Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Adaptability From Tv & Film Into Theatre | The Subversion Inspiration In Celia’S Identity Versatility Throughout William Shakespeare’S As You Like It, Emani White

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the inspiration of adaptability skills, pivoting from television and film into theatre, and the potential of unconventional pathways as a catalyst for reconciling anti-traditionalism within the mediums. It offers insight into the obstacles, segues, and adversities faced during the journey of a former athlete turned television and film actor, and into a theatre actor. It illuminates agency as a subversive identity (the disguise), the sacrifice of status, and the need for an emotional anchor of resilience—acknowledging the systemic transitional barriers in performance, career, and education. The paper also discusses the understandings gained from my journey as an …

Open Space Management Planning: A Framework And Case Study From Eagle Mountain City, Utah, Nathan K. Shumway

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Open Space Management Plans (OSMPs) are increasingly used by municipalities to guide the long-term stewardship of natural lands; however, little formal guidance exists regarding how these plans are structured, developed, or organized in practice. While numerous OSMPs are publicly available, their compositional logic, procedural workflows, and thematic priorities remain largely undocumented within academic literature. This study addresses that gap through a qualitative document analysis of fifteen publicly accessible OSMPs from the western United States, published between 2015 and 2024.

Using manual matrix-based coding in Microsoft Excel, each plan was analyzed through three lenses: structural composition, procedural development, and thematic content. …

How Do Community Gardens Contribute To A Thriving National Park City: A Case Study Of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ansley B. Barry

Honors Theses

On April 3, 2025, Chattanooga, Tennessee became the first National Park City (NPC) in North America. With a long, industrial history, Chattanooga has made quite the pivot from being widely renowned for its low air quality and particulate pollution to being recognized as the Best Outdoor City in the US by Outdoor magazine. The goals emphasized by the National Park City campaign are creating a city-wide common interest of community-led sustainability efforts. While the initiative highlights many important initiatives to make the city more sustainable and resilient, community gardens are noticeably left out of the conversation. This paper argues that …

Measuring Urban Space: A Spatial Framework For Transit Stop Siting, Michael R. Leiting

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

Urban investment projects, particularly those related to transit infrastructure, are often evaluated through quantitative metrics that emphasize economic output, proximity, and development potential. While these measures provide useful benchmarks, they offer limited insight into the spatial conditions that shape how environments are structured, navigated, and occupied at the human scale. As a result, sites that appear comparable through conventional metrics may produce fundamentally different spatial experiences.

This thesis develops a drawing-based framework for evaluating spatial conditions across multiple urban sites. Four primary conditions, Urban Form, Threshold, Mobility, and Public Realm, are analyzed through standardized drawings and translated into corresponding indices. …

City, Janina Butz

Theses and Dissertations

Janina Butz observes the improvised support structures holding New York City together at its edges. Looking at the found, cheap materials, spray painted, rusty, drilled, sawed, and haphazardly welded together on the sidewalk. The hard clashes of cheap material and expensive real estate lead Butz to draw a bigger picture of the fraud seams our society is tied together with.

An Appalachian Approach To Urban Flooding In South Carolina, North Carolina, And Kentucky, Boyce A. Clardy Iii

All Theses

Urban flooding poses an ever-growing threat to the built environment worldwide, as it is the leading natural hazard contributing to fatalities globally. Planners stand in a unique position to produce plans and policies that reflect and combat this threat, yet the capacity and obligation to do so varies considerably depending on where a community sits within the broader legislative and institutional landscape. This thesis focuses on the Southeastern subregion of Appalachia, a part of the United States characterized by mountainous terrain, steep foothills, and narrow valley communities. This region was chosen as much attention in the broader literature is focused …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Ramp Metering Implementation: Lessons Learned From The West Coast Of The United States, Sydney Ford

All Theses

This study evaluates how ramp meters, traffic lights installed on highway on-ramps, are used to reduce traffic on the West Coast of the United States, specifically in California, Oregon, and Washington. This research was conducted to better understand how ramp meters are planned and implemented, and to help government agencies manage traffic effectively without adding new highway lanes.

This study reviewed 129 public documents from federal, state, and local agencies to evaluate public involvement in ramp metering planning, concerns about the meters, costs and funding for the meters, and the meters’ design and implementation.

Demolition By Intent: Evaluating Charleston's Red X Placard Procedures, Enforcement Practices, And Communication Methods In The Loss Of Historic Structures, Jessica Stech

All Theses

This thesis examines whether the procedures, enforcement practices, and communication methods associated with the placement of Red X placards in Charleston, South Carolina, contribute to the demolition-by-intent of historic structures. Red X placards, also known as unsafe placards, are placed on the front façade of structurally unsafe structures by the Charleston Fire Department to inform first responders in the event of a fire or other emergency. Although these placards serve as a life-safety tool, they may influence how vacant structures are perceived by family or developer owners and the public.

