Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Placemaking And Placewashing In Manhattan's Chinatown: Capitalist Vs. Community Interests, Mary Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the late 1890s, there have been internal and external placemakers in Manhattan’s Chinatown. They take the form of city government, real estate developers, and community organizations vying for space, and seeking to define what this neighborhood should be, for whom it should serve, and how it should look. Sometimes these would-be placemakers operate with neoliberal goals and overt orientalist and/or racist views. They push those narratives through via media representations and as a tactic to attract tourism, but with little regard for how it affects the community. In this work, I examine connections between historic ideas of placemaking and …

Equivision Habitat: The Collective Dreamworks, Shixuan Zhou

Masters Theses

近年来，武汉这座充满活力的城市在经济快速增长的同时，也经历了重大的社会变革。城市的天际线不断扩大，新的商业和住宅区正在迅速涌现，吸引了更多的中产阶级家庭。作为武汉的长期居民和观察者，我看到了这种向中产阶级社会转变的诱惑力，但我也敏锐地意识到随之而来的社会成本。武汉向中产阶级社会的转变不仅体现在消费水平的提高和生活方式的转变上，更重要的是，体现在城市空间和社区角色的重新配置上。曾经为低收入居民提供住房的旧社区正在被改造成高端公寓和商业空间。虽然这种转变改善了城市的整体形象，但也导致了原住民的流离失所。这种深刻的变化凸显了中产阶级化的双刃剑性质。在这种背景下，我开始关注那些被这一进程边缘化的人的声音和需求。老年居民失去了熟悉的社区环境，年轻人尽管渴望加入新兴的中产阶级，但仍在为高昂的生活成本而苦苦挣扎。这种日益加剧的社会分层，让我深刻反思了城市更新的公平性和可持续性。本文提出了一种基于集体所有权和通过社区土地信托进行管理的社区模式。这种模式将土地所有权从个人转移到社区集体，确保开发活动优先考虑社区的长期福利，而不是短期的商业收益。其目的不仅是提供经济适用房，还旨在培养一个具有共同愿景的社区，探索在城市发展的同时维持社会多样性和包容性的方法。

Fluid Futures: The Revitalization Of Yangzhou Through Its Historical Waterways, Feiyang Wu

Masters Theses

In China, cities such as Yangzhou, which in pre-modern times played central roles in the political, cultural, and economic functioning of the country based on their geographic location, proximity to water-based trade routes, and connections to the imperial court, are today facing uncertain futures due to waterways no longer being critical to trade, and government-driven development being focused on first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. With this, the working-age population migrates from smaller cities toward these urban giants, leaving behind aging relatives, a less robust and diversified economic base, and few attributes other than cultural tourism that …

America, Dreaming., Sarah Meftah

Masters Theses

There is a version

of America

that exists

only in dreams,

a kind of folklore,

shrouded in images,

technicolor interiors,

wrapped in plastic,

ghosts of recent past

to haunt and guide;

a constant reminder.

Wishful thinking

a constructed imaginary,

one I can hold in my hand.

Popular culture and spectacle, America and the domestic ideal, capitalism and the collective unconscious of a national identity. As an artist, I am interested in the myriad images that manifest for a viewer when they think of the spectacle of American pop culture, its domestic archetypes, and the material worship it revolves around. My …

Windows Of The World: Postmodern Urbanism In Los Angeles And Shenzhen, Calvin Horning

Senior Theses and Projects

This work draws upon the ideas of Edward Soja and other spatial theorists to compare the postmodern urban development of Los Angeles and Shenzhen, China. Both cities have undergone rapid growth and become major urban metropolises, offering potential paradigmatic forms for contemporary urban studies. The thesis is based on the ideas of the LA School of Urbanism, of which Soja was a part, and reviews the school’s collective case for Los Angeles as a paradigmatic city for the postmodern age. This work then compares this account of Los Angeles with Shenzhen, a city that has risen from nothing to one …

Assessing Equitable Distribution Of The Urban Tree Canopy At The Neighborhood Scale In Greenville, South Carolina., April Riehm

All Theses

We are living in an era that necessitates adaptation and resilience. The Earth is warming. Our climate has changed (EPA, 2016). Our planet is also rapidly urbanizing. It is predicted that 68% of people will live in cities by 2050. The City of Greenville is a rapidly growing city in South Carolina that has been losing its tree canopy to development(City of Greenville, 2023). The Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) is a community asset that provides many quality-of-life benefits including improved air quality, stormwater management, carbon sequestration, mental and physical well-being, increased mobility and access, aesthetics, a reduction in energy costs, …

