Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Determining The Effect Of The Presence Of Food Deserts On The Number Of Crashes In Census Tracts In Arkansas, Lizbeth Juarez-Bartolo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Food deserts, areas with limited access to grocery stores which sell fresh produce, dairy, and meats, are a growing concern in many communities. The presence of a food desert is known to cause great impacts on the physical health of the people residing within them, but there is little to no research on a food desert’s influence on the traffic safety of the location in which it encompasses. Based on previous studies into food deserts, studies suggest that food inaccessibility is mostly felt by rural residents. Since rural residents must travel farther distances on more hazardous rural roadways to access …

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 …

The Future Of Urban Technology: Exploring Smart Cities And Transportation Through Game Theory And Scenario Planning, Matthew Wilson

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Technological innovation is occurring at a rapid pace in the world of personal devices. This trend of change has not been able to occur as fast in the city infrastructure. Consumers are curious about the next generation of technology and the integration of artificially intelligent technology in transportation and the urban fabric. In this project, I study the motivations and values of a set of characters involved in the integration and innovation of Smart City Technology. These characters create potential future scenarios of the city from their actions and reactions to specific decisions.

This body of work can provide a …

Retrospective Analysis Of Impacts Of Highway Bypass And Widening Projects, Sanjeev Bhurtyal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community members often worry that highway projects may have negative impacts on their local economies. This is typical for highway bypass and widening projects in small cities (population less than 50,000). It is a challenge for planners to balance public concerns of economic decline with desired project outcomes of mobility and safety. Much of this challenge stems from a lack of information on post-project outcomes related to economic and safety impacts of new construction projects. Thus, there is a need for an evidence-based framework to help planners with the decision-making process and better inform the community on potential outcomes. This …

Spatial Assessment Of Urban Growth In Cities Of The Decapolis; And The Implications For Modern Cities, Wade A. Pierson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Levant’s Decapolis was a network of ten cities in Greco-Roman Israel, Jordan, and Syria that established a thriving economic community. The Decapolis was home to ancient and modern cities like Damascus (Dammásq) and Amman (Philadelphia). Despite the various origins of these cities, Roman administration and their city planners oversaw the implementation of idealized Roman city form throughout the region. Three Decapolis cities represent intriguing examples of the larger confederation. Philadelphia (Amman), Gerasa (Jerash), and Gadara (Umm Qais) represent cities of common original urban form which developed drastically diverse urban morphologies over time.

Spatial analyses of these cities required working …

A Methodological Framework To Evaluate Community Perceptions Of Economic And Safety Impacts Attributed To Highway Bypass And Widening Projects, Karla Diaz-Corro

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Transportation practitioners have proposed the construction of highway bypass and widening projects in rural communities to address traffic-related problems that include noise pollution and congestion, among others. In the past, the construction of bypass projects has led community residents to raise concerns about potential decreases in business activity for businesses located along the bypassed road. For transportation organizations, it is essential to understand the economic, social, and safety impacts of transportation projects in terms of public perceptions as public input is a required part of the project planning phase. Moreover, it is recommended that agencies perform retrospective analyses of project …

Gentrification And Income Segregation In Fayetteville, Arkansas, Willie Benson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gentrification and income segregation are both poorly understood phenomena in terms of their causes and effects as is the relationship between the two topics. Even less is known in the context of small cities and over the time period spanning the last few decades. In this study public data from the U.S. Census, the American Community Survey and the Washington County Assessor's office has been used to measure economic gentrification in Fayetteville, Arkansas using an index based on property values and median rent prices and how much they have changed between 2000 and 2015. Then, using U.S. Census and American …

Discovering Synergies Among Sustainable Rating Systems In Green Roof Analysis, Kanaan Hardaway

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

As awareness has grown of the impacts the built environment has on the natural environment and the human psyche, methods to create more sustainable living environment have been developed. Green infrastructure is well-known for its environmental benefits. Emerging literature suggests green infrastructure have aesthetic qualities conducive to mental restoration, as well. To analyze the multi-benefits of green infrastructure, a green roof is studied for its aesthetic qualities and its impact on LEED, SITES, and WELL certification. A questionnaire was administered to individuals on the University of Arkansas campus to quantify human perceptions and attitudes toward a green roof on a …

Suitability Assessment For Integrated Urban Development In Makkah City Of Saudi Arabia, Mislat Alotaibi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Makkah – the third most populated city in Saudi Arabia with a population of 1,684,408 according to the 2010 demographic survey conducted by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics – is experiencing urban sprawl, which can be defined as an unplanned urban expansion that might degrade the environment and diminish the aesthetic view. This is a persisting problem in Makkah driven by multitude of processes involving the random expansion in its undeveloped land and the removal of its historic mountains surrounding Al-Masjid Al-Haram (the Holy Mosque) in an attempt to push the city limit of urban capacity within its administrative …

The Image From The Road: Towards Mapping The Phenomenological, Rachel Anna Smith Loerts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An area of focus, used in early and contemporary forms of cognitive geography research, is the ‘cognitive map’, a concept that suggests “that people hold a map-like database in their minds to which they can add and use to tackle geographical tasks”. Kevin Lynch, an urban planner in the 1960s, was an early adopter of the cognitive map approach to reveal spatial cognition, what or how people see their environment, specifically cognition of the urban environment. Lynch’s research aimed to develop empirical methods, to identify how people make spatial relationships. Contemporary tools like machine learning are now considered relevant for …

The Effects Of Crystal Bridges In Downtown Revitalization Of Bentonville, Arkansas In The Last Decade, Korab Vranovci

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bentonville started the process of downtown revitalization in 2007 after they passed a bond measure. However, research on the impacts of the revitalization and the factors associated with it is limited or focused for the private sector. This study identified Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as a catalyst for the process of downtown revitalization and aimed to fill the gap in urban development and economic opportunities that arose due to the museum.

