Digital Commons Network^™

The Practice Of Inclusion: Indigenous Knowledge And Ethical Design, Kate E. Van Der Zalm

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Indigenous Knowledge is a cumulative body of practices and beliefs developed by Indigenous communities through generations of interaction with the natural environment. This knowledge offers valuable insights for caring for the land in sustainable and respectful ways but is not fully considered in modern planning and design practices. This research examines how Indigenous Knowledge is currently understood and used within landscape planning and design firms in British Columbia, Canada. Using a combination of existing research and interviews with design professionals and Indigenous participants, the study explores where Indigenous Knowledge is being applied, where challenges exist, and what opportunities remain for …

Sustainable Planning In Gateway Natural Amenity Region Communities, Kori Ann Kurtzeborn

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This study used six principles of sustainability to comprehensively score general plan documents from seven Gateway Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) communities. The goal was to investigate the sustainability values of communities with public land recreation access based on the understanding that individual participation in outdoor recreation positively influences environmental concern. The study found that while strong sustainability themes are present in gateway community general plan documents, these themes don’t necessarily correspond to higher overall sustainability scores. However, GNAR community plans prioritize the Harmony with Nature principle, indicating an emphasis on ecosystem health in communities with adjacent public land recreation.

Religious Spaces Reimagined: Adaptive Reuse And Community Integration In Suburbs, Emily Fischer

City and Regional Planning

Tucked away in a quiet pocket of Los Angeles adjacent to Downtown known as Pico Union, a historic synagogue sat mostly empty, its congregation having long since moved on. But in 2013, the building was given a new purpose. The Pico Union Project transformed it into a multifaith and cultural center, turning what was once an underused space into a thriving community hub. Guided by the Jewish principle of ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ its mission is to uplift and empower diverse communities through arts, social justice, and service. Now, on any given day, families stop by to pick up …

Health-Based Urban Design And Planning Interventions; Maximizing Harmony, Vitality, And Wellness In Hopewell, Virginia, Suzanne K. Yeats

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

Urban planners as practitioners work to create a more progressive future while simultaneously redressing the past. This tension is found in many cities, including the City of Hopewell, Virginia where city planners, managers, economic developers work passionately for positive change. In Hopewell, there has been almost no population growth since 1970 and existing health outcomes are alarming. In every determinant of health category (medical, psychological, or social), this city falls below the state and national average. This health-based urban design and planning intervention capstone challenges the status quo by flipping the paradigm and placing the health of all residents first …

Missing Goals Yet Tangible Indicators Within Sustainability Assessment Literature: The Need To Align Planning And Monitoring In Urban Sustainability, Matthew Cohen, Amelia Miles, John E. Quinn

Cities and the Environment (CATE)

Sustainability assessment literature is often based on large indicator sets, frequently lacking organizational framing. Previous research calls for stronger theoretical groundings and for urban sustainability assessments specifically to be goal-oriented, meaning that assessments should articulate goals for sustainable cities and select the indicators most appropriate for tracking progress. Here we analyzed the content of 69 papers from sustainability assessment literature. We asked: What common sustainability goals guide indicator selection? What is the distribution of natural, proxy, and constructed indicators across the literature? And what is the distribution of indicators within and across capital types? We found that less than half …

Proposal For Uta-Downtown Arlington Bike Network, Anna Laura Harmjanz

2022 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Bicycling offers great benefits for cities including sustainable, efficient, and affordable transportation, improved health and wellness, and creating vibrant communities. Universities offer a good starting point for young adults to form sustainable transportation habits. This study explores how the University of Texas at Arlington’s community perceives existing bike infrastructure, services, and amenities on campus and off-campus to create a well-connected and safe bike network. An online survey was used to collect feedback from students and employees on commuting patterns, cycling experience and barriers, perceived safety on various bike facilities, and suggestions. Based on survey responses, a bike network analysis was …

Medical Volunteers During Pandemics, Disasters, And Other Emergencies: Management Best Practices, John I. Winn, Seth Chatfield, Kevin H. Govern

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

How best to utilize volunteers^[1] during medical emergencies is an essential part of hospital compliance planning. Onboarding recruited and spontaneous volunteers during crisis situations require careful consideration of multiple legal issues. Volunteer planning becomes more complex if volunteers move across state lines because applicable tort immunity statutes,^[2] compensation limits,^[3]and workers compensation regimes vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. Effective planning for volunteers requires these and other issues to be addressed well in advance of actual emergencies. Although predicting the scope or severity of any future crisis is impossible, the provided checklist of management best practices …

