Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Gis Spatial Analysis Of Segregation Clustering Evolution In Lincoln, Nebraska, Sarah Aftika

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Rising immigration growth in the Midwest creates Multi-racial communities and segregation such as social class segregation, economic segregation, education segregation, and also housing segregation. In urban America, there are three major sets of explanatory causal factors that have been hypothesized to explain ethnic residential segregation. They are: housing discrimination, socioeconomic status (SES) and ethnic group preferences (French 2008, 1).

Lincoln, as a metro city in Nebraska, shows signs of segregation phenomena as well as other metro cities in Midwest. The analysis tool used for this study is Geographic Information System (GIS) spatial analysis. This tool enables us to examine the …

Urban/Rural Spatial Identity And Legislative Behavior In Nebraska, The Impact Differences On Economic Development And Environmental Legislation, Melissa L. Trueblood

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

The urban/rural divide is pervasive in policy-making in Nebraska. In this nonpartisan state, coalitions based on spatial identity or whether the legislator is urban or rural seem to have greater weight than party especially in the creation of economic development policy. Often, economic development policies include locational considerations which give areas such as rural areas and economically distressed areas greater weight when distributing program funds. In my study, I investigate whether constituency or party has a greater impact on the legislative behavior of Nebraska state legislators when voting on economic development and environmental legislation. I expect that constituency would have …

Evaluating Cultural Vitality In U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas: Implications For Cultural Planning, Tingying Lee

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand cultural planning’s current status in the United States. In this study, I used cultural vitality indicators as a tool to evaluate the cultural resources of cities in the United States. I also explored how planners have responded to the concept of creative cities by reviewing the cultural planning activities of the top 60 metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) in the United States. Lastly, I conducted a statistical test to see if an additional department such as cultural affairs, which focuses primarily on cultural planning, positively impacts cultural vitality. The result shows there is …

Analysis Of Feasibility Of Lincoln's West O Area For Redevelopment, Adam E. Brown

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

This project assessed the feasibility of redevelopment of the area around the West O Street & Sun Valley Boulevard Intersection. The project provides information about the area, including specifics about its location, the zoning currently in use, the population of the area and the surrounding areas, housing characteristics, as well as information about mixed use development pertinent to this project and the study areas relation to the City of Lincoln’s Comprehensive Plan, known as LPlan 2040.

The project’s goal was to research and compile relevant information for review by the Lincoln / Lancaster County Planning Department in regards to the …

Revitalization Of Urban Alleys, Shusei Kakimoto

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Alley revitalization is becoming more widely acknowledged as a viable urban redevelopment strategy in United States cities. Currently, most alleys in U.S. cities are underutilized, and they evoke a number of negative images—fearful places, waste-strewn, stinky, etc. The successful revitalization of alleys presents many benefits, such as economic development, enhanced walkability, visual enhancement, reduction of crime, etc. Revitalization of alleys leads to more productive and effective utilization of public space. In fact, cities in many countries have long utilized alleys as places where many aspects of ordinary daily life of the city take place. However, the potentials of alleys and …

The Contribution To And Effect Of Design And Architecture On Health And Activity Promotion (H&Ap) In The Workplace, Krystal L. Schumacher

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

Expanding the research and awareness on the contribution to and affect of design and architecture on health and activity promotion in the workplace (h&ap) is essential in moving forward in the design of working environments. As humans, we spend the majority of our time indoors, for an average American adult he or she spends the majority of the day in a working environment. The impact that our spaces have is much deeper than the aesthetic. Our environments can depict how we act, feel and operate based on the design of our surroundings. Through this research, the goal was to study …

The Real Estate Economics Of Walkability Components: The Influence Of Built Environment On Housing Value In Lincoln, Nebraska, Dohee Kim

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

This study analyzes the association between walkability and housing value in neighborhoods of Lincoln, Nebraska in order to observe the impact of walkability as one of prominent smart growth principles in creating economic value. The study estimates walkability through walkability components in each neighborhood of Lincoln based on the Lawrence Frank walkability index model. For the housing value assessment, a hedonic regression model was created to estimate median housing value in Lincoln based on the census block group dataset. The result of the model shows that walkability components have weaker influence on estimated housing value compared to other physical, demographic, …

The Role Of Multicultural Planning In Rural Nebraska, Case Studies Of Four Mid-Sized Cities, Pakiza Shirinova

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze multicultural planning practices in rural Nebraska towns. Due to the increased influx of Hispanic population in Schuyler, Lexington, South Sioux City and Crete of Nebraska in the period from 1990 to 2010, this research focuses on uncovering social and economic impacts that Hispanic immigration is leaving on receiving communities. Also, this study reviews current comprehensive plans of the communities selected for this research to determine whether multicultural policies are being defined and incorporated into the vision of community development. A survey of planning consultants, city administrators and community members further contribute to …

Planning For Student Veteran And Military Member Support Programs At The University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Daniel D. Moseman

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) has recognized the importance of its student veteran and military member population and is undertaking a planning process to develop or improve its student veteran programs. The goal of this professional project is to present UNL with options and alternatives that could be used to develop these student veteran programs. The research associated with this project is timely and prudent, given the current reduction in military force size and the anticipated return of many thousand service members into post-secondary education.