Quantifying Hurricane Effects On Housing: Evaluating Damage, Loss, And Shelter Demands Using Historical And Simulated Storm Tracks, Adish Deep Shakya

All Theses

This research introduces an advanced framework which employs parametric wind field models for peak wind speeds, and building fragility curves, loss functions, and demographic data to estimate for estimating housing damage and loss. The uninhabitable units immediate displaced households, short-term and long-term shelter need households are determined. with a particular focus on those eligible for FEMA assistance. The framework's validity is reinforced by a high correlation in the analysis of recent hurricane events between estimated numbers of displaced households and actual FEMA aid recipients, where FEMA aids about 20-60% of the predicted long-term displaced households. A novel application of the …

Towards Sociobiogeochemistry: Critical Perspectives On Anthropogenic Alterations To Soil Nitrogen Chemistry Via U.S. Urban And Suburban Development, Christopher D. Ryan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The ecological impacts of changes to land use are relevant to concerns about climate change, eutrophication of waterbodies, and reductions in biodiversity. As a foundational component of ecosystem functioning, changes to soil biogeochemistry have significant effects on overall ecosystem health. With cities continuing to grow and develop in extent, the impacts of urbanization and suburbanization on soils are of particular concern. Despite a wide range of natural climatic and geologic conditions, several factors have driven similar patterns of land transformation and management across the United States. In particular, federal initiatives including the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration, …

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

A Tale Of Two Working Landscapes, Sage C. Sutcliffe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

East End Eden: The Gentrification Of Portland’S Munjoy Hill, Katharine Kurtz

Honors Projects

This thesis explores the gentrification of Munjoy Hill, a neighborhood on the northeast end of Portland, Maine from 1990-2024. Once the industrial hub of the city filled with factories and an industrial shipping port in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Munjoy Hill is now the most desirable neighborhood in the city with expensive, high-end condos, water views, ocean access, and hip restaurants and breweries. I argue that Munjoy Hill’s industrial past and strong connection to the local environment has made it unique, however the recent gentrification also makes Munjoy Hill a place that resembles, gentrified neighborhoods in cities around …

From Greens To General Plans: Reinventing Abandoned Golf Courses, Chloe Carolyn Partain

City and Regional Planning

This paper examines three case studies from different areas of the western United States to analyze the challenges and opportunities associated with redeveloping underutilized or abandoned golf courses. By examining how different communities from across the region have approached this process, this study aims to inform city planners, developers, policymakers, and other stakeholders about the intricacies and potential pitfalls of this process. It concludes with a list of necessary considerations for the redevelopment of any golf course and recommends best practices to follow throughout the process of redevelopment.

Prioritizing Climate Equity: A Qualitative Analysis Of The Massachusetts Mvp Program, Noah H. Gordon

Masters Theses

The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program (MVP Program) has funded Community Resilience Building workshops in hundreds of communities over the past 6 years. The Planning Reports produced by these workshops offer valuable insight into the climate adaptation and climate justice priorities of Massachusetts municipalities. Climate justice literature holds that the impacts of climate change will be disproportionately felt by marginalized communities, and those addressing climate change should address the risks faced by those communities, referred to as Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities in Massachusetts. Using an inductive qualitative coding approach, this study analyzes 30 Planning Reports from towns with High, Medium …

Cohabitation X Adaptation, 2100: A Climate Change Epoch, Kyle Andrews

Masters Theses

Some seventy-seven odd years in the future, the world as we know it will only be recognizable by those who are willing to accept it. The bustling metropolis of Boston Massachusetts has been transformed to appease the tides of Mother Nature as a consequence of human intervention. In the decades prior, humanity viciously fought to contain the effects of climate change, until many realized the colossal undertaking of such a battle. Municipalities across the globe had begun to accept that fighting the earth was no longer an option. Instead, the only hope forward was to adapt to a reality in …

City As Cemetery, Siqiao Zhao

Masters Theses

The traditional funeral service industry has enormous environmental and financial costs. In contrast, green burial, and Natural Organic Reduction (NOR), accelerate the human body’s degradation and reduce toxic substances in the land, assuming responsibility for our burden on the earth. They provide a gateway between us and the processes of nature and ask us to set aside self-consciousness to accept our oneness with the universe. By gifting our bodies back to the earth, where decomposition enriches soils and nurtures the growth of other life forms, we honor those who have transitioned to another state by continuing the cycle of renewal. …

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

Public-Ish, Aliah Werth

Masters Theses

Climate change affects public space, and architecture must establish tenets that prioritize pedestrians in this difficult era. Greywater re-use can be a mechanism for creating shade, and in turn, public space.

