INTRODUCTION
I joined Cal State LA in 2015 as part of the Geography program faculty. Previously I worked for Wright State University, University of South Florida, Esri, Inc., and the Center for Urban Transportation Research. My areas of teaching focus include urban geography, urban transportation, political geography, geographic thought, and GIS (spatial analysis and mobile GIS); my research focuses on uneven geographical development within the urban space.
For more detailed information about my activities, please see my CV.
If you have any questions about the MA Geography or GIS certificate program, please feel free to reach out!
TEACHING
Theory and capstone courses:
- GEOG 5940: Geographic Thought
- GEOG 4950: Senior Thesis
- GEOG 4900: Research Design
Urban and human geography courses:
- GEOG 5400: Seminar: Urban Globalization
- GEOG 5400: Seminar: Geopolitics
- GEOG 5980: Seminar: Urban Political Ecology
- GEOG 5980: Seminar: Rights to the City
- GEOG 4460: U.S. Ethnic Communities
- GEOG 3760: Urban Spatial Patterns and Processes
Transportation geography courses:
- GEOG 4570: Transportation Geography
- GEOG 4580: Urban Transportation
Environmental geography courses:
- GEOG 3130: Climate Change and Migration
GIS courses:
- GEOG 3690: Fundamentals of GIS
- GEOG 4630: GIS Applications in Urban Planning
- GEOG 4640: GIS Applications in Political Science
- GEOG 4680: Digital Cartography
Introductory courses:
- GEOG 1550: Cultural Geography
THESIS STUDENTS
Completed theses:
- Jason Scott. 2017. "The Deep Rooted Relationship Between Multi-National Oil and Sovereign Nigeria." MA thesis (Geography).
- Nancy Verma. 2017. "Reimagining Urban Development in Tracy, California." MS thesis (Interdisciplinary Studies - Urban Design).
- Victoria Smith. 2018. "Navigating Routes to a Sustainable Urban Transportation System in Los Angeles." MA thesis (Geography).
- Hugo Aguilar. 2019. "Introducing GIS Applications for Land Surveyors at the Port of Long Beach." MA thesis (Geography).
- Kevin Pao. 2019. "The Impact of a National Sport Franchise on Local Urban Communities: Case Study of the St. Louis Rams." MA thesis (Geography).
- Ovidio Alvarez. 2020. "Connecting Guatemala City." MA thesis (Geography).
- Scott Lopez. 2020. "Capital Accumulation with LA Metro's Gold Line Atlantic Station and Future Extensions." MA thesis (Geography).
RESEARCH
My research agenda focuses on uneven geographical development in the urban space. More specifically, I focus on the relationships that lead to our (re)producing spaces of unevenness, particularly economic and sociopolitical inequities, through our interactions with each other and with existing (and emerging) institutions within cities. This research comprises three interrelated strands:
- Urban eco-austerity and the uneven geographical development of socionature, with an emphasis on how perceptions of urban nature, and perceptions of the right of cities to natural resources (such as water), impacts their uneven developments.
- The intersections of urban theming and urban globalization with uneven geographical development, in which the uneven spaces necessary to ease friction of global economic processes are often not visible, but instead exist “beneath” the image of a city.
- Urban global governance and uneven geographical development, in which changing policy relationships between nation-states and city-regions, coupled with extralegal bureaucratic decisions gaining force of law in city-regions, is quietly shifting the sociopolitical spaces in which uneven geographical development is (re) produced.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Bezdecny, Kris. 2021. "Routes of Compromise: Building Roads and Shaping the Nation in Mexico, 1917-1952 by Michael K. Bess (review)." Journal of Latin American Geography 20(2): 179-181. DOI: 10.1353/lag.2021.0034.
Bezdecny, Kris. 2018. "Uneven geographical development and the city: Conceptualizing the fractalization of space." In Bezdecny, Kris and Kevin Archer (eds.) Handbook of Emerging 21st Century Cities. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Bezdecny, Kris and Kevin Archer. 2018. "Conceptualizing the emerging 21st-century city." In Bezdecny, Kris and Kevin Archer (eds.) Handbook of Emerging 21st Century Cities. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Bezdecny, Kris and Kevin Archer, eds. 2018. Handbook of Emerging 21st Century Cities. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Archer, Kevin and Kris Bezdecny. 2016. "'Restoring' Seattle's river: competing conceptions of the Duwamish socionature." In Archer, Kevin and Kris Bezdecny (eds.) Handbook of Cities and the Environment. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Archer, Kevin and Kris Bezdecny, eds. 2016. Handbook of Cities and the Environment. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Bezdecny, Kris. 2015. "Imagineering uneven geographical development in central Florida." Geographical Review 105.3: 325-343.
RECENT AND UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS
| Title | Dates |
|---|---|
| "The Role of Los Angeles as a Global Urban Climate Leader." American Association of Geographers annual meeting, Virtual |
7-11 April 2021
|
| "Teaching Population Geography Using A Christmas Carol." Association of Pacific Coast Geographers annual conference, Flagstaff, AZ | 16-19 October 2019 |
|
"Celebration at 25: Branded Communities as Themed Urban Utopias." California Geographical Society annual meeting, Big Bear Lake, CA |
3-5 May 2019 |
| "Celebration at 25: Uneven Geographical Development in Themed Urban Utopias." American Association of Geographers annual meeting, Washington, DC | 3-7 April 2019 |
| "Cities as Climate Saviors? The Role of Cities in Enacting the Paris Climate Agreement." Association of Pacific Coast Geographers annual conference, Reno, NV | 24-27 October 2018 |
| "Urban Governance and Environmental Justice: The Role of Cities in Enacting the Paris Climate Agreement." American Association of Geographers annual meeting, New Orleans, LA | 10-14 April 2018 |
|
"The Dystopian Consequences to Themed Urban Utopias: The Case Study of Celebration, Florida." Association of Pacific Coast Geographers annual conference, Chico, CA |
25-28 October 2017 |
| Panelist, PST: LA/LA and El Pato Pascual, Globalism, Modernism, and other Dystopias in Latin America/US. | 19 October 2017 |
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
Ph.D. Geography and Environmental Science & Policy
- University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
M.A. Geography
- University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
B.A. History
- Metropolitan State College of Denver, Denver, CO
B.S. Mathematics
- Metropolitan State College of Denver, Denver, CO