Digital Commons Network^™

Emotional Experience: An Exploration Of Reestablishing The Connection With Nature Through Novel Street Tree Planning In Providence, Ri, Xiuyan Qin

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the causes of the unprecedented disconnection of humans from nature experienced in modern society. To improve this disconnect, this proposal seeks to place the street tree at the intersection of nature and culture through urban installations that intensify urban sensory experiences. By strengthening human sensory perception, promoting stewardship through diverse participatory planting plans, enabling urban ‘foraging,’ creating community-led and household maintenance regimes, the street tree installations will increase public health outcomes and create environmental agency within the public realm. I sincerely believe that the ultimate mission of landscape architecture lies in encouraging a healthy, poetic, and joyful …

Affordable Housing On Community Land Held In Trust: An Essential Component Of Sustainable Development, Kevin S. Tellez Ramos

Master's Projects and Capstones

This project summarizes an assessment of affordable housing development in Sonoma County - centered in an analysis of sustainability. The language of sustainability requires a new vocabulary for conversation on a broad topic. The sustainable development goals can be directed for the benefit of organizations that contribute to solutions that lack insight towards greater longevity for the at-risk members of the community (i.e., greenwashing, net-zero emissions, etc.). More recent sustainable development literature from the United Nations reveals new priorities: social, economic, and environmental sustainability. (This applies to developing nations of which the researcher believes Sonoma County, California and the United …

Designing Neighborhood-Scale Green Infrastructure (Gi) To Improve The Health And Well-Being Of Industry-Adjacent Communities Through Air Pollution Mitigation In Joppa, Texas, Lauren Wardwell

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Ambient outdoor air pollution kills roughly 4.2 million people every year worldwide and is linked as a contributing factor to diseases such as asthma, cancer, infertility, and neurological disorders. In the United States, minority communities are more likely to live near sources of air pollution, such as highways and industrial sites, and therefore face higher risks of developing the associated health difficulties. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), people of color (POC) are exposed to disproportionately higher levels of ambient fine particulate matter (PM) air pollution, regardless of income levels or region. While the EPA monitors and enforces outdoor …

Beyond Brownfields Redevelopment: A Policy Framework For Regional Land Recycling Planning, Joseph Schilling

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The fields of urban policy and urban planning lack a cohesive and comprehensive framework for recycling vacant and abandoned properties. Past and present efforts to repurpose vacant land and abandoned properties were often narrow responses driven primarily by economic redevelopment policies such as urban renewal of the 1950s & 1960s, deindustrialization of the 1970s & 1980s, and the public-private partnerships featured during the 1990s & 2000s. The 2008-2015 mortgage foreclosure crisis and Great Recession put the policy spotlight on how to address the widespread impacts from thousands of vacant and/or foreclosed homes that affected diverse markets and communities across the …

Saving The World Through Zoning: The Sustainable Development Code, Regeneration, And Beyond, Jonathan Rosenbloom, Chris Duerksen

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The land use and planning community began to address sustainability at the local level in the 1990s, but in reality, state-of-the-art development codes drafted in the 1990s and early 2000s did little to address climate change, energy conservation, community health, loss of biodiversity, shifting biochemical cycles, racial justice, food supply, and other key sustainability issues. This article reviews past challenges that had to be overcome for sustainable development codes to become mainstream. The good news is that an increasing number of local governments are adopting ambitious sustainable development codes that hold great promise to not only protect the environment and …

The Future Of The Comprehensive Plan, David Rouse

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

This article begins with a brief history of the comprehensive plan from its historic roots to the present day. It then considers contemporary comprehensive planning practice, using the Comprehensive Plan Standards for Sustaining Places developed by the American Planning Association (APA) as a benchmark. The article concludes by exploring how the comprehensive plan can and must evolve to address the major challenges of the 21st century. It draws on research and content from The Comprehensive Plan: Sustainable, Resilient and Equitable Communities for the 21st Century (Rouse and Piro 2022).

Telos And Techne, Paul Knox

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

It seems reasonable to assert that the planning profession should be understood as serving society by providing vision, anticipation, innovation, and inspiration in the cause of human flourishing; that its telos is to create functional, efficient, and sustainable physical environments and to contribute to the material realization of societal aspirations of what it means to live well. But it is the techne—the appli¬cation of the field’s context-dependent armory of tactics, practices, concepts, approaches, and methods—that counts most in determining success in the cause of human flourishing. This article comments on the tensions between telos and techne in planning.