Through using a qualitative approach, this thesis analyzes the outcomes …

The Dam Plan Matters: Proactive Policy And Nature-Based Solutions For Deliberate Dam Removal, Leah Kaisner

All Theses

Throughout the United States, the dam infrastructure is aging out of their lifespan. This increases risk of loss of life and property, particularly with dam failure. Dam aging necessitates proactive planning methods is needed to prepare communities for dam removal effects rather than responding to failure disasters. This thesis studies how city planners and local officials can use nature-based solutions, river restoration, and resilient policy tools to prepare for upstream dam removal. I created a Dam Removal Preparedness (DRP) Framework for integrating nature-based solutions, resilient policy, and restoration methods and used it as a scoring system to assess community plans’ …

Empowering Sustainable Household Waste Management Through Rubbin: App-Based Transactions Using Google Maps Api And Qr Code Recognition, H.A. Danang Rimbawa, Muhammad Abditya Arghanie, Muhammad Rey Renoult, Dea Dwi Ananda

Smart City

The Digitization of environmentally friendly technology must be applied to advance smart cities. Waste management carried out conventionally often causes irregularities in the classification data collection, difficulties in accessing information related to garbage collection schedules, and a lack of transaction history information, which causes a decrease in the quality of waste collection. The development of functional application features is urgently needed as a container for proper waste management. The Rubbin App has been created, which implements Google Maps API for route optimization and waste mapping, QR code recognition using Enhanced Adaptive Median Filter, and private chat for clients and collectors …

The Reconstruction Of Beirut City Centre (Downtown) As A New Urbanism Project, Ahmed S. Attia

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

The study aims to highlight and examine the Beirut City Centre reconstruction project as an example of the concept of New Urbanism. The study covers Lebanon's geographical location, traditional house architecture, Beirut's history, urban growth, and the civil war and its effects on the city's architecture and identity. Moreover, the objectives of the reconstruction project as a New Urbanism Project were applied in the city's center and the adjacent area of the Saifi Village. The conclusion summarizes the lessons learned from applying the New Urbanism Concept to the reconstruction project.

An Assessment Of Biophilic Design Strategies Application In Selected Hostels In A Typical Tertiary Institution, Nigeria., Emokpae Erebor, Foluke Jegede, Pontip Nimlyat, Benjamin Moral

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

Designing spaces that incorporate the principles of biophilic design enhances the buildings occupants closeness to nature while also enhancing spaces connectivity and place conditions. It has environmental, health and other important benefits not only for the environment but also for the human beings that domicile around them. Firstly, this study was carried out using quantitative data obtained from 120 female students of two selected hostel facilities in a typical private University in South-West Nigeria. Secondly, observation is in identifying the actual applications where these strategies have been applied within these hostels through photographic images. This was done by identifying different …

Analysis Of Local Economic Development In The Urban Informal Settlement Upgrading Programs, George K. Nyamu, Luke M. Obala, Owiti A. K'Akumu

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

This study examines the role of local economic development (LED) within informal settlement upgrading, using Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, as a focal case. As one of the most densely populated informal settlements in sub-Saharan Africa, Kibera has been the target of multiple upgrading initiatives intended to improve housing, infrastructure, and living standards. However, the integration of economic development goals into these interventions has often been overlooked or insufficiently conceptualized. Employing a mixed-methods research design—comprising household surveys, key informant interviews with government and NGO actors, and field-based observations—this study investigated the extent to which upgrading programs have influenced local enterprises, economic …

Does What Happens In Vegas Increase Pedestrian Safety? A Longitudinal Study On The Effectiveness Of Pedestrian Bridges, Jalen Paulos, Joaquin Miguel Del Mundo, Brock Wentz, Janel Pietryga

Department of Orthopaedics Faculty Research

Urban populations continue to rise and the frequency that pedestrians are exposed to vehicular traffic continues to increase. The result is an increase in automobile versus pedestrian collisions. This study aims to determine the efficacy of pedestrian bridges in reducing the rates of automobile‒pedestrian collisions. Data for all automobile versus pedestrian collisions and injuries from July 1997 through December 2023 at four distinct intersections along Las Vegas Boulevard were retrieved from the Nevada Department of Transportation. These sites were chosen because of their historically high rates of automobile versus pedestrian incidents and the construction of pedestrian bridges at three of …

تقييم أثر تطوير محاور الحركة على المرونة الحضرية في المناطق ذات القيمة – حالة دراسية "مصر الجديدة", Maha Abdel Sattar

