Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Effective Locations And Landscape Design For Ev Charging Sites In The Intermountain West, Eli Woodward

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The rapid growth of electric vehicle (EV) adoption in the United States, particularly in the Intermountain West, has created an increasing demand for accessible and well-distributed charging infrastructure, yet limited attention has been given to how site selection and landscape design influence the effectiveness and user experience of these locations. This thesis explores how EV charging stations can be strategically located and designed to improve usability, encourage engagement, and support local economic development through a multi-criteria site selection process that considers major transportation corridors, regional demographics, Opportunity Zones, and proximity to recreational and public lands. Using geographic information systems (GIS), …

Assessing Coastal Vulnerability To Extreme Waves And Abrasion In Bandar Lampung City: Implications For Spatial Pattern And Infrastructure Adaptation, Adnin Musadri Asbi, Yudha Rahman, Fachri Muhammad Rasyid, Diyanti Isnani Siregar

Jurnal Geografi Lingkungan Tropik (Journal of Geography of Tropical Environments)

Coastal cities in Southeast Asia face dual challenges of rapid urbanization and increasing climate pressures, demanding robust integration of risk assessment into spatial planning. This study assesses the vulnerability of Bandar Lampung City's coastal area to extreme waves and abrasion, analyzing implications for its spatial plan. Using a standard hazard index and a spatial overlay against the city's Regional Spatial Plan (RTRW), the research identifies a 'Medium' hazard classification across all four studied sub-districts. Crucially, this classification is not driven by significant hydrodynamic forces but is substantially amplified by anthropogenic vulnerabilities. A development-centric spatial policy has led to the dominance …

Huburban America: New Haven And The Promise Of Mobility, Jhansiddh Setthachayanon

Library Map Prize

This project analyzes micromobility as the emerging solution to New Haven’s incomplete urban transportation project. It argues that micromobility’s legitimization through mobility hubs is key to the city’s modern connectivity. Finally, it proposes a version of new hubs for New Haven.

Safety Net: Hope Amongst The Housing Crisis In Lagos, Nigeria, Mayowa Odunjo

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Lagos, Nigeria, home to over 22 million people, stands as Africa’s most populous city. The African Giant of Nigeria holds over 260 million people with the workforce falling on the backs of Millennials and Generation Z. On the surface, this could be seen as an advantage; a youthful, energetic labor force that any economy would benefit from. However, in Nigeria, this demographic reality also presents a unique set of challenges that has been exacerbated by inadequate housing, overpopulation, and rapid urbanization.

The housing crisis in Lagos, fueled by failed government support and initiatives along with rapid population growth, leaves many …

Mapping The Tren Maya’S Mark On Mérida, Diego Tamayo

Pitzer Senior Theses

Mapping the Tren Maya’s Mark on Mérida investigates whether the Tren Maya railway is ushering in new sustainable development which provides economic and social benefits for the residents of Mérida, Mexico. The Mexican government has spearheaded the megaproject’s construction in a mere four years with the goal of boosting economic growth in an environmentally and socially conscious manner. The following investigation highlights where this vision, articulated in technocratically-constructed public documents and amplified in reporting, has been fulfilled in Mérida. Through geospatial, physical, and journalistic investigations and analysis, it is revealed the Tren Maya has brought a host of impacts upon …

‘Sold Down The River’: Histories Of Production, Trade, And Transport Along The Waterways Of The Kilombero Valley, Tanzania, Jonathan M. Jackson

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This article considers the centrality of waterways in the Kilombero Valley of Tanzania to the region’s histories of development from above, particularly in terms of infrastructure, crop production, trade, and transport. Early colonial investigations hoped Kilombero’s riverine system might prove a navigable link from the coast to the Southern Highlands. The British colonial era instead focused more on utilising riverine networks for internal goods transport. Throughout these colonial visions – simultaneously ambitious and naïve – the prevalent dug- out canoe was considered unsafe, inefficient, and replaceable by modernised methods. But the canoe – a symbol of indigenous knowledge and practice …

The State Of The City's Bridges, Leo G. Miranda

Capstones

An analysis by NYCity News Service of 2024 federal bridge inspection found that 118 segments of city bridges are in poor condition, around 8% of all bridges citywide. Among these are segments of major highways and bridges like the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, FDR Drive, Harlem River Drive, Grand Central Parkway and even a part of the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. On a single stretch of highway, where the Grand Central Parkway and the Whitestone Expressway meet in Queens, there are seven parts of highway or ramps in poor condition.