As heat waves grow more intense, the vast swaths of asphalt that connect commercial zones pose greater risks to public health and to urban vitality. This thesis records the typical material, spatial, and lived conditions of strip malls in urban heat islands, and demands more from infrastructure in public-ish space.

Heat violence weaves through Los Angeles’ built form. Parking space minimums, required setbacks, and height restrictions pull buildings away …

Making Pla(Y)Ces: Softening The City Through Play, Shivani Pinapotu

Masters Theses

Cities that grow naturally over time integrate spaces of gathering that allow for serendipitous happenstance. However, the cities we design today instruct and codify through intentional planning and design; they assign use, hardening specific function to place. Such strategies lead to spaces devoid of spirit, inculcating in city-dwellers to a sense of disconnect from the city.

In contrast to this, the places we make as children, express our intuitive, direct, and unselfconscious relationships with space and one other. These spaces embody softness through their malleability and adaptability, borrowing from the world around them and imbuing the ordinary with imagination. …

A Feminist Approach To Solutions In Urban Development, Lourdes Yessenia Gracia Cantu

Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering: Sustainability and Development Capstone Projects

Are there ways of occupying space and producing places that somehow contest, challenge, and problematize the dominant modalities of organization, of space and place?

A Feminist Approach to Solutions in Urban Development presents an exploration and proposal of a more equitable and diverse urban design that guarantees the use of public space as a place for economic development. With a focus on the recent theory and social movement concerning the impact of the built environment on women, children and older adults, urban feminist, comes across as a participatory planning process that ensures the involvement of multilevel agendas, to react and …

10 Minute City -Reinventing Ways To Move Around The City Via Scooter, Emily Melchor

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Urban sprawl is an issue that many major cities in the United States are experiencing. The population rise in cities has contributed to their rapid growth, increased traffic, pollution, and the reliability on cars. These issues can slowly be tackled by addressing them in areas that are on their way to reaching the height of urban sprawl. An example of such an area is Gwinnett County located northeast of Atlanta. Gwinnett County is on its way to becoming one of Georgia’s most populated counties, according to MARTA Transit System. MARTA did such studies on Gwinnett because in 2018, MARTA along …

Springdale Arkansas' Form-Based Code: Analyzing Urban Dispositions, Nate Cole

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Springdale, Arkansas, has witnessed population growth, public and private development, and interest from stakeholders throughout the Northwest Arkansas region in the past six years. The impetus for this case study is the rapid urbanization of Springdale, catalyzed by the adoption of a downtown Form-Based Code in 2017. The study analyzes four projects representing a range of typologies and uses, selected from many new and upcoming projects in the FBC area. Utilizing multiple techniques to present each project's spatial and social characteristics, the study presents these nuances and provokes further discussions. A literature review covering complexity and complex adaptive systems supports …

Perceived Safety And Equitable Access: An Investigation Of The Northwest Arkansas Regional Greenway, Jessica Shearman

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

In today’s world, designers, planners, and policymakers are grappling with conflicts of climate change, habitat loss, and increasing diversity all during a migratory trend towards urban areas and higher densities of living. Creating public spaces that are both resilient ecologically and environmentally, while also creating a sense of place is essential for providing a higher quality of life equitably for all citizens. Through case studies and literature review, the public’s safety perceptions when accessing public spaces is key to equitable access. Specifically, differing perceptions of safety based on gender, race, and backgrounds. Perceived safety can be defined as an awareness …

Historic Downtown Streetscape Plan Price City, Utah, Patricia Beckert

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The idea of a small-town Main Street has profound meaning within the American culture that has prevailed for the past two centuries. Historically, Main Street serves as the beating heart of a community, a place where economic, social, cultural, and civic activities are centered (Francaviglia, 1996; Main Street America, n.d.). Since the beginning of the 19th century, many factors have led to the decline of Main Streets, and despite a variety of efforts from different stakeholders, that decline has only intensified in recent decades (Isenberg, 2008; Orvell, 2014 Howard, 2015). In 1980, after a three-year project conducted by the National …

Planning, Preserving, And Increasing Accessibility: A Reflection On Going “Car-Free”, Abigail J. Weizer

