Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Towards Net-Zero Energy Communities: Evaluating Capacity Of Local Comprehensive Plans For Energy Efficiency In Oregon, Nan Zhao

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

While energy-related issue is conventionally recognized as a large-scale issue to human and natural environment, few researches directly focus on local-level policies and strategies on energy efficiency. This thesis mainly aims to explain how to establish Net-Zero Energy Communities (NZECs) in the respective of local planning and policy. Based on the innovation adoption theory and key factors of NZECs, this study firstly establishes a practical protocol to assist local jurisdictions to develop high-quality local comprehensive plans (LCPs) to promote the development of NZECs. Then, through assessing the capacities of LCPs for local energy efficiency in Oregon, the strengths and weaknesses …

Mixed Method Collaboration In The Built Environment, Dermot Kehily

Conference papers

The built environment discipline or inter-discipline is a relatively new field in academic research. Its subject matter however is based on the traditional disciplines of the construction and property industries. Determining your ontological position and epistemological approach based on the researchparadigm of one of these fields’ may not provide an adequate solution to your research objectives.This paper outlines that framing your research within the broader confines of the built environment; drawing from related fields in an integrated manner may provide a more successful outcome.Arguments whether the built environment is an academic discipline or even the range of subjects thatmake up …

Restoration Of A Declining Inner-Ring Suburban Area: Lamar-Collins, Arlington, Texas, Ashley Shook

Planning Masters Professional Reports - Archive

Inner-ring suburban revitalization and redevelopment is a growing challenge in the United States as downtowns and outer-ring suburbs receive increased investment. Greenfields in fringe cities offer less construction obstacles and more return on investment for private sector developers leaving inner-ring suburbs behind. Additionally, with aging infrastructure and housing stock, declining population, increasing crime, and regional competition for investment, inner-ring suburbs face mounting difficulty toward recovery. One neighborhood at a time, these first-tier suburbs encourage investment from within and outside of the community through various planning techniques, some for successfully than others. Adding to the mounting obstacles is the misunderstanding of …

Pedestrian And Bike Planning: Downtown Of The City Of Granbury, Tx, Saraswati Bhandari

Planning Masters Professional Reports - Archive

Walking is the fundamental form of transportation system. The mode of transportation plays a vital role in the physical form of the city. Before innovation of the automobile, cities were planned in a compact form, and anyone can cross the city by foot. But, innovation of the automobile has brought a drastic change in the urban form and the mode of transportation. Cities started to develop without sidewalks and people were forced to use automobiles. Due to energy consumption, environmental concern and household expenses on automobile, auto culture has been a costly mode of transportation. So, urban planners have developed …

Residential Square In The 21st Century: Applying A Typology To Create A New Urban Morphology, Elizabeth Whittington

Architecture Thesis Prep

"As a low-rise high-density mixed-use typology, the reconsideration of the residential square can provide a new urban morphology that densifies residential zones, while providing safe public spaces. In addition, I assert that through its combination of juxtaposed functional uses, unit typology the language of the façade, the historical European residential square, can articulate the identity of residents."

Housing Indeterminacy: Responsive Design For Diverse And Changing Households, Mark Sousa

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This project hopes to create a new outlook on the future of housing design. Ray Forrest wrote, “The pace of demographic change need not be that dynamic to outpace the capacity of markets or states to provide appropriate dwellings in appropriate locations. […] Dwelling placement or adaptation is always likely to lag.”2 The preceding statement reflects the belief that housing is static and rigid, and that dwelling replacement or major structural adaptation is necessary to accommodate a continually evolving population. On the contrary, responsive housing can release significant pressure on housing systems by anticipating change and providing a lower cost …

Los Osos Strategic Design Plan, Fall 2012, Crp 341 Urban Design Studio

City and Regional Planning Studios and Projects

In the 2012 Fall Quarter, Cal Poly City and Regional Planning Department’s Community Design Lab worked with the community of Los Osos to develop design proposals for four different areas within Los Osos and for general wayfinding and circulation within. The design areas were: Baywood, South Bay Blvd, Los Osos Valley Road East and Los Osos Valley Road West.

Sustainable Water Management On Brownfields Sites, Ryan Fenwick, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

This practice guide was developed by the Environmental Finance Center Network (EFCN) through the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities program funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the US Environmental Protection Agency. Through a cooperative agreement with HUD, EFCN is providing capacity building and technical assistance to recipients of grants from the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an interagency collaboration that aims to help towns, cities, and regions develop in more economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable ways.

Inclusive Excellence: Compilation Of Information, David Conn

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Developing A Restorable Wetland Index For Rainwater Basin Wetlands In South-Central Nebraska: A Multi-Criteria Spatial Analysis, Zhenghong Tang, Xu Li, Nan Zhao, Ruopu Li, F. Edwin Harvey

Community and Regional Planning Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

It is always challenging for decision makers to prioritize wetland conservation programs at the landscape scale. This study employed a GIS-based multi-criteria spatial decision support tool that identified locations with the highest restoration potential for wetland conservation programs in the Rainwater Basin in south-central Nebraska. Five indicators were considered to assess wetland restoration potential: (1) Vegetation characteristics; (2) Soil characteristics; (3) Water volume released from hydrological modification of agricultural irrigation pits; (4) Topographical depression status; and (5) Habitat condition. The results suggested 192 (1.6% of the total) hydric soil footprints as the highest prioritized locations for future wetland restoration programs. …

Drinking Water Resource Directory, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

This document is intended to help local and regional planning agencies, and their constituent water utilities, integrate drinking water infrastructure planning and investments into plans for sustainable development. Resources listed here provide guidance on making land use decisions that protect water resources, setting adequate and sustainable drinking water rates, controlling water loss, funding water infrastructure projects, and managing water utilities.