An Equity-Focused Assessment Of The City Of Richmond’S Rvagreen 2050 Planning Process, Meghan Z. Gough, Eric Asplund, Rebekah Cazares, Gabriella Francese, Logan Ashby, David Sale, Rebecca Acland, Sara Barton, Nicholas Jancaitis, Ben Jordan, Desmond Smallwood, Jen Allen, Molly Mickens, Kerry Ramos, Sarah Mullarney, Michelle Murrills, Joseph Pickert

Urban and Regional Studies and Planning Reports

Local climate action and sustainability initiatives are often critiqued for their inattention to issues of equity and justice. In response, an increasing number of cities are now attempting to respond to this critique by making equity a more explicit goal of their climate action plans: Richmond Virginia is among those cities. The City of Richmond's Office of Sustainability committed to prioritizing equity in the RVAGreen 2050 plan by recognizing how Richmond’s history of racism and structural inequalities have exacerbated climate concerns for largely Black and Latinx communities and centering historically marginalized communities of color in the engagement process. Students in …

Reparative And Equitable Practices And Partnerships, Meghan Z. Gough

Richmond Racial Equity Essays: Individual Essays

The author's vision of a racially equitable Richmond is one in which resourced institutions, such as higher education, invest in reparative and equitable practices that respect lived expertise and are built on partnerships. As we rethink our roles and responsibilities, we should invest in reparative and equitable planning practices that include 1) acknowledging structural racism as a societal problem; 2) prioritizing lived expertise; and, 3) building long-term and mutually-beneficial partnerships.

Responsive Management: Municipal Leadership For An Aging Population, Laura M. Keyes, Abraham David Benavides, Laura Keyes

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

This article focuses on the responsive management of municipal leadership by identifying organizational and community values that affect age friendly policy making. The data comes from a sample of 1050 cities extracted from a national list of cities identified as place geography on the U.S. census list of geographies. The web-based questionnaire explored policy choices of 331 respondents in the areas of mobility, housing, the built environment, and public service delivery administered between May and August 2016. The institutionalization of the needs of an aging population in city management principles results in high levels of age friendly policy action by …

Community Development, Quality Of Life, And Community Well-Being: Three Fields Ripe With Opportunities For Future Research And Practice, Craig A. Talmage

Community Development Practice

This perspective piece aims to spur conversations between quality of life, community well-being, and community development scholars and practitioners. The article showcases overlaps in concepts found across journals devoted to those three fields of inquiry. The major themes from those overlaps are discussed, so future directions for interdisciplinary research can be identified. The article finishes with specific attention to exploring how collaborations between the fields of quality of life (QoL), community well-being (CWB), and community development (CD) can better inform community development practice, so that community well-being and quality life can be positively shifted through evidence-based practice.

Citizen Engagement In Aquatics Equity: The Case Of Winston Waterworks, Steven N. Waller Phd, James H. Bemiller Jd, Emliy J. Johnson, Chermaine D. Cole, Jason Scott Phd, Angela Wozencroft, Phd

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Historically, swimming pools have been a source of inequity when it comes to the distribution of recreation services in the United States. Many of the problems that correlate with the inequitable allocation of recreation resources including public swimming pools began with ideas about race, geography, poor planning practices and faulty policymaking (Rothstein, 2017). Moreover, one of the primary outcomes of engaged, inclusive planning is equity in the provision of recreation programs and facilities. In this essay, we offer a summary of key legal cases that help address questions related resource allocation related to public swimming pools. Finally, we present a …

The Eastern Goochland Greenway: Connecting Goochland's Past, Present, And Future, Scott A. Newhart

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

The Eastern Goochland Greenway Plan proposes a shared-use trail that is nested within the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s (DCR) conceptualization of a statewide trail system called the James River Heritage Trail (JRHT). The JRHT includes shared use bicycle and pedestrian facilities as well as water trail access points that would connect pre-existing trail systems to new proposed trails that are parallel with and in close proximity to Virginia’s James River corridor and all of the natural, cultural, and historic resource opportunities that the surrounding areas offer. Specifically, the Eastern Goochland Greenway aims to serve two major purposes; to …

Is Transportation Planning Effective? A Critical Review Of Long-Range Regional Transportation Planning In The United States, Razieh Nadafianshahamabadi

Civil Engineering ETDs

The Federal-Aid Highway Act requires urban areas with a population greater than 50,000 to create Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to ensure that funding for transportation projects and programs are based on a continuing, cooperative, and comprehensive planning process. A major responsibility of each MPO is the creation of a long-range transportation plan (LRTP) that addresses the transportation needs of a metropolitan region over the next twenty years or more. While long-range regional transportation planning goals have grown to include a wide range of concerns and technical methods for evaluating planning scenarios have advanced substantially over the past 50 years, there …