Bridge segments can be any raised roadway that passes over another parkway, …

Steps In The Right Direction: The Pursuit Of Walkability Within The United States, Griffin Neuschaefer

Honors Projects

The benefits associated with walkability are well documented and observed across a number of disciplines. Benefits pertaining to the economy, physical and mental health, and safety are clearly associated with walkability and the implementation of walkable design within specific communities. Due to dominant practices pertaining to urban design within the United States and a history of increasingly single-use and low-density zoning, walkability and the use of walking as a form of transportation are rarely utilized to the same extent as similarly developed countries. This paper aims to evaluate the features of walkability related to the aforementioned benefits in order to …

Proposed Charlotte To Atlanta High-Speed Passenger Rail Line: An Economic, Infrastructural, And Developmental Analysis In The Upstate Of South Carolina, Ian C. Macurda, Kimberly Whitehead

SC Upstate Research Symposium

This research paper is an in-depth analysis of the high-speed passenger rail line proposed between Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA and its impact on the economy, infrastructure, and future development of the Upstate of South Carolina. Currently, passenger rail service between Charlotte and Atlanta is offered on Amtrak at late hours throughout the night on its long-distance passenger rail line The Crescent from New York City, NY to New Orleans, LA. The train is often delayed and is operating at a deficit for Amtrak, like most of their long-distance routes. Traffic on Interstate 85 through the Upstate is another issue …

Southern Nevada Regional Industrial Study, Brookings Mountain West, Center For Business And Economic Research, Transportation Research Center

Policy Briefs and Reports

Recognizing the ongoing need to diversify the Southern Nevada economy, in 2023 GOED commissioned Brookings Mountain West, the UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research, and the UNLV Transportation Research Center to evaluate how Southern Nevada can leverage its geography and connectivity to neighboring states and metros at the megapolitan level to pursue industrial opportunities in the face of shifting global supply chains, diminishing developable land, the need for efficient management of the regional water supply, and the availability of unprecedented federal resources to support clean energy development, manufacturing, electrification of transportation systems, and supply-chain resiliency.

The study builds on …

The Charge Forward: An Assessment Of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure In New York City, Christopher S. Cali

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The federal and local New York City (NYC) governments are actively promoting Electric Vehicles (EVs). This capstone project assesses the state of EV charging infrastructure in NYC and its readiness for EV growth. NYC faces unique challenges due to its dense population and limited space for infrastructure. There's a significant disparity between the number of gas pumps and fast EV chargers in the city, with only 170 Level 3/DC (Direct Current) Fast Chargers publicly available. These Level 3 chargers are most important because they can charge an EV in 15 minutes; Level 2 chargers, also considered in the analysis, take …

Fulfilling Urban Infrastructure Standards To Increase The Carrying Capacity Of Tourism Destination, Shana Fatina, Tri Edhi Budhi Soesilo, Rudy Parluhutan Tambunan

Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainable Development

Labuan Bajo is an emerging coastal tourism destination in Indonesia, which is also part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Komodo Biosphere Reserve located in the East Nusa Tenggara region. Recent tourism developments have transformed Labuan Bajo from a rural area into an urban area, and significant land use changes have followed. This new urban area development will attract tourists as well as population migration. The ongoing issue is to develop the urban infrastructure and facilities of Labuan Bajo in an integrated and sustainable way, considering the carrying capacity following the high demand for tourism and …

Public-Ish, Aliah Werth

Masters Theses

Climate change affects public space, and architecture must establish tenets that prioritize pedestrians in this difficult era. Greywater re-use can be a mechanism for creating shade, and in turn, public space.

As heat waves grow more intense, the vast swaths of asphalt that connect commercial zones pose greater risks to public health and to urban vitality. This thesis records the typical material, spatial, and lived conditions of strip malls in urban heat islands, and demands more from infrastructure in public-ish space.

