Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Health And Healthcare: Designing For The Social Determinants Of Health And Blue Zones In North Nashville, Rebecca Tonguis, Honor Thomas, Olivia Hobbs

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Owned by North Nashville’s First Community Church, a now empty site in the Osage-North Fisk neighborhood of North Nashville has been identified as a potential site for a new location of The Store, in addition to a community-centric architectural development based on the social determinants of health and informed by the principles behind Blue Zones, the locations with the highest lifespans in the world. Opened by Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley, The Store is a free grocery store that “allow[s] people to shop for their basic needs in a way that protects dignity and fosters hope”, for which North Nashville …

Amtrak Staples Mill Station: Strategic Vision Plan 2023, Daniel S. Longest

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

This plan proposes the replacement of the current Amtrak Staples Mill Station with a new facility designed to incorporate civic art, multi-use development, and fast and easy train boarding. Drawing on successful examples like Union Station in D.C. and Main Street Station in Richmond, this plan encourages stakeholders to adopt a strategic vision for the station and its vicinity as an asset to the region. An independent commission with equal representation from state agency representatives and residents would enact these improvements through a public-private partnership, including a transit-oriented development scheme for adjacent land.

Integrative Sonic Urbanism: Artist-Led Strategies For Urban Sound Design In The Contemporary City, Sven Anderson

Doctoral

This doctoral research advances the fields of urban sound design and acoustic planning, presenting new ways of exploring the interrelationship between individual and collective sonic experience, the dynamic potential of the urban sound environment and the complex evolution of the contemporary cityscape. It links urban sound art practices with larger urban design processes, revealing how sound contributes to the production of urban space. The research progresses by crafting a dynamic, integrative methodology that activates contrasting sonic perspectives to critically reassess the role of sound in the public realm. As it discloses this methodology, the research navigates the tension between new …

Counter Institution: Activist Estates Of The Lower East Side [Notes], Nandini Bagchee

New York State City & Regional

In the midst of current debates about the accessibility of public spaces, resurfacing as a result of highly visible demonstrations and occupations, this book illuminates an overlooked domain of civic participation: the office, workshop, or building where activist groups meet to organize and plan acts of political dissent and collective participation. Author Nandini Bagchee examines three re-purposed buildings on the Lower East Side that have been used by activists to launch actions over the past forty years. The Peace Pentagon was the headquarters of the anti-war movement, El Bohio was a metaphoric “hut” that envisioned the Puerto Rican Community as …

Canvas And Catalyst: Reinventing Urban Space, Ricardo A. Borges

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

As an intervention strategy set amid a stark and neglected, yet highly energized urban setting of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this project seeks to relieve a stagnating urban condition through the introduction of contemporary and dynamic forms of expression. Skateboarding and street art can be seen as interpretative modes of action that reinvent objects, spaces, and conditions within the urban landscape, lending creative and engaging gestures to the everyday. As (sub) cultural expressions in their own right, these practices transcend their mere formal representations, and present unique identities, spaces, and modes of engagement within a society, initiating a creative mindset and DIY …

Space Inventory And Preliminary Marketing Recommendations, Umass Amherst Center Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

This report was designed to assist further economic development of Gloucester, Massachusetts’s working waterfront and downtown commercial district. This market and economic development plan was meant to provide the Gloucester Community Development Office with some key ingredients for the success of their overall economic revitalization plan that was being prepared for the entire city.

Designing The Cityscape, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"A new structure has recently been erected in the Providence downtown, and criticisms of the building's design continue to fly. An editorial in these newspapers, for example, referred to the 'failed example of quickie construction with a outsized Erector set.'"

Accepting The Townhouse Idea Requires New Attitudes, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"To change actions is easy; to change attitudes is more difficult. This is a truism that one finds whether one deals with race relations, sexual equality or ethnic stereotypes. It is also true in housing."

Farewell To The Bucklin Bldg., Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"How does one write an obituary for a building? Does one concentrate on its architecture and long history, or does one single out the actors and forces which killed it? The current razing of the Bucklin Building can only bring sadness to the heart and the need to express, in a few, final words, a tribute to a fine and familiar structure."

Momentous Decision: Capital Center Project, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"It may very well be the most important decision facing Providence in this century; it would provide new commercial space approximately one and one-half times that found in the present downtown; it would remove black and ugly 'dead' space (parking) from the foot of the state Capitol and replace it with acres of greenery and enhanced riverfront; it would provide better access into the downtown and facilitate the east-west flow of traffic; it would drastically alter the focus of the downtown; and it would greatly increase the tax base of the capital city. The Capital Center Project, with its proposed …

Downtown Buildings That Link Us To Our Past, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"It is sickening and it is sad. A building that has withstood the ravages of time throughout its 103 years of life deserves a better fate; yet there it stands, disembowled and broken by the wrecking ball. The Hoppin Homestead Building on the Westminster Mall will soon be only a memory, and its site will be marked by that ubiquitous asphalt reminder of our automobile addicted age--the parking lot. Is this the cure for old buildings in a downtown that is moving on the road to regeneration?"

Soul City Deserves To Succeed, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream--a dream of equal opportunity and justice for all. An assassin's bullet prevented him from realizing his dream. His friend and well-known leader in the civil rights movement also had a dream--a dream to build a new town in which the injustices of society would be lessened. Today, in the rolling farmland country of North Carolina, Floyd McKissick is working to fulfill his long sought dream."

Parallel For Providence To Consider, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"They have done it here. The Grand Opera House has nearly been restored and it is now the Deleware State Performing Arts Center. A lively activity center located on the recently opened, pedestrianized Market Street Mall, the Grand is serving as a major focal point in bringing life back to downtown Wilmington."

New Office Building Is Good News, But Questions Of Planning Raised, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"The latest piece of news concerning a possible new office building for Providence is just another example of the renewed interested in the downtown of Rhode Island's capital city. Revitalization, resurgence, renewwal--call it what you will--there is no question that the prognosis for the ailing city center is excellent and the "patient" is now on the road to recovery.

Impressions Of Providence, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"A recent Letter to the Editor of this newspaper pointed out part of the problem of our capital city. Whether one agrees with the writer or not, it is important to consider what he said because this is the image of the city which he carried away with him."

Time To Appoint A City Artist, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"During the past several weeks, while Providence's new mayor has been sorting out priorities and charting new directions for the first new administration in a decade, a plethora of suggestions has been advanced for ways to make Providence a better place in which to live."

New Towns: A Peek At 1984 In Britian, Ken Parker

Smolski Texts

What's the world, and specifically the United States, coming to in the matter of housing and community life?

At least a partial answer, maybe even a portent of 1984, may lie in a municipality concept described recently by Chester E. Smolski, associate professor of geography at Rhode Island College.

New town, the name generally given to the concept, is familiar, but to most people, the details are vague. Professor Smoslki recieved a grant from the National Science Foundation in 1968 to go to England for a year to study new towns.

New Town: We Can Learn From This British Venture, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"In 1946 when Lewis Silkin, Minister of Housing, approached Stevenage, then a quiet village of about 6,000 residents 30 miles north of London in the lovely rolling Hertfordshire countryside, he must have suspected that the villagers were not particularly anxious to hear him speak. The sign in the railway station had been changed to Silkingrad by some of the disgruntled villagers and before he was to leave he found the tires of his car deflated and some sand in the petrol tank. Stevenage was the first "new town" designated under the New Towns Act of 1946 and the Minister was …