This professional project provides information on three topics. First, research from credible sources determines the …

A Simple Method For Estimation Of Queue Length, S. P. Anusha, Lelitha Devi Vanajakshi, Anuj Sharma

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Urban arterials are characterized by frequent intersections. Queue length and delay are the two primary measures of performance of intersection. These measures play a primary role in determining the arterial performance. This article presents a methodology to determine the number of vehicles in queue at a signalized intersection for under saturated traffic conditions. The results obtained were validated using actual values that are manually extracted. The root-mean-square error is of the range 1.3 vehicles for estimation of number of vehicles in queue. The various aspects that have to be considered in accurate estimation of performance measures are also discussed.

Planning For Drought-Resilient Communities: Evaluating The Fastest Growing Counties’ Local Comprehensive Plans, Xinyu Fu

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Recent drought events across the United States illustrate the country’s changing and continuing vulnerability to drought. Drought impacts are often associated with unsustainable land use and poor water management practices, but research has been conducted on how well localities prepare for drought in building long-term resilience through land use planning and what jurisdictional factors correlate with their quality in drought planning. Targeting the fastest growing counties, due to their high possibility in increasing drought risk by making unwise land use decisions, this paper analyzes 61 selected county comprehensive plans from the research sample against a conceptualized drought-ready protocol, and examines …

A Walk Around Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda, Daniel C. Scott

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda aims to become a national center of distinction, a thriving new district in Bermuda, and a flagship in the economic regeneration of the West End. It will be a place unlike any other in Bermuda, offering cultural, residential, office and tourist amenities that are rooted in the fabric of Bermuda, and the diverse and vital history of the Royal Naval Dockyard.

Building on its history, and preparing it to fulfill its full potential for the future the Dockyard will need to transform to meet the changing needs of Bermuda’s economy. With a weakening tourist industry and …

Analysis Of Urban Water Use And Urban Consumptive Water Use In Nebraska, Case Study In The City Of Lincoln, Grand Island And Sidney, Yao Li

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

The trends of increasing water demand and drought occurrences in Nebraska’s urban areas pose a new crucial issue to water resource management. Former studies in Nebraska mainly focused on rural water demand caused by intensive agricultural irrigation, while largely ignoring the growing municipal water use. Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate total water use and consumptive water use in three major urban land use categories of residential, CIO (commercial, industrial and others), and open space. Three case cities are City of Lincoln, Grand Island and Sidney. First, a reliable and feasible methodology of estimating consumptive water use is developed based …

Internet-Based Public Participation Gis In Environmental Management, Tiantian Liu

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Environmental problems are among the most urgent and significant issues in contemporary society and have attracted increasing attention all around the world. How to deal with the interaction between human and natural environment and achieve sustainable development is the task of environmental management. With the development of the democratic process, participatory management and planning show incomparable advantages in the decision making process. How to facilitate public participation in environmental management is the research endeavor of this thesis. With the development of the Internet and technology, Internet-based PPGIS becomes an affordable and accessible GIS tool for public engagement. This thesis uses …

Drought As A Component Of Local Hazard Mitigation Plans: Are The 100 Fastest Growing Counties Ready?, Jeffrey L. Henson

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Drought is one of the most destructive natural disasters that threatens nearly every environment on earth. Between 1980 and 2011 there were 16 drought events in the United States with impacts that exceeded $1 billion with an average event cost of $12.2 billion according to the National Climate Data Center. While many states have engaged in the creation of drought plans, little research has been done regarding drought planning at the local level. This research examines the local planning efforts in 62 of the 100 fastest growing counties in the United States from 2000 to 2009. It is expected that …

Factors Affecting Students Walking To School: Case Study Of Two Middle Schools In Lincoln, Nebraska, Nivin S. Khalil

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Physical activity, including walking, can be a very healthy and sustainable mode of transportation. Children walking to their schools can get a lot of benefits from acquiring good habits that can be carried through their adulthood. Also, walking to school can reverse the trend of increasing obesity rates among children in the United States. This study is trying to identify the effect of urban form, presented in the distances between residences and schools, on the children’s behavior whether they walk to school or not depending on different urban forms around their schools. Two middle schools in Lincoln, Nebraska were selected …

Planning The Future Of Connecting Young Nebraskans: The Evolution Of A Virtual Community, Andrea N. Gebhart

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Connecting Young Nebraskans (CYN) is a statewide network designed to connect, empower and retain young Nebraskans. Due to the geographic spread of its members, the CYN network functions as a virtual community—a group of people who primarily interact through electronic means. With CYN approaching a period of organizational transition, this project is a social and community plan for CYN. Describing the network, summarizing the key issues facing the network, and recommending strategies to minimize issues and strengthen the network, this plan addresses how CYN can evolve so as to ensure the sustainability and continued success of the network. As the …

Drought Planning Research In The United States: An Overview And Outlook, Xinyu Fu, Zhenghong Tang, Jianjun Wu, Kevin Mcmillan