The Influence Of Civil Rights And Anti-Discrimination Laws On Shaping Our Transportation System, Marc Brenman, Thomas W. Sanchez

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Regarding the title of this paper, “The Influence of Civil Rights and Anti-Discrimination Laws on Shaping Our Transportation System”, the reverse is also true—the transportation system has helped shape the civil rights laws in the U.S. The way bus lines in the South used to be segregated is one example, and fighting this helped shape the modern Civil Rights Movement. This influence goes back to include famous cases involving segregated train cars in the 1880s. In this article, we address the numerous ways in which civil rights and anti-discrimination laws shape our transportation system. We offer a suite of approaches …

Planning As If People Mattered, Arthur C. Nelson

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

How An Environmental Crisis Catalyzed Community-Led Planning To Address Racial Inequities: A Case Study Of Shingle Mountain, In Southern Dallas, Evelyn Mayo

Planning Masters Professional Reports - Archive

Equity is one of the “Four E’s” representing the core values for planning at the City of Dallas, Texas (City of Dallas, Core Values). However, many neighborhoods in Southern Dallas endure environmental injustices partly because land use planning ignores or disregards the needs of low-income communities of color. This report examines the Shingle Mountain environmental justice crisis in Southern Dallas to illuminate the environmental injustices that the community of Floral Farms has endured partly due to misguided planning and the neglect of the city of Dallas.The study focuses on examining how the grassroots, community-led land use plan developed by residents …

The Bridge Newsletter Spring 2022, Missouri University Of Science And Technology

The Bridge Newsletter

-CArEE faculty awarded Kummer Ignition Grants
-Geldert-Murphey poised to become ASCE’s 2023 president-elect
-Nine new members inducted during Academy of Civil Engineers 50^th anniversary celebration
-Steel Bridge Team wins fourth consecutive regional competition, will compete at nationals

Annexation For Good: An Equity Approach For Social And Environmental Justice With Municipal Annexation, Russell H. Stall

All Theses

Municipal annexation is a powerful tool for improving communities. United States cities historically use municipal annexation to increase tax revenues, grow populations, and increase land areas. However, attitudes about annexation are changing, and there is emerging interest in broadening annexation practices to advance a broader range of social and environmental benefits. For example, annexation can be used to improve blighted areas, control overdevelopment, protect environmentally sensitive areas and open spaces, and improve the lives of residents. It is not clear if cities support using annexation in this way, and if so, when those uses are possible.

Despite restrictive laws and …

Acknowledgement, Education, Memory: Reframing The Cemetery Landscapes Of The Enslaved, Aubrey L. Phillips

LSU Master's Theses

The landscape holds onto the nearly imperceivable cemeteries of the formerly enslaved population that have been erased through time, development, and censure of historical narratives in Louisiana. Immediate action is necessary to retie censured chronicles of enslavement to the landscape, educating the public on deep-rooted systemic racism in the contemporary environment. This thesis aims to provide reparations to the Black and descendant communities of southern Louisiana. This work acknowledges the remaining cemetery fragments, reframing and knitting them together as a network of spaces that uphold a more holistic memory of the past.

The role of landscape architecture extends beyond site …

An Educational Framework For Equity And Inclusion In Planning, Jacob Schlange

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

As societal discourse about equity has increased, so has the need for planning practitioners to be educated about equity-related issues. This study examines the planning curricula of the 22 land-grant institutions accredited by the Planning Accreditation Board (PAB) to assess whether these programs align with the new emphasis on equity in the most recent PAB accreditation standards. Finding a notable lack of required courses explicitly addressing the topic among most of the programs surveyed, this thesis goes on to propose a framework for developing a course on equity in planning, using existing literature on planning education and guidance from the …

Celebrating Wetland Foodways: Joining Ecosystems & Cultures On The Louisiana Gulf Coast, Deborah La Rue

LSU Master's Theses

Coastal Louisiana is bountiful in cultural and ecological diversity. Spotted with thriving estuaries, meandering bayous and swamps, and rippling grasses of coastal marshes, these wetland ecosystems sequester carbon, purify floodwaters, and buffer against storm surge. Historically, southern wetland landscapes have offered refuge to people of many folk and ethnic traditions escaping violence and oppression. Until the mid-twentieth century, the people living in present-day Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes enjoyed relative isolation from the rest of America, constructing cultural practices that emphasized attachment to wetland plants, animals, and ecosystem dynamics.

