to assist people in accomplishing superior personal satisfaction and prosperity. A portion of the propositions made by the patients and family members to further develop network correspondence movement were the accompanying: offering data that was less one-sided for the wellbeing centers' private and public interests; making clinic corporate online entertainment more reasonable; and empowering the figure of the master correspondence proficient in interpersonal organizations and medical care in medical clinic foundations.

South Texas Water Resource Mental Models: A Systems Thinking, Multi‐stakeholder Case Study

AbstractThe Coastal Bend (CB), Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV), and Wintergarden (WG) subregions of south Texas co‐exist in similar socio‐economic contexts but rely on markedly different water sources (CB: precipitation; LRGV: surface water; WG: groundwater). This has led to unique agricultural practices and municipal policies and reinforced mental models adapted specifically to each subregion, both of which are critical to understanding structural causes behind current water use and future water sustainability. To better stakeholder mental models in each subregion, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with individuals with a significant stake in water resource use and management. Results indicated near unanimous consensus among farmers and other stakeholders that water supply is limited and will be increasingly stressed under continued urban population growth. Farmers expressed concern that it will become more difficult to continue farming if additional water resources are not available, while each subregion expressed their own unique concerns: growing bureaucratic oversight and growing population problems (CB), lack of inflows, poor water quality, and international disputes with Mexico (LRGV), and political subdivision, declining groundwater levels, and information technology costs (WG). Mental models were synthesized based on dominant themes expressed by respondents; we synthesized these into two systems thinking archetypes: Tragedy of the Commons and Success to the Successful. Though it is unreasonable to create blanket region‐wide policies, the adoption of under‐utilized conservation practices coupled to stakeholder outreach remains unexplored leverage points, given most stakeholders are unaware of the feedback processes continuing to threaten south Texas water resources.

US investment giants Vanguard Group and BlackRock on the path to establishing a global oligopoly

Vanguard, Blackrock, and State Street, the largest US investment funds, form the Big Three, often referred to as the "Three that own the US". These three financial corporations are intertwined and hold strategically significant stakes in industrial, energy, transport, pharmaceutical, food, information and technology companies, the vast majority of which are multinational corporations themselves. Through dominance in the system of corporate elections, the Big Three, or rather its main protagonist Blackrock, gets the opportunity to "manage the management" of other companies and corporations, and thereby dominate the financial, technological and other global markets, suppress the activities of competitors, establish and spread their value system and influence the economy and politics of the United States itself through the closest interaction with the US Federal Reserve System.

Learning the propagation properties of rectangular metal plates for Lamb wave-based mapping

The inspection of sizeable plate-based metal structures such as storage tanks or marine vessel hulls is a significant stake in the industry, which necessitates reliable and time-efficient solutions. Although Lamb waves have been identified as a promising solution for long-range non-destructive testing, and despite the substantial progress made in autonomous navigation and environment sensing, a Lamb-wave-based robotic system for extensive structure monitoring is still lacking. Following previous work on ultrasonic Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), we introduce a method to achieve plate geometry inference without prior knowledge of the material propagation properties, which may be lacking during a practical inspection task in challenging and outdoor environments. Our approach combines focalization to adjust the propagation model parameters and beamforming to infer the plate boundaries location by relying directly on acoustic measurements acquired along the mobile unit trajectory. For each candidate model, the focusing ability of the corresponding beamformer is assessed over high-pass filtered beamforming maps to further improve the robustness of the plate geometry estimates. We then recover the optimal space-domain beamformer through a simulated annealing optimization process. We evaluate our method on three sets of experimental data acquired in different conditions and show that accurate plate geometry inference can be achieved without any prior propagation model. Finally, the results show that the optimal beamformer outperforms the beamformer resulting from the predetermined propagation model in non-nominal acquisition conditions.