Community and Regional Planning Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Drought is widely known as an insidious hazard due to its complex and unique characteristics. Drought disasters have brought tremendous economic losses and significant social and environmental impacts to communities across the globe. To further understand the hazard drought poses and provide insights into planning for drought preparedness, this article conducts a thorough literature review of drought hazard and drought planning frameworks within the United States. Two main approaches and three major forms of drought planning are discussed and summarized. Based on this review, a preliminary overview of drought planning status in the United States is presented. This study provides …

Plan Big: Unl Campus And Landscape Master Plans, Gina Ford

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

An architect's drawing of early concepts for the UNL City Campus includes ideas to further activate the campus core, with new buildings, uses and landscape ideas. Includes maps, drawings, renderings and diagrams that describe the university's historic growth patterns, current drivers of growth, and key recommendations to make City and East campuses emblematic of the university's identity and status in the Big Ten Conference.

Building Healthy Communities: Integrating Walkability Concepts Into Local Land Use Planning, Jenna Danelle Muhlbach

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

In recent years, American communities have been diagnosed with several chronic health diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Several researchers attribute sedentary lifestyles as one of the contributing factors to chronic diseases. The lack of physical exercise can be blamed by the auto-dependent suburbia lifestyle that many generations have become accustomed to. Poor land use developments have roads and freeways dominating the use of space, with the intent of having an automobile get from one place to another as efficiently as possible. This has allowed places to be much further apart therefore it has had a negative impact …

From Carson Pirie Scott To City Target: A Case Study On The Adaptive Reuse Of Louis Sullivan’S Historic Sullivan Center, Lisa M. Switzer

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

This study provides an in-depth exploration of the adaptive reuse of one of Chicago’s most iconic structures over the course of a year from the Summer of 2011 to the Summer of 2012. The Sullivan Center was converted from a mid-scale retailer to City Target. Through extensive interviews with the Target development team, Chicago city officials, historians and Landmark Commission representatives this study documents the conversion and identifies the successes and opportunities of the project. The study follows the project from design development to completion, and provides insight on the local community perspective on the development.

Advisor: Mark Hinchman

An Update Of The 1984 Haymarket Redevelopment Plan: Lincoln, Nebraska, Stephanie Rouse

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

In 1984, Lincoln, Nebraska committed resources to renovating the Haymarket District to change it from a decayed manufacturing center into a viable business district. They successfully created a historic landmark district, commissioned a blight study and declared the area blighted, and then created a redevelopment plan. The 1984 Haymarket Redevelopment Plan examined the thencurrent district conditions and proposed future development that would support a thriving business district. Twenty-eight years later, that plan is being re-examined to determine what parts of the plan were realized, what the current district looks like, and how the current environment creates the need for an …

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 …

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. …

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. …

Assessing The Level Of Bicycle Planning In Local Planning Efforts: A Case Study, Christopher Michael Hussey

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

The transportation system in the United States has long been dominated by motor vehicles. The US Department of Transportation has encouraged cities to increase bicycle transportation as a means to improve health and activity, reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, reduce congestion, improve air quality, and reduce vehicle miles traveled. Bicycle transportation is improved in a city when thorough planning documents have been created to help guide and improve bicycling facilities

This research creates a framework to evaluate a city’s planning documents for the purpose of bicycle planning. The framework is derived from a thorough literature review and from …

The Nebraska Sandhills Food Desert: Causes, Identification, And Actions Towards A Resolution, Andrew Thierolf

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Declining populations over the past several decades have created issues for residents in many rural areas. A serious concern is the emergence of “food deserts,” areas where people do not have sufficient access to nutritious foods. The Sandhills region in west-central Nebraska is a prime example of an area that is subject to the food desert phenomenon. It features a low-density rural population that creates a difficult economic environment for grocery retailers.

This paper looks at multiple aspects of the food desert issue in the region. It begins by reviewing literature to determine the definition of the term “food desert” …

North Bottoms: A Participatory Redevelopment And Sustainable Community Engagement Process, Andrea C. Koerner

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

This project addressed the economic, social, and environmental ill effects occurring in the North Bottoms in Lincoln, Nebraska. This neighborhood requires the use of innovative community engagement to counteract minimal resources, civic engagement, and social capital in order to accomplish sustainable redevelopment when traditional methods have been unsuccessful. The initial goal of the project was to involve citizens in the design process to create an effective and development strategy and design project for the neighborhood.

Although traditional methods were sufficient to develop a comprehensive approach to sustainable development, it became obvious through engagement with citizens and civic officials that a …

Assessment Of New Energy Use Policy In Land Use Planning, Xun Liu

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

In modern society, energy has long been a part of human life. However, traditional energy resources will be used up eventually, and they also cause environmental pollution. In contrast with traditional energy resources, new energy has three major advantages: it has high efficiency, renewable and environmentally friendly. Considering new energy’s efficiency, local government should adopt appropriate policies. New energy policies are the most effective and direct method to enable governments to achieve their goals.

This study mainly focuses on how energy policies can improve the efficiency of new energy use. More specifically, this research addresses three major questions: 1) To …