Heat violence weaves through Los Angeles’ built form. Parking space minimums, required setbacks, and height restrictions pull buildings away …

Linear Waltz With Nature: A Self-Supporting Infrastructure In Nature, Shangkun Zhong

Architecture Senior Theses

This project aims to create a sustainable system that addresses waste management issues in urban areas by examining the functionality of recycling infrastructures and how they can be integrated. The system will absorb waste and convert it into renewable energy to support a field station in Tibet, where self-sustainability is critical, due to the remote location. Architects often demonstrate their understanding of sustainability through various means such as integration, passive/energy-saving, and natural architecture. This thesis argues that a sustainable system such as CopenHill, can exemplify the combination of green-manifested design and recycle content as a sustainable cycle that supports human-nature …

Strengthening Urban Resilience: Understanding The Interdependencies Of Outer Space And Strategic Planning For Sustainable Smart Environments, Ulpia-Elena Botezatu, Olga Bucovetchi, Adrian V. Gheorghe, Radu D. Stanciu

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The conventional approach to urban planning has predominantly focused on horizontal dimensions, disregarding the potential risks originating from outer space. This paper aims to initiate a discourse on the vertical dimension of cities, which is influenced by outer space, as an essential element of strategic urban planning. Through an examination of a highly disruptive incident in outer space involving a collision between the Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 satellites, this article elucidates the intricate interdependencies between urban areas and outer space infrastructure and services. Leveraging the principles of critical infrastructure protection, which bridge the urban and outer space domains, and …

Estimating Vehicle Infrastructure: Downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, Zachery Phillip Baiamonte

Architecture and Planning ETDs

Cities have little knowledge about their parking infrastructure despite clear evidence that abundant parking has environmental, economic, and transportation consequences. The objective of this thesis is to illustrate the need to accurately estimate the area dedicated to vehicle infrastructure (parking lots and streets) within urban areas. I focused on a method that estimated the vehicle infrastructure area within the Downtown Core of Albuquerque, New Mexico, by cross-referencing geospatial cadastral data with minimum parking requirements. Three parking space types were identified: 1) parking in structures; 2) surface parking (parking lots and residential driveways); and 3) on-street parking. To illustrate the need …

Proposing Guidelines To Upgrade The Open Public Spaces In The Informal Settlements, Lena Hosni, Ayman Afify, Hiba Mohsen, Maged Youssef

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

Informal Settlements have expanded rapidly in the last fifty years and have kept rising. With rapid population expansion has come an increase in haphazard urbanisation and informal settlements, frequently referred as slums. Defined as a settlement that was formed in an unplanned and uncontrolled way, which means they are mostly unrecognized. Unfortunately, focusing on the problem of current challenges in informal settlements, on the socio-cultural and environmental levels, which are facing a massive shift in the quality of life in these sites, this is reflected in urban fragmentations, social and infrastructures are lacking, service systems that have become progressively inefficient …

Structural Problems Of Latin American Cities 450 Years After Caracas’ Foundation, Fabio Capra-Ribeiro

Faculty Publications

Latin American cities face many problems that compromise them from different angles such as lack of infrastructure, government fragmentation, and environmental degradation. At the same time, each city tries to come up with its own solutions, but there are so many difficulties that in many cases it is difficult to keep attention and efforts focused on all these directions. For these reasons, this research aims to define some of the most common problems faced by cities in Latin America. Disseminating these similarities could help to face those problems, since, if local governments recognize that they face the same situations as …

The Process Of Urbanization And Modernization That Is Evolving Manchester, United Kingdom, Alison Mcneal

History and Political Science | History 3003 - The Globe

In 1760, Great Britain, among other surrounding countries, transitioned to a new manufacturing process known as the Industrial Revolution. As defined by Oxford Reference, the Industrial Revolution was the “rapid development of industry that occurred in Britain in the late 18th and 19th centuries, brought about by the introduction of machinery. It was characterized by using steam power, the growth of factories, and the mass production of manufactured goods” (Oxford Reference).1 The Industrial Revolution impacted the world by transforming businesses, the economy, and society. Prior, most European countries had economies that were strictly dominated by farming and artisan …

Biking In Indianapolis: An Ethnographic Analysis Of Obstacles And Solutions, Emory Lietz

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Indiana is known as the ""Crossroads of America"" for its historic investment in vehicle infrastructure. This focus on automobiles has shaped Indianapolis's urban landscape, to the dismay of many cyclists. Based on semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders in the Indianapolis cycling community, including urban planners, bike commuters, IndyGo employees, city government officials, and bike advocates, this project identifies and evaluates the current barriers that prevent Indianapolis residents from riding their bikes. These obstacles, which include infrastructural, safety, and social factors, make it more difficult than it ought to be to bike in Indy.

