In spring of 2023, the United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published an alarming report about the impacts of loneliness in America, significantly labeling loneliness as an “epidemic” of fatal impact. As a mitigation technique, Dr. Murthy advised a national response of several steps, with the first one being to improve existing local social infrastructure, such as libraries and parks. To better understand how this mitigation technique can help reduce loneliness rates, my research aims to ask: Is the number of social infrastructures in a neighborhood predictive of loneliness in vulnerable populations in Seattle? To answer this question, I am composing a composite loneliness index scale based on 13 vital social factors, measured in the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which have been shown to be predictive of loneliness. I am then mapping each Seattle census tract’s loneliness categorical rating, as well as libraries (from a Seattle Public Library dataset) and parks (from a Seattle Parks and Recreation dataset) to understand whether proximity to these social infrastructures can predict a lower score on this new scale. The broader aim of this project is to assess the spatial relationship of social infrastructure and loneliness in a major city so that public officials can identify vulnerable locations where social infrastructure is needed to address this epidemic. Ultimately, my goal is for this project to be replicated in other major cities so that other city governments can identify the geographies that are more prone to loneliness in their city and enact appropriate mitigation responses.

This research aims to address the lack of qualitative inquiry into the lived effects of banishment zones to address street sex work in urban criminalized contexts. Sex work is highly stigmatized, with stigma being the primary driver of discrimination, poor health, and harm to mental health for sex workers (Bateman, 2021; Lazarus et al., 2012; Armstrong, 2019). Relatedly, spatial exclusion through banishment zones renders the lives of the most vulnerable more precarious, also harming mental well-being (Becket and Herbert, 2010). The Seattle City Council recently reintroduced legislation to create a Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution (SOAP) zone in Seattle, WA along Aurora Avenue as a punitive measure to curb street prostitution occurring in public spaces. If buyers of sex, pimps, or street sex workers enter this 60-block zone, they can be arrested for violating a SOAP order and face incarceration for up to a year, and fined up to $5,000. Although the legislation seeks to target the buyers and solicitors of the sale of sex, the “end demand” approach perpetuates harm, conspiring that “immodest” women are the cause of social ills (Bateman, 2021). This study proposes a qualitative research design employing semi-structured interviews with community members involved with organizations supporting Seattle’s street sex workers to explore how the reintroduction of the SOAP legislation is felt by the affected sex workers. The proposed research seeks to fill the existing gap in understanding the confluence of spatial exclusion and street sex work within a criminalized context like Seattle, WA. 

This project explores the geography of social dance spaces (such as nightclubs) and their geographic and social responses to gentrification. Social dance spaces serve as critical sites for empowerment, self-expression, and the embodiment of identity, particularly for systematically marginalized communities, including queer and BIPOC individuals. By exploring the spatial distribution and socio-cultural significance of these venues, this research seeks to contextualize how these spaces contribute to and are affected by the gentrification and neighborhood change since the turn of the century. Through a combination of historical contextualization and qualitative interviews, the study emphasizes how life surrounding the outside of the gathering spaces, shapes the life inside these spaces. This methodology will not only showcase the physical geography of the locations in response to changes in the city over time, but also the internal meanings assigned to the spaces while these changes are happening. By looking at both the internal and external geography of these gathering spaces through ethnographic analysis, I will be able to induce information on how this approach reveals the ways in which the geographies of dance spaces both reflect and challenge dominant urban narratives, highlighting their role as counter-hegemonic sites of resistance and identity formation. By situating these venues within their broader historical and geographic context, the research provides insight into how urban spaces intersect with narratives of inclusion, power, and community belonging.