Using the “Monitoring annual urban changes in a rapidly growing portion of Northwest Arkansas with a 20-year Landsat records” (Reynolds, Liang, Li, & Dennis, 2017) it is …

The Urban Morphology Of Northwest Arkansas: A Geospatial Analysis, Jason Mccollum

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on the impacts of transport infrastructure is limited, and most of it is either focused on

rural areas or on developed areas before modern geospatial technologies were available. This study aimed

to fill this gap in transport research by providing a holistic look at the regional changes that occurred due to

new transport infrastructure construction in Northwest Arkansas between 1980 and 2011.

The National Land Cover Database was used to create a time-series of land cover across the

region between 1992 and 2011. These data were then used to predict future growth in the region.

Additionally, growth patterns of …

Malaysian Shophouses: Creating Cities Of Character, Ashley Wagner

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

As a developing country, the urban landscape of Malaysia faces the same trends as many other cities worldwide: modernization at a rapid and unchecked pace. Due to the demand for new infrastructure and buildings, many vernacular building types are rapidly disappearing from the urban fabric, among them the Malaysian Shophouse. The shophouse was a common building style for over a century from 1840-1960s and is perhaps a typology of a previous era. Yet it offers many lessons on creating a city that embodies the character of the culture, the antithesis of the anonymous modern city. At its most basic program …

Impromptu Domesticity: Housing Adaptations By The Marshallese In Springdale, Ar, Kera Lathan

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study analyzes the relationship between people and their spatial environment through the lens of cultural practices and experiences. By using theories of cultural identity and activity patterns to compare spatial usage in two differing circumstances, this study will help to better understand the spatial needs of Marshallese living in Springdale, Arkansas.

The analysis uses two in-depth interviews to establish a base of qualitative data to understand the unique needs of this specific population. Through constructs such as spatial fluidity, sharing culture, and ability to adapt to new spatial practices, the two cases are compared to one another in order …

Transitional Urban Voids In Austin, Texas, Courtney A. Tarver

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

A city’s urban fabric is constantly evolving through development and decay under the fluctuating rates of habitation. Cities are growing rapidly as populations climb higher, with new demands for the incoming waves of people seeking employment and a place to call home. Austin, Texas is the fastest growing American city today, with a population growth rate of three percent per year. With this growth and its demands for open space, open spaces in the form of urban voids and temporary use spaces become an interest to designers as spaces with flexibility. The approach of this thesis is to understand these …

Factors Affecting The Sustainability Of Public-Private Collaborations At The Municipal Level: The Case Of Motorcycle Rallies, Anne Burgin Diallo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban public-private collaborations promoting large-scale tourist events are increasingly common. The incentive to collaborate, for urban policy-makers, is the perception of the opportunity for economic development, and yet little is known about factors contributing to the sustainability of such urban cross-sector collaborations. The dissertation accomplishes three objectives. First, it combines resource dependence theory (RDT) and goal congruence theory (GCT) to extend our understanding of how collaborating organizations align their respective organizational goals and manage their interdependencies in complex, urban, inter-sectoral, environments. This is accomplished through use of complementary factors from each theory. Second, using qualitative methods, the research applies RDT …

A New Hope? A Critical Assessment Of Gentrification And Hope In Memphis, Tennessee, Daniel Russell Gadeke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gentrification is the manifestation of the Social change within urban residential neighborhoods as a result of uneven development in cities. These gentrification processes are a contextually dependent phenomenon, which vary both spatially and temporally when compared betwixt cities. Since the 1990s, local and state governments have developed more creative discourses for the promotion of gentrification which have overshadowed the positive outcomes of gentrification. The adoption of neoliberal policies has attacked many forms of the Keynesian welfare-state, most notably federal public housing. The United States’ Department of Urban Housing and Development’s (HUD) initiative Homeownership Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) emerged …

Comparative Geomatic Analysis Of Historic Development, Trends, And Functions Of Green Space In Kuwait City From 1982-2014, Yousif Abdullah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research assessed green space morphology in Kuwait City, explaining its evolution from 1982 to 2014, through the use of geo-informatics, including remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and cartography. This research examined archival and contemporary satellite images that show the distribution, size, amount, and type of green spaces in Kuwait City, within the framework of its surrounding urban, exurban, and suburban expansion, and landuse change. Through this integrated analysis, it was found that green space growth passed through three main stages: Early Stage, Growth Stage, and Stable Stage.

This study also examined the effective use of public parks and …