Understanding The Dynamics Of Public Space: Zoning, Urban Design, And Use Value. A Case Study Of Downtown San Francisco, Joaquin Cabello Silva

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper seeks to understand how zoning, urban design, and use value control the dynamics of a city and the public space, from the way they are shaped, to the way they are built, and finally to the way they are used. In this research the first step is to recognize that the strategies of zoning in a city are a way of governing and guiding the development of the space, followed by the urban design—which is a more tangible way of interpreting the different rules because it is the actual form zoning takes—to then see how they generate an …

Economic Revitalization In The Lower Anthracite Coal Region, Shaunna Barnhart

Sponsored Events -- Materials

Conference materials distributed at the Economic Revitalization in the Lower Anthracite Coal Region convening event organized in collaboration with Bucknell University, Bloomsburg University, Susquehanna University, Greater Susquehanna Valley Chamber of Commerce, Anthracite Region for Progress, Mother Maria Kaupas Center, Shamokin Area Businesses for Economic Revitalization, and the City of Shamokin. The convening focused on collaborative opportunities across the communities of Shamokin, Coal Township, Mount Carmel, and Kulpmon. Event materials include an eight page booklet with speaker biographies, descriptions of event partners, and descriptions of sponsors. Supplementary materials include a welcome letter and the electronic version of a printable flier.

Convening …

Webster Square Neighborhood Plan, Conor Mccormack

Sustainability and Social Justice

In this study, Webster Square is examined as a neighborhood and commercial node within the City of Worcester, MA. Using a variety of data sources and analyses, the study looks at the characteristics of the area to define the condition and context of Webster Square as it currently exists.Guided by current planning theory, contemporary practice, and key informant interviews, this study then suggests different directions for future development and growth in Webster Square. These visions for the future look to address key issues to help make the neighborhood a more vibrant, cohesive, and walkable community. More broadly, this study highlights …

Aligning Evaluation And Strategy With The Mission Of A Community-Focused Foundation, Claudio Balestri

The Foundation Review

Foundations are commonly recognized as having a comparative advantage in supporting forward-looking projects and programs. In this sense, the long term represents the natural horizon in which the foundations are called to fulfill their mission to plan and develop philanthropic activities and, therefore, the time reference for assessing results.

When a mission is focused more on improving the quality of life in a specific community than on addressing a specific social problem, evaluation of outcomes becomes more challenging. While available methods can provide valuable support to measuring the impact of a foundation’s specific program, they are unlikely to provide an …

Rethinking Zoning For People: Utilizing The Concept Of The Village, Kevin Leyden, Lorraine D'Arcy

Other

In this chapter, we propose it is time to re-think and re-imagine how we approach zoning. This is especially true for suburban developments. Today, especially in the United States, zoning in suburban areas is being used to segregate and separate the component parts of our communities into distinct zones which are spread out geographically and in most cases require the daily use of an automobile. The negative consequences of this form of development for health, community and the environment are discussed. Using a study of neighborhoods in Dublin, Ireland and its suburbs we examine how professionals and the public view …

Collaboration Across The Curriculum: Urban Planning & Public Health, Lula Geyre

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The way our communities are designed impacts our health. and there is an increasing need for collaboration between urban planners and public health professionals. Yet, it is not clear to what extent universities are preparing public health and planning students to work together. Our research will shed light on this important topic by evaluating the course requirements for both of these disciplines in accredited institutions and look at how they are addressing interprofessional issues such as land development, transportation policies, air/water quality, and community growth issues. The current study explores the availability of interdisciplinary courses in accredited undergraduate and graduate …

First Street Corridor Plan And Development Code-- Gilroy, Ca, Michael Gibbons

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Environment, Equity And Economic Development Goals: Understanding Differences In Local Economic Development Strategies, Xue Zhang, George C. Homsy

Public Administration Faculty Scholarship

What role do local governments play in promoting sustainable economic development? This article uses a 2014 national survey to analyze the relationship between local environment and social equity motivations and the kinds of economic development strategies local governments pursue (business incentives or community economic development policies). Municipalities that pay more attention to environmental sustainability and social equity use higher levels of community economic development tools and lower levels of business incentives. These places are also more likely to have written economic development plans, and involve more participants in the economic development process. By contrast, communities that employ higher levels of …

2015 California Climate Action Planning Conference Keynote Address, Salud Carbajal

Focus

In August 2015, Cal Poly’s CRP Department hosted the second Climate Action Planning Conference to discuss local, state, national and international climate issues. The keynote address was provided by then Santa Barbara County Supervisor Salud Carbajal�. His words framed the action�-oriented vision for the conference, and define much of what the CRP family continues to focus on as a part of their teaching and scholarship.