For my thesis project, I …

Exploring A New Urban Strategy To Organize The Informal Settlements In Tripoli, Ayman Wehbe

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

A dynamic urban form can be defined as emerging in the planning, and development of urban centers as a city where there is a defined perimeter, inside which lies a population that is self-sufficient supporting by the technologies and economy within the city fully employs the population, the services, and cultural infrastructure within the city are sufficient to supply for the population in the cities. One of the most significant driving forces of change in any urban system is population development. This randomness in growth causes an imbalance in the civil system through environmental problems on the life system that …

Surmounting Disembodiment: Architecture And Suicide Prevention, Jack Mcgeehan

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Suicide is currently the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, more than double the number of homicide deaths. This thesis questions how architects can design more appropriately for people who are at risk for suicide in the United States. While suicide is individualistic and varies from person to person, there are consistencies that can serve as a basis for mitigating the problem and building an infrastructure for the solution. This thesis begins by examining four key cohorts that are typically high risk in the United States; veterans, the elderly, the homeless, and youths. It examines the behavioral …

How American Transit Agencies Determine Fare Policy: It All Comes Down To Politics, Julian Thesseling

CMC Senior Theses

This paper will provide readers with an understanding of the variables that US transit agencies grapple with when developing fare policy, with a particular focus on the political process. The framework chapter will examine the objectives of public transportation and how agencies face difficulties in achieving these objectives. While this paper will focus on American transportation policy, the framework will draw from the experiences of cities across the world. Three case study chapters will then each discuss an American city or region’s approach to fare policy, and how variables have either complicated or enhanced agencies’ ability to develop effective fare …

Gilgit-Baltistan At The Cross Road Of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (Cpec), Zulfiqar Ali Khan

MSJ Capstone Projects

This capstone project focused on the in-depth analysis of the role and impact of this multi-billion-dollar project on the politically deprived region of Gilgit-Baltistan. This region is the gateway to CPEC as it is the only region of Pakistan that shares border with China. The geographical ties, tributary and trade relationship and even family relationships between Gilgit-Baltistan and the Xinjiang region of China dates back centuries before the creation of Pakistan and the post revolution China.

The project has been designed and implemented in a way that GB’s role is to provide the services of road and some other services …

Reimagining Future Sustainable, Climate-Resilient Urban Design For Apia, Samoa: Developing Plans For A Developing Nation, Alyssa Kaewwilai

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Small island developing states are arguably the most vulnerable, exposed nations on a global scale to the harmful effects of climate change. Particularly in Samoa, an abundance of environmental, economic, and social impacts have severe impacts on both the country as a whole as well as on an individual level. This study analyzes future mitigation strategies of land use and urban design to recreate Samoa’s capital of Apia as a more climate-resilient city to encourage economic growth and to ensure the well-being of all inhabitants. This planning is based upon current challenges of Samoa driven by climate change such as …

The Economic Impact Of Failing Infrastructure In The New York Metropolitan Area, Nicholas Travis

Honors College Theses

Infrastructure in the New York Metropolitan Area has been seriously underfunded due to a failure of public investment on the local, state and federal level. Prior research has presented concrete reasoning that the now crumbling infrastructure will seriously affect economic growth and worker productivity. This research seeks to quantify the economic effects as a result of this failing infrastructure. My research asks: what are the concrete, additional economic expenditures, due to failing infrastructure, that drivers spend each year? How much do these economic costs decrease our economic productivity, and how do the economic costs compare with proposed infrastructure improvements? From …

The Need For Enhanced Physical Infrastructure In The United States, Tanvi Gandham

CMC Senior Theses

An examination of necessary infrastructure improvements in the United States.

Tallahassee Central City Planning Study, Tallahassee-Leon County Planning Department

City and Regional Planning -- Florida

Study on Developing Downtown Tallahassee

Infrastructural Urbanism: Hybridizing Our Networks, Hannah Boyd

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

“The story of people can be told through our infrastructure. In the rise and fall of cities throughout history, the places best positioned for a thriving future have always been those that offer systems to create the lives that we want. And we can see that as the innovations of canals, aqueducts, railroads, and highways did in their time, the kind of infrastructure that we build today matters to our success. If we do it right, it will forever transform our way of life.”
– Ryan Gravel¹

Urban edges are created through interstices, spaces intervening between one thing and …

Infrastructural Urbanism: Hybridizing Our Networks, Hannah Boyd

KSU Journey Honors College Capstones and Theses

“The story of people can be told through our infrastructure. In the rise and fall of cities throughout history, the places best positioned for a thriving future have always been those that offer systems to create the lives that we want. And we can see that as the innovations of canals, aqueducts, railroads, and highways did in their time, the kind of infrastructure that we build today matters to our success. If we do it right, it will forever transform our way of life.”
– Ryan Gravel¹

Urban edges are created through interstices, spaces intervening between one thing and …