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Time and time again, the residents of Los Angeles have used the promises of the "garden city" and urban agriculture to imagine a way out of the persistent problems of urban life. In the contemporary moment, alternative food system activists are again working to create a cultural movement committed to "slow," local and small-scale community-based urban food systems – which, paradoxically, they are organizing through sophisticated digital tools and global social media. This study argues that, beyond debates over urban diets, food is a lens through which post-industrial imaginaries of an egalitarian digital society are fused with pre-industrial imaginaries of utopian, agrarian communities. The consequence of these entangled visions is a unique set of practices that attempt to inject a sense of radical possibility into an urban geography that is itself the result of decades of struggle over land use, livelihoods, and urban culture. Drawing on a combination of archival research, ethnography, interviews and a survey, this dissertation examines how planners, boosters, government officials, and ordinary citizens have sought to wield food and agriculture in the city as a force to ameliorate the economic, social and ecological alienation that can dominate urban life. This study shows that the political, class and racial underpinnings of urban food movements are far more complex and contingent than normally understood, and the case of Los Angeles reveals both deeply conservative, reactionary moments and unprecedented coalitions emerging to make claims on the right to self determination, health and progressive social change in the city.

PurposeThe US signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020 to alleviate the harsh economic effects of the pandemic and related shutdowns. A substantial part of the bill expanded and increased unemployment insurance payments, where a growing area of research estimates strong anti-poverty effects. The authors examine the effect of these policies on crime.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use new event study and difference-in-differences techniques to estimate the effect of increasing unemployment insurance payments on property crime and violent crime. Then, the authors estimate the effect of expanded unemployment qualification programs on crime. The authors use a rich set of controls including unemployment, contemporaneous policies and mobile device tracking data to estimate the degree to which people stayed at home.FindingsThey find that increasing unemployment insurance payments decreased crime by 20%, driven by a 24% decrease in property crime. The authors also find suggestive evidence that expanding unemployment qualifications decreases crime.Practical implicationsThe authors find a new and substantial benefit of expanded unemployment insurance beyond their antipoverty effects.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that directly examines the impact of the CARES Act on crime.

This article examines the usage of public advocacy techniques by interest groups at the state level. A mail survey of over 400 groups in three states is used to shed light on this phenomenon. Groups across the sample states report a great deal of public lobbying activity. This is true even among groups in South Carolina-a state where such behavior would not be expected. Findings further suggest that the most important indicators of a group's usage of public advocacy techniques are manifest in a group's resources, which include whether the group has a national affiliate, a political action committee, and a large budget. Business-related groups are not frequent users of public advocacy techniques. A group's participation in direct democracy campaigns is shown to be the strongest determinant of its deployment of public advocacy techniques. The presence of direct democracy in a state may therefore provide additional opportunities to engage in public lobbying campaigns. This finding supports Boehmke's (2005) observations detailing the indirect effects of direct democracy.

Scholars have devoted increased attention to the role of interest groups in direct democracy campaigns over the past few years. This study seeks to add to this literature by analyzing data drawn from a mail survey of over 400 organized interests in three states. In particular, I examine how to what extent organized interests utilize tools of direct democracy. Among sample groups, I find that (l) most groups do something relative to direct democracy; (2) group activity varies significantly across states; (3) a group's overall activity varies considerably relative to their involvement direct democracy; & (4) little support exists supporting the notion that economic or business groups are more apt to participate in direct democracy than are other types of groups. In short, I find little evidence of a participation gap among different types of groups in the states relative to the practice of direct democracy. The variation in participation that does occur appears to be most closely related to a group's age & the existence of a PAC. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.

This item is part of the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) digital collection, a collaborative initiative between Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM).

The Middle-Eastern American's experience in the US underwent a dramatic shift after the terrorist attacks of September 11th.