Ecodistricts In San Francisco: The Implementation Of Neighborhood Regional Planning And Its Potential Effects On Environmental Resilience, Elizabeth M. Juvera

Master's Projects and Capstones

Ecodistricts, or neighborhood-scale, community-driven areas of sustainable development, have emerged internationally and within the U.S. to create models of adaptive environmental design and advanced urban infrastructure. Central SoMa is the first ecodistrict to be planned and implemented in San Francisco, with the intention of revitalizing and greening this urbanized region of the city. At this time, the Central SoMa area has very low biodiversity levels, inefficient infrastructure, and poor water management capabilities. Through the implementation of ecodistricts in San Francisco, the city can integrate physical and behavioral sustainability measures from existing ecodistricts such as permeable surfaces, green roofs, stormwater management, …

Quantifying The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Of Hazards: Incorporating Disaster Mitigation Strategies In Climate Action Plans, Michael Germeraad

Master's Theses

Reconstruction after natural disasters can represent large peaks in a community’s greenhouse gas emission inventory. Components of the built environment destroyed by natural hazards have their useful life shortened, requiring replacement before functionally necessary. Though the hazard itself does not release greenhouse gasses, the demolition and rebuilding process does, and these are the emissions we can quantify to better understand the climate impacts of disasters.

The proposed methodology draws data from existing emission and hazard resource literature and combines the information in a community scale life cycle assessment. Case studies of past disasters are used to refine the methodology and …

Applications Of Urban Tree Canopy Assessment And Prioritization Tools: Supporting Collaborative Decision Making To Achieve Urban Sustainability Goals, Dexter H. Locke, J. Morgan Grove, Michael Galvin, Jarlath P.M. O'Neil-Dunne, Charles Murphy

Cities and the Environment (CATE)

Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) Prioritizations can be both a set of geographic analysis tools and a planning process for collaborative decision-making. In this paper, we describe how UTC Prioritizations can be used as a planning process to provide decision support to multiple government agencies, civic groups and private businesses to aid in reaching a canopy target. Linkages to broader City-scale sustainability plans are explored. This article represents an extension and update to the UTC Canopy Goal Setting Guide by Raciti et al (2006). We conclude with recommendations for a market-like analysis of neighborhoods to better match planting initiatives to particular …

Neighborhoood Snapshot Inventories: A Study Of The Cooper River Bridge Tax Incremnent Financing District, Rebecca Anne Quandt

All Theses

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is one of the most widely used economic development tools in the nation. In 2008, Charleston, South Carolina, designated the Cooper River Bridge neighborhood (CRBN) as its fourth TIF district. The planning process is now underway, and many large redevelopment projects have already started construction. Private investors will receive funding to develop vacant lots and revitalize dilapidated properties, and the City will benefit economically from new property taxes added to the revenue roll. City officials have anticipated the economic change this TIF district will provide, but have they properly anticipated the changes that will occur to …

Evaluating Social Sustainability In Plans For Inter-Cultural Cities, Diane Faye Gapas

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, there is an increasing interest and awareness on sustainability and sustainable development. Sustainability is comprised of the three E’s: environment, economy and equity. Of these three, the equity or the social sustainability component is often overlooked. As cities become more global and demographically diverse due to immigration, diversity’s impact to the city should be addressed through policies and plans. The content analysis and evaluation of city plans, policies and urban design examines their response to accommodating and including inter-cultural diversity using identified indicators of social sustainability and equity. This study finds that the length of time a city has …

3d Digital Modeling For Urban Design + Planning, Emmanuel Velazco

City and Regional Planning

Cities throughout the country face a number of challenges in dealing with the changing development needs of the 21st century. In urban planning, the fusion of social, environmental, political, economic, and functional considerations are required. Today, local, state, and federal governments are experiencing an economic downturn, making resources scarce to plan for smarter development, attain greater public interest, and economic revival.

The primary objective of this project is to provide innovative solutions in city and regional planning using software applications, such as Google SketchUp, that enable assessment of various urban design projects. A second objective was to create a 3D …

Disaster Vulnerability Of University Student Populations, Jamie Lynn Auletta

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Student populations at Gulf Coast universities and colleges are subjected to multiple forces working together making them an especially vulnerable sub-group to hazards. Research has suggested that college students represent a segment of the population that hazards research has frequently overlooked and maybe not fully appreciated in university emergency planning. Most prior research has focused on university disaster experiences, highlighting what went wrong, and what should be done but little research focuses on what is actually taking place. The primary intent of this research was to gain better insight into university emergency planning and identify areas universities have neglected with …