City and Regional Planning

This paper studies the accessibility of car-free areas to those with mobility impairments by examining three car-free and car-lite experiments in California. Whether slowly converted to car-free with long-term, careful planning, or expeditiously changed to car-free during the COVID-19 pandemic, these three car-free experiments show the shortcomings of planning for accessibility in car-free spaces, and how instead of improving accessibility, current planning practice often hinders it. This paper offers a deep-dive into the drawbacks and benefits of going car-free and the ethical and legal reasons why urban planners, designers, and policymakers must consider the accessibility of a space before planning …

Bicycling For Sustainable Urban Mobility: Comparing Urban Transformations In Paris And Bogotá, Luba Masliy

Pomona Senior Theses

Promoting cycling is one of the low-hanging fruits to decarbonizing transportation, with further extensive benefits to quality of life. The main deterrent to the adoption of cycling for transportation is the lack of safe and connected infrastructure. This thesis explores and compares the case studies of Paris and Bogotá, where cycling modal shares grew significantly within the last decade. Plans outlining ambitious goals around sustainable transportation were put in place, and total bicycle network lengths increased rapidly in both cities. My work focuses on examining policy and infrastructure developments that lead to increased adoption of cycling over time in Paris …

Quantifying The Carbon Stored And Sequestered By The Trees On Pomona College’S Campus, Paola A. Giron-Carson

Scripps Senior Theses

We are experiencing a climate crisis that must be confronted with strategic mitigation. Pomona College contributes to the climate crisis through its emissions for which there is a baseline record. However there is no baseline record of the climate mitigation currently performed by the trees on Pomona’s campus through carbon storage. This study seeks to determine a current baseline quantity of carbon stored and sequestrated by Pomona’s trees as well as possible courses of climate mitigation for Pomona College to take. Initial information gathering was conducted through interviews with several stakeholders. This study was conducted using data collected prior to …

From Building To Dwelling: Unfolding Infinity Through Bioregional Fulfillment, Sanjana Bhatnagar

Pitzer Senior Theses

The causes of anthropogenic climate change touch every feature of our modern-day existences. Approaches to sustainability tend to focus on material actions, but unsustainable practices are guided by an ontological orientation of individuality and human exceptionalism. This thesis provides an alternate account of being that decenters individuality through weaving the metaphysics of Fazang of the Huayan School of Mahayana Buddhism with the metaphysics of Martin Heidegger. To encompass the whole of the relational network that constitutes and conditionally defines our existence, I expand Heidegger’s account of locales as relational sites which are put forth solely by humans to an account …

Growing Pains: Toward A Coalition-Based Theory Of State Land Use Policy, Patrick Rochford

Honors Projects

In the decades following World War II, mass suburbanization remade the American landscape. While suburbs accounted for 83% of the nation’s growth between 1950 and 1970, cities bled their populations and natural resources dwindled. Treating the postwar era as a critical juncture, this thesis examines the political history of twentieth-century state land use policy to illuminate how competing interests have shaped policy outcomes across the United States. Specifically, the paper seeks to explain the passage of statewide growth management and smart growth programs. After providing a history of American suburbanization, the paper considers an emergent challenge to the postwar growth …

Energy Efficiency Retrofit And Decarbonization Of Old And Historic Buildings In California, Daria Nikolaeva

Master's Projects and Capstones

Buildings are responsible for almost 40% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and the retrofitting of existing buildings is an essential part of solving the problem. About 75% of buildings in Californian were constructed before the first energy-efficiency building code was adopted in 1978. Old buildings are inefficient, responsible for large carbon footprints and must be retrofitted to stay on track with the state's climate targets. However, current policies do not require substantial changes and tend to favor historic preservation over energy efficiency, missing improvement opportunities. Recognizing the significance of carbon intensity, the 2019 California Energy Efficiency Action Plan shifted …

Nexuscapes: A Landscape Approach For A Transdisciplinary Water-Energy-Food Nexus Decision-Making Process, Fortino Acosta

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study develops a reliable transdisciplinary framework for complex ecological and social systems by characterizing, mapping, typifying, assessing, and testing enhanced water-energy-food nexus scenarios under critical time constraints, specialized skills, or sensitive data accessibility. Detached management of limited essential resources like fresh water, reliable energy from renewable sources, and nutritious food can jeopardize regional economies and governance. Using a novel landscape approach, this study recommends a decision-making the framework focused on the circular economy that induces collaboration among diverse sectors and brings strategic coordination, specificity, and magnitude to the proposed solutions. The study elaborates on a decision-making tool that integrates …