Today, changing environmental conditions and high rates of relative sea level rise …

Murals & Mother Nature: Urban Environmental Art In Lisbon Reveals Great Concern And Appreciation For The Environment, Ana Gunther

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Urban art is a novel dimension of the environmental movement. Utilizing highly trafficked areas, urban art has the potential to spread environmental messages both because of the size of the audience and because of the contrast between nature-centered art and the urban context. The paper discusses 15 environmental urban artworks in Lisbon and conducts a visual and thematic analysis. The analysis revealed five themes present in Lisbon: the power and beauty of nature, connection with nature, environmental loss and degradation, waste management, and climate change. The most prevalent theme in Lisbon was the connection with nature, followed by a tie …

Reaching A Young Audience In City And Regional Planning, Kristie P. Woo, Vinnie P. Chen

City and Regional Planning

Currently, urban planning is a rare discussion topic in schools. The youth are often excluded in the planning process as most adults question their intellectual capacity and they hold little to no political power. However, this does not have to be the case - planning has the potential to change young minds when expressed in a medium children can understand.

"Green Enough Ain't Good Enough:" Public Perceptions And Emotions Related To Green Infrastructure In Environmental Justice Communities, Mahbubur Meenar, Megan Heckert, Deepti Adlakha

Geography & Planning Faculty Publications

The concept of biophilic urban planning has inspired neighborhood greening projects in many older urban communities in the USA and beyond. The strengths (e.g., environmental management, biodiversity, heat island mitigation) and challenges (e.g., greenwashing, green gentrification) of such projects are well-documented. Additional research on the relationship between these projects and various social factors (e.g., public perceptions, feelings, and mental health and well-being) is necessary to better understand how people adapt to said projects while struggling to navigate other more pressing socioeconomic issues, especially in communities facing environmental injustice and health inequity. In this article, we focus on one aspect of …

A Call For The Library Community To Deploy Best Practices Toward A Database For Biocultural Knowledge Relating To Climate Change, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper, a call to the library and information science community to support documentation and conservation of cultural and biocultural heritage has been presented.

Design/methodology/approach – Based in existing Literature, this proposal is generative and descriptive— rather than prescriptive—regarding precisely how libraries should collaborate to employ technical and ethical best practices to provide access to vital data, research and cultural narratives relating to climate.

Findings – COVID-19 and climate destruction signal urgent global challenges. Library best practices are positioned to respond to climate change. Literature indicates how libraries preserve, share and cross-link cultural and scientific knowledge. …

Indoor Air Quality Through The Lens Of Outdoor Atmospheric Chemistry, Jonathan P.D. Abbatt, Douglas B. Collins

Faculty Contributions to Books

Outdoor atmospheric chemistry and air quality have been the topic of research that intensified in earnest around the mid-20^th century, while indoor air quality research has only been a key focus of chemical researchers over the last 30 years. Examining practices and approaches employed in the outdoor atmospheric chemistry research enterprise provides an additional viewpoint from which we can chart new paths to increase scientific understanding of indoor chemistry. This chapter explores our understanding of primary chemical sources, homogeneous and multiphase reactivity, gas-surface partitioning, and the coupling between the chemistry and dynamics of indoor air through the lens of …

A Time For Triage, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The world is desperately behind in the energy transformation needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Catching up requires a massive buildout of wind and solar power and associated infrastructure, but in the United States many impediments stand in the way. Among them, ironically enough, are environmental laws. Here I argue that we must accept difficult tradeoffs, sacrificing some of what we consider precious in order to avoid far worse impacts.

Tales Of Urban Livability－ Vermont Avenue In Los Angeles As Told By Tree Canopy Cover, Hoi Cheng Wong

Pomona Senior Theses

As city-goers and residents of urban and suburban spaces, we are constantly on the move. It is no surprise that we often neglect the static trees and plants that seemingly blend into the background of our day-to-day rush to our next destination. Unfortunately, once we do have a chance to pause to take a look around us, or to pause long enough to feel the heat of the sun beaming down on our bare skin, we are decades too late in realizing the absence of trees at the location in which we are standing. This thesis contributes critical insight to …

Cruser Place Green Streets Plan, Neal Friedman

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

Combining green and complete street design techniques leads to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits that often enhance each other's effectiveness. In urban areas confronting increased pressures of sea level rise, green streets, which incorporate landscaped features or vegetative areas to manage stormwater within the right of way, can be crucial pieces of pedestrian oriented urban design and multimodal planning frameworks that consider and plan for diverse, complementary transportation options. This plan works with the Colonial Place and Riverview Civic League as well as the Norfolk Preservation Collective to come up with green street design recommendations in order to strengthen …

Food Desert To Food Oasis: An Engagement With The Community Through Evidence-Based Methods, Phillip W. Zawarus, Lisa Ortega

Creative Collaborations

The state of Nevada has the 12th highest percentage (12.8%) of households living with food insecurity compared to the US average of 11.1% according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1). Economic and environmental benefits of urban forests have been well documented to address issues of climate change, urban heat islands, and fragmented ecologies, however, in a period of social inequities, urban forests can serve a vital role in providing environmental justice through agroforestry for communities identified within a food desert.

