An estimated 18 billion dollars’ worth of product is stolen from retail stores each year across the nation, according to the Annual Retail Theft Survey. To date, little research has explored how retail stores and police departments work together to stop retail theft in metropolitan areas. This research examines why and how patterns of shoplifting and retail theft have changed in Downtown Seattle between 2010 and 2015. My study looks at reporting trends by comparing public police data on shoplifting with data from select stores in the retail core of Seattle. Spatio-temporal analysis indicates an increase in the reporting of theft and shoplifting from 2010 to 2015. This study engages with both the police department and the store loss prevention teams to understand the dynamics in reporting trends. Changes in loss prevention policies in stores may reflect recent changes in the reporting of theft by police. Factors contributing to the increase in Seattle shoplifting are discussed alongside the reporting practices for the crime. The findings contrast the police and retail manager’s conceptions of loss prevention strategies and the most beneficial level of police involvement. The results of this research will assist future policy changes for retail stores. Ideally, police departments can also use this research to adjust patrols in areas to prevent future shoplifting crime. More generally, this research contributes to the broader field of geospatial intelligence and crime monitoring, by emphasizing strategies of cooperation.

Boxing has been labeled as a “poverty sport” - a sport that, if successful, allows its competitors to become socially mobile. This study explores the stigma about boxing by asking: Is youth boxing affected by boxing being thought of as a poverty sport? My research studies the youth boxing community to understand how they are recognized by society, how they think they are perceived by mass media, and how this affects who participates in boxing. There is plenty of literature on boxing culture, but there is a gap specifically regarding its youth competitors. This study applied archival research, observational research, and qualitative interviews. The archival research analyzed boxing history, patterns, and media to establish the demographics and societal awareness of the sport. The observational research focused on gyms' geographic location and the facilities used by these athletes. Using qualitative interviews, I examined how boxers see themselves and how they think society sees them. I interviewed various types of people to gain a better understanding of how both boxers and non-boxers perceive the sport as those who are familiar and unfamiliar with it, respectively. I interviewed competitive youth boxers aged 8-18 years old and their guardians, competitive youth non-boxing athletes (e.g. soccer, basketball) aged 8-18 years old and their guardians, coaches of both youth boxing and non-boxing athletes, and supporters of youth boxing (e.g. referees, judges, audience members) from sports competitions and facilities in the King County area. The relative invisibility of youth boxing programs may be due to their low funding, little outreach, or restricted hours of operation, but this research revealed how the stereotype that boxing is explicitly for the poor has created the identities of youth boxers.

This study explores the contemporary state of immigration to the French Polynesian island of Tahiti and its influences on the indigenous people and the environment. Environmental issues are very important for Tahitians, for whom the land – te fenua – is a symbol of life and a source of pride. After reviewing historical and current immigration policies to the island, I found that Tahitians, being isolated and relatively homogeneous, are far more welcoming to tourists than they ever have been to settlers. Immigration to the island of Tahiti is strictly controlled to preserve resources and the indigenous ways of life. I conducted a 3 week survey, in both French and English, to understand the current sentiments of the indigenous population with regards to new immigrants and their impact on the environment. Survey was done online and it targeted only people living in Tahiti, 18 years of age and older using snowball and convenience sample collection methods. Survey responses, through a relatively small sample, still reveal complex perceptions on the part of the locals towards immigrants, people of different beliefs, religions, and races, as well as the connection between immigrants and the environment and the economy. Overall, this study emphasizes the ways humans are connected to each other and the environment, and how such connection might impact an environmentally fragile place. The results could be a platform for recognizing the impact immigration has on land and people, but also be a step closer to finding a balance between the old and the new.

This study provides an economic and cultural comparison between Shanghai and Tokyo as global cities. Shanghai aims to be a city as influential as Tokyo, a city that has been the center of Asia for decades. Yet, is it possible? What are the disparities between the two cities economically, politically and culturally? This research is comprised of two parts. First, archival research is used to describe and contrast the historical development of Tokyo and Shanghai. Second, I compare the economic and cultural development of the two cities over the last two to three decades. Reviewing the literature on global cities and global city rankings, helps me establish a deeper understanding of the global cities hypothesis, which has also been critiqued. Following the global cities literature, I compare metrics of 1) advanced producer services production, 2) economy, 3) international transportation of people and goods, and 4) political and cultural influence. These are the key evaluation criteria based on the global cities hypothesis. Findings indicate that most of the economic indicators for Shanghai show a significant increase over the past three decades, while those of Tokyo have mainly stabilized. The economic disparities between the two cities has significantly decreased. However, Tokyo shows much stronger global influence through cultural communication and political position, in which Shanghai performs unexceptionally. There has been a lack of research and literature in the application of global cities theory in Asian cities. This study provides urban geographers and other social scientists with a comprehensive comparison between the two major Asian cities on economics, culture, and politics, which examines the credibility of the heavily critiqued global cities theory in a broader global community.

The Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) was built on Tacoma’s Commencement Bay-Nearshore Tideflats, a hazardous Superfund site containing arsenic, lead and other contaminates. A Superfund site is any land in the United States that has been contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a priority for cleanup because it poses grave risks to human health and/or the environment. While the area was only cleaned up to heavy industrial standards, the NWDC today is one of the largest immigration prisons in the country holding up to 1,575 people at any given time. Some people are held for many months or years, separated from their families and their lives, subjected to ill treatment, and forced to live on a Superfund site. How and why are immigrants fighting to stay in the US housed in an area that is not zoned for human housing? This study is a site genealogy using archival research, looking at environmental impact statements from the EPA, city land use permits, and other documents as well as in-depth interviews to map how this site came into being. Using critical race theory and abolition ecology, this paper explains how state actors subjected people of color to harm, in particular through their exclusion of the public comment and non-resident classification. It examines the planning and expansion of this facility, as well as the implications that neither state agencies nor community advocates can examine site conditions. Rather than signal a lack of a problem, this means that it is structurally impossible to know the depth of the problem. Study findings can inform advocacy work in how stakeholder communities are constituted and what role they can play in planning processes.

The Black Lives Matter movement is arguably the most popular social movement of the twenty first century. Black Lives Matter protests and rallies have occurred in almost every major city in America. Scholars from all disciplines have examined the movement on the national and global scale. However, very few academics dare to explore Black Lives Matter operating on the local scale and if it works towards community development. In the small, previously segregated and historically black neighborhood the Central District, Seattle, Black Lives Matter shapes into a movement against gentrification at the intersection of 23rd and Union. Swallowed by aggressive development and rising property taxes, the Central District utilizes Black Lives Matter to combat racial displacement brought on by gentrification. My research investigates if the Black Lives Matter movement informs politics on race and gentrification on 23rd and Union, Central District. The research structures a theoretical framework around new urban social movement theory, critical race theory, gentrification, and growth machines and regimes to understand if Black Lives Matter works to combat white supremacy rooted in the built environment. My study goes beyond understanding systems of power through qualitative methodologies. Local residents are not simply framed as victims of the local white elite but as members of a community resisting displacement. Semi-structured interviews served as a platform for local residents to reshape the geographic imagination of the Central District. In addition, a cognitive mapping project reflects Central District residents’ sense of territoriality and preserves local knowledge. Shifts in residential population are measured using Markov Chains and displayed at the block and block group levels. My research fills gaps within the discipline of geography by intersecting race, gentrification and social movements.