Emirates Journal for Engineering Research

ملخص

برزت قضايا تجديد البنية الأساسية للتنقل الحضري في محافظة القاهرة كأحد محاور تحقيق استراتيجية التنمية لعام 2030، وهى استراتيجية حملت أهدافا قومية واعدة لتحسين وتقوية البنية الأساسية ورفع مستوى جودة الحياة الحضرية، حيث بدأت الحكومة في تنفيذ خطة تطوير شاملة في حي مصر الجديدة. تهدف إلى حل مشكلة الازدحام المروري وربط المحاور الرئيسية للقاهرة بشكل أفضل بالمدن الجديدة في الشرق. ومن أجل تحقيق هذا الهدف اتخذت الحكومة إجراءات تطوير تركز على توسيع الطرق وتوفير المزيد من المساحة لاستيعاب تدفق المرور وبناء الكباري العلوية.

يهدف هذا البحث إلى استكشاف العلاقة بين السمات والملامح التصميمية لشبكات الطرق في المناطق الحضرية، وبين …

“El Concilio De Buen Manejo” Spmdtu Council No. 2, Capulín, Colorado, José A. Rivera Ph.D

Faculty Publications

From among the sixty-four local councils affiliated with the Sociedad Protección Mutua de Trabajadores Unidos (SPMDTU), Council No. 2 at Capulín was among the earliest organized, quickly grew in membership, and was known for its attention to recordkeeping of minutes, financial ledgers, and attendance logs. The council was established around 1901, and by midcentury a history of the SPMDTU noted: “Este concilio siempre ha tenido buen manejo. Tiene buena propiedad con su propio salón y ha llegado a tener buen número de miembros.” (This council has always enjoyed good management. It has a nice property with its own …

Who Benefits From The Transition? Environmental Justice And The Politics Of Climate Governance In New Mexico, United States, Abdul Ganiu Tanko

Student Publications

New Mexico’s Priority Climate Action Plan (2024) positions the state as a national leader in climate mitigation and energy transition under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant framework. Yet questions remain about who truly benefits from this transition and how justice, power, and inclusion are embedded in the governance process. This article critically examines New Mexico’s climate governance through an environmental justice lens, exploring how state priorities align with equity commitments, community participation, and fair distribution of benefits and burdens. Drawing on a qualitative review of the plan, complementary policy documents, and current scholarship on just transitions, …

From Our Stories, To Our Streets (Osos), Jennifer Lopez

Student Publications

Youth traffic safety persists as a critical planning challenge and public health concern in New Mexico, where pedestrian fatality rates consistently rank among the highest in the United States (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NTSA, Governors Highway Safety Association, GHSA, 2023; Baca, 2025). Students (children), due to their daily interactions with roadways, whether when they walk, bike, ride transit, or drive/get driven to and from school, are among the most vulnerable groups within the transportation system (Ferenchak, N. Wesley, M., 2017. For many students in Albuquerque, the commute to or from school is one of the most dangerous parts of …

Increasing Affordability And Safety In Our Surrounding Community: Subsection 6 Of The St. Mary's Gateway, Addysen Schniederjan

Posters - 2026

Unaffordability is a widespread problem not only across San Antonio and the sub a rea of the St. Mary’s Gateway district. Affordable housing is defined as no more than 30% of a resident's income spent on housing (Bhasin, 2024). Subsection 6 faces a layered set of challenges:

- aging housing stock - proximity to industrial uses - limited neighborhood amenities - safety threats-decreasing property value

Edra 57: Bibliography, Tamara Karr

Bibliographies

edra 57: Embracing Regional Sustainability: Networks for People and Places

Conduction Paths And Policy Design Of New Quality Productivity Empowering Urban-Rural Integrated Development, Lulu Yang, Yi Wang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized that during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, resolving the issues relating to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people must remain a top priority for the entire party, and efforts should be made to promote integrated urban-rural development. As an inevitable path to addressing the relative lag in agricultural and rural modernization, urban-rural integration has entered a new phase, transitioning from establishing institutional mechanisms to developing integrated factor allocation. This phase urgently requires new theoretical guidance and breakthroughs in dynamic models. This study constructs an …

Designing For Dementia: Lessons In Using Wayfinding, Design, And Policy To Retrofit Neighborhoods For People Living With Dementia, Kiaya Siu Ling Batkin

City and Regional Planning

With advancements of modern medicine, more people are living longer lives. However, cognitive decline has become a greater issue faced by a growing number of people. The amount of People Living With Dementia (PLWD) has increased substantially, almost 10 million a year, and as such need different living conditions than what used to serve them (Alzheimer’s Disease International, n.d.). The common solution in the western world is to care for elders in specific sites for them like nursing homes or to hire a live-in nurse to care for them. These services are costly, highly specialized, and tailored to care for …