According to Kyle H. Clark & Kimberly A. Nicholas, “urban food forestry can be an efficient way to consistently …

Discussing Changes In Historical Human–Environmental Dynamics Through Ecosystem Services Interactions And Future Scenarios In A Rural-Mining Region Of Central Appalachians, Vincenzo Cribari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The aim of this dissertation was to investigate how recent processes of land-change induced by humans contributed to the shaping and alteration of the current landscape in a headwater system of Central Appalachians in West Virginia (US), to understand the interactions and tradeoffs among ecosystems services and address potential solutions for targeting more sustainable human-environment interactions in a region that is deeply grounded on extractive economies. The multitiered objective was addressed through different research phases in order to unfold and disentangle a series of complex problems that the study area presents. Three main phases were used; they corresponded to distinct …

Empowering Artists Who Have Experienced Homelessness In The City Of Dallas, Texas Through Temporary Public Art In Urban Spaces, Angeles Marina Margarida-De Guzman

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Homelessness is a critical social crisis impacting the United States in the 21st century. According to The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, in 2019 there were eight states that displayed a significant increase in the homeless population since 2010, with California and New York states having the most homeless. Even though homeless populations reportedly decreased in 2019 in the U.S. since 2010, most states continue to have large numbers of homeless populations, making this a persisting crisis in 2021 (United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, n.d.). In 2019 Texas was among the top seven states with the largest homeless …

Riyadh Neighborhood Residents’ Use And Satisfaction With Urban Green Spaces, Tahar Ledraa, Majed Hallawani, Awad Al-Qahtani

Emirates Journal for Engineering Research

Neighborhood urban green spaces are indispensable elements for residents’ rest and recreation. They are also of paramount importance to enhance quality of life within neighborhoods. However, these urban green spaces did not receive much research interest, particularly in cities of the developing world. Larger city parks seem to have been the focus of studies. The present study is undertaken under the contention that dissatisfaction with a service is the difference between what is expected from that service and what is really experienced out of it. The gap between expectancy and what is experienced in reality would lead to how satisfied …

How Culture And Storytelling Can Influence Urban Development: An Ethnographic Look At The Community-Driven Revitalization Of Newtown In Sarasota, Florida, Michala Head

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When Americans think of Florida, tourist attractions often trail the initial thoughts of alligator sand chaos. Disneyworld and its neighboring parks are set up for optimal experience and consumption, the thought of a trip South along the coast for a sweltering beach day, sipping on a frozen drink in January sings to Midwesterners. For residents of these seaside cities, such as Sarasota, the experiences of the space are much more complex. Within the broader contexts of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd and a global pandemic that impacted America’s marginalized populations disproportionally, …

Blacow Road Improvement Plan, Nishita Kandikuppa

City and Regional Planning

Providing safe and accessible entrances to schools, especially elementary, middle, and high schools where children are below the age of 18, should be of utmost priority to cities. Providing wide sidewalks, painted bicycle lanes and continental crosswalks (with the lateral lines) are just basic infrastructure improvements that can be made within the vicinity of a school. However, due to lack of funding or attention from the city departments, many school entryways are being neglected and the direct impact of this is increased collisions among students, drivers, and bicyclists. My senior project studied one such school in Fremont, California where the …

Environmental Cues And The Sociospatial Imaginary: An Examination Of Spatial Perception And Meaning-Making In A Gentrifying Neighborhood, Todd Levon Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What could be more ordinary or pedestrian than two people walking down an urban street and talking about what we see and what we make of it? Yet this simple, quotidian act of walking a street—seeing, perceiving and experiencing physical spaces, places and objects—and making meaning of what is encountered, is the basis of my dissertation. It is also my basis for claiming that I have learned a great deal—and much unexpectedly—about how differently different people see and interpret the urban streetscape. What are the various environmental cues that stand out to different individuals? What are the psychosocial imaginaries that …