Hydromechanical assessment of a complex landslide through geophysics and numerical modeling: Toward an upgrade for the Villerville landslide (Normandy, France)

The Pays d'Auge (Normandy, France) is impacted by large deep-seated landslides along its coastline. The largest of these landslides, the “Cirque des Graves”, has been studied since the 1980s because of significant stakes in the active zone. To characterize the hydromechanical functioning of the central part of the cirque, which is the most active part and includes the majority of the issues at stake, we performed new investigations that complement prior studies. Through the joint use of high-resolution geophysics (seismic refraction and ERT) coupled with geotechnical knowledge, a geometric model was highlighted on a large profile. Then, the mechanical behavior and slope stability were assessed by finite-difference numerical modeling (FDM) with FLAC2D®. To calibrate the model, a back-analysis was first realized on an eastern profile, for which the geometry and slip surfaces were identified by field surveys. The agreement of the model results on the eastern profile constrained by inclinometry enables a transposition of the geomechanical parameters on the central profile to assess its functioning and to locate the areas subject to mechanical weaknesses. A translational movement was revealed at the upstream end of the landslide, as well as nested roto-translational envelopes in the downstream two-thirds of the landslide. These results allowed robust assumptions with regard to the location of the slip surfaces and the zones undergoing stress-strain. The influence of groundwater was also assessed and discussed with respect to the overall slope stability. This study demonstrates the pros and cons of conventional finite difference modeling, as well as of back-analysis by parametric transposition. The benefits of the joint use of geophysical methods and numerical modeling were also highlighted and discussed.

The main aspects of effective corporate governance at the modern level

The article outlines the main aspects of effective corporate governance, the formation of corporate relations in Ukraine. The main components of modern corporate enterprise management are studied. The problems of modern corporate management of enterprises related to the implementation of control processes are considered. The international experience in corporate governance is analyzed, which demonstrates a solid basis for creating basic principles and provisions for conducting this type of activity. It is proved that for the reliability and legitimacy of economic relations, for the protection and investment confidence of shareholders and their partners, the corporate governance system is obliged to provide full and timely demonstration of information on financial condition, performance, ownership and management. The directions of development of the corporate governance system for the economy of the country in general are determined, and the necessity of partnership relations between the shareholders in particular is considered. It is investigated that the current conditions require the development of an effective corporate governance policy during the global pandemic. To do this, the main tasks must be solved, such as the formation and implementation of a strategic modern system of corporate governance and the creation of conditions for effective interaction between all participants in the management process. It is considered that there is no generally accepted model of corporate governance, which would be used at the international level. It is noted that the vast majority of Ukrainian enterprises use the national model of corporate governance. This model was formed on the basis of a combination of basic principles of the German and Anglo-American models. According to this model, the main shareholders of companies are its employees, management, banks, the state. At the same time, banks remain the main source of funding, and this is more typical of the German model of corporate governance. The domestic model of corporate governance, which also has common features with the Japanese model, namely, a significant role is given to the state in the management process. It is noted that in Japan, the inclusion of government representatives in the system of corporate governance is not based on the presence of a significant stake in the state, as in Ukraine. In the Japanese model of corporate governance, the interaction between the main participants in the relationship is aimed at establishing new business contacts, rather than obtaining the maximum amount of profit It is determined that corporate governance at the current level is a system of relationships that sets up certain procedures for making management decisions. The effectiveness of corporate governance is to increase the level of profitability of the enterprise through the introduction of proper control, effective management and financial transparency.

YIMBYISM, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND THE REMAKING OF RACE AND CLASS COALITIONS IN AUSTIN, TX

AbstractRecently, debates about the future of Austin's housing policies have been reshaped by the rise of a vocal group of well‐organized and self‐styled YIMBYs. In particular, this group has been important in the restructuring of political coalitions that both support and oppose the Urbanist elements contained in the ongoing land‐development code (LDC) reform effort, especially the realignment of mainstream environmentalists. One significant stake in this effort is the fate of neighborhoods closest to the central business district, historically home to lower‐income people of color. We show how the political configuration of the two coalitions represents a major reshaping of longstanding political alignments in Austin and suggest that stalwart alliances are giving way to new ones, both here and elsewhere; yet, these realignments hold little promise for addressing issues of equity, despite the fact that addressing racial inequalities has been a central concern in debates over the LDC on both sides. We note the increasing limits of growth machine theory in accounting for this change for two reasons: (1) changing attitudes among mainstream environmentalists towards Austin's urban redevelopment; (2) the persistence of racial and class differences in shaping the unevenness of Austin's future neighborhood development.