Analysis Of City Planning For Autism Spectrum Disorder, Joshua Ericson, Ben Shane

City and Regional Planning

Whether formally diagnosed or self-diagnosed, autism spectrum disorder affects children and adults in every corner of the planet. Every city in the world likely has autistic residents who have difficulty living in navigating their city due to their unique sensory, social, and economic needs. Many of these needs affect autistic people’s abilities to comfortably and independently navigate public spaces, attain a reliable method of transportation, and find housing that suits their needs. These issues could all be addressed with city planning and neuro-inclusive public policies, but to date few cities have considered autistic people in their planning. Cities inadvertently exclude …

North Fair Oaks Specific Plan, Carlos Robinson

City and Regional Planning

The North Fair Oaks Specific Plan guides development of the North Fair Oaks Focus Area as defined in the City of Arroyo Grande General Plan by defining land uses, delineating a multimodal circulation system, and outlining ideal development standards in accordance with various local, regional, and state plans.

The Dumbarton Flyer Initiative Study: A Conceptual Plan, Aaron Posternack

City and Regional Planning

The Dumbarton Flyer Initiative Study is a comprehensive and ambitious vision for a study corridor that stretches from Fremont on the East Bay to Redwood City on the Peninsula within the San Francisco Bay Area (Bay Area) of California. It advocates for significant changes to how localities and regions embrace transportation and land use planning. The literature asserts that these two aspects of planning should be inseparable from each other. This assertion particularly holds if the Bay Area seeks to construct additional rail transit lines and to maximize their benefits. Additionally, the transportation mode of “automated light metro”, which this …

Reimagining The Laguna Lake Driving Range, Audrey Bonifacio, Jessica Rice

City and Regional Planning

The Laguna Lake Municipal Golf Course is located in San Luis Obispo, California, and is operated by the city. Recently, the community, city staff, and the City Council have begun a conversation regarding the use of the golf course. To explore the different uses, this senior project presents four alternative developments for a selected area of the golf course. These four uses include enhancing the existing driving range, a sports facility, a children’s center, and a senior living community. To assess these alternatives, the project explores current urban planning theories, development trends, and case studies for each use. Through this …

Middle Plaza Redesign, Marlo Lavacude-Klenck

City and Regional Planning

Middle Plaza Redesign presents a conceptual redevelopment of Middle Plaza, an 8.43-acre site located at 500 El Camino Real in Menlo Park, California. Originally developed as a mixed-use project in the 2010s, the redesign evaluates the site through the regulatory atmosphere, market conditions, and housing needs of 2025.

The project examines site conditions, market demand, state and local planning frameworks, and applicable development standards, including recent California housing legislation that eliminates parking minimums and streamlines environmental review. A financial feasibility analysis using proforma modeling evaluates two investment scenarios and demonstrates the economic challenges of delivering high-density rental housing despite regulatory …

A Reflective Case Study: Mission Plaza Enhancement Project, Emma J. Roeller, Sheridan R. Green

City and Regional Planning

This reflective case study examines the purpose and process that has guided the Mission Plaza Enhancement Project. This leads us to our research question:

How do foundational theories of behavior in public space in tandem with evolving community needs shape the motivations and process behind the Mission Plaza Enhancement Project? What lessons can be drawn from observed behavioral patterns and planner perspectives to inform future phases of the plan?

To gain a deeper understanding of what makes a public space successful and how to record and analyze behavior in a public space, we will use foundational planning literature from the …

Riverbend Ranch Mixed-Use Development Project, Anthony James Sousa

City and Regional Planning

This senior project is a proposed mixed-use development project in the City of Visalia, California. The scope of work includes site analysis and site plan development formatted in a comprehensive development package. This project aims to set a precedent for future development in the City of Visalia by increasing density to meet housing requirements and incorporating various urban agricultural uses to reconnect the urban and rural relationship. Additionally, the project includes a literature review on urban agriculture to explain its role in planning practice.

The Role Of 15-Minute Cities In Promoting Sustainable Urban Development: A Stakeholder-Centered Project Management Approach, Pamela O. Nkwantabisah

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

The 15-minute city is an innovative urban planning approach that aims to enhance sustainability, accessibility, and quality of life by placing essential services within a 15-minute walk or cycle radius. Despite its popularity globally, the majority of projects fail to realize their objective due to ineffective stakeholder engagement, competing priorities, and inadequate communication throughout the project procedure. This study addresses the urgent problem of limited stakeholder involvement in 15-minute city planning and implementation. The purpose of the study is to determine challenges of stakeholder engagement and develop a stakeholder-centric approach rooted in project management best practices. Guided by the Stakeholder …