The directory was developed by the Environmental Finance Center Network through the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. Through this program, EFCN is providing capacity …

Connection Through Discontinuity: Tactical Urbanism In Yongsan, Du Young Yoon

Architecture Thesis Prep

No abstract provided.

Forum Contemperanueus: Re-Connecting Society Through Public Interaction, Jonathan Bruno

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This new typology will serve a great social significance

in any city it is placed in. Its ability to gather and withhold a

large number of people is its fundamental importance. Today’s

society has lost its interactivity. Through digital technologies,

more and more of us are glued to smartphones, laptops and

tablets. If this trend continues without any intervention, it will

result in us living “along together.” The public forum was the first

feature of any and all forms of “civitas” for thousands of years.

We are responsible for bringing this urban feature back to our

contemporary cities before it …

Brazoria, Texas: Water Park Feasibility Study, Institute Of Urban Studies

Institute of Urban Studies Publications - Archive

No abstract provided.

Understanding Land Use Grain: An Evaluation Of Meaning And Measurement, Benjamin N. Williams

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Land use grain is a commonly-used measure of the mixture of land uses in the urban environment in transportation planning and public health, but there is no standard measurement practice in place. This thesis examines the meaning and common measurements of land use grain in these subfields. The entropy-based equation, the jobs-to-housing ratio, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) are among the most common measures of land use grain, but results from these metrics differ depending upon how researchers choose a sample area and upon how land use categories are defined. All three metrics are performed, in a single context with …

The Self-Conscious Gentrifier: The Paradox Of Authenticity And Impact Among "First-Wave Neo-Bohemians" In 2 Changing Neighborhoods, Naomi Bartz, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Gentrification has been a major factor reshaping North American cities for at least four decades, as well as a vital concern of sociological research. In recent years, there appears to be an increasing awareness of the process among contemporary gentrifiers themselves. This self-conscoiusness is significant on two levels: (1) it is unanticipated by or at least unaccounted for in much of the canonical literature on gentrification, having only recently gained acknowledgement (most notably work by Brown-Saracino that explores aspects of a particular type of self-aware gentrifiier); (2) it is complicating the way many gentrifiers or would-be gentrifiers frame and actively …

Planning For Crime: Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design In Bishop Arts District Neighborhood, Oak Cliff, Dallas., Sharmila Gurung, Ardeshir Anjomani

Planning Masters Professional Reports - Archive

There is a lack of emphasis in the planning world, both academically and in the field, on preventing crime. Defensible Space and Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) has been the two main approaches taken by planners and criminal justice officials that is design-based and that has brought some level of collaboration between the two professions. This study analyzes the built environment of select crime hotspots in the Bishop Arts District Neighborhood from a design-based crime prevention perspective in order to draw correlations between high crime areas and elements of design-based theories. Using GIS software, crime map is plotted to …

Zoning Barriers To The Implementation Of New Urbanist Land Use Principles In Lincoln, Nebraska, Rachel K. Jones

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Euclidean land use regulations that segregate different kinds of uses from one another can present significant barriers to achieving the land use-related principles of New Urbanism on a foundational level. This research evaluated the zoning ordinance of the city of Lincoln, Nebraska, with a special focus on the Community Unit Plan and Planned Unit Development processes, in order to determine its openness to mixed housing and mixed uses, using a combination of policy analysis and Geographic Information System (GIS). It was found that a number of Lincoln’s zoning districts as well as a significant amount of land are restricted in …

The Leadership Of Sustainable Cities: A Multiple-Case Study Of Two Oregon Cities, Kenneth L. Weaver

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In order for cities to become more sustainable it is necessary for the leaders of the efforts to change the organizations and governments so that they understand and embrace what it means to be more sustainable. This study examined the change processes of two Oregon Cities, Corvallis and Eugene, that had made the choice to become more sustainable as a community. The approaches that the participant leaders used demonstrated the use of different ways of thinking about the leadership of change. The ways of thinking of the community leaders were formed by their unique personal backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and abilities. …

Narrative Processes In Urban Planning: A Case Study Of Swamp Gravy In Colquitt, Georgia, Ronald David Pate

Dissertations and Theses

In 1990 many in Colquitt, Georgia considered themselves to be a dying town due to the loss of jobs and outmigration that occurred when labor intensive farming transitioned to the machine. In response citizens brought in a theater director from Chicago who helped them launch a performance series of inclusive stories that were acted by local volunteers. The resulting series called Swamp Gravy has run from 1992 to present (2012), and has led to purported claims of community revitalization. The purpose of this study was to discover what this ongoing narrative community engagement meant to the people of Colquitt in …