Thesis (D.Phil. (Town and Regional Planning)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Background: Urban form is a contributor to physical inactivity, which is a problem around the world. The association between urban form and physical activity is not fully understood, in part because improved methodologies of assessing urban form are necessary. This thesis consists of four studies that examined the association between urban form and physical activity in Edmonton, Alberta, using Geographic Information Systems. The research goals of this thesis were: (1) to compare two objective methods of assessing urban form walkability; (2) to examine the association between objective and subjective urban form measures and physical activity; and (3) to compare self-reported physical activity of individuals living in high and low walkability neighborhoods. Methods: Study 1 addressed Goal 1 and focused on objectively measuring urban form walkability based on public health and architectural (space syntax) measures. Study 2 addressed Goal 2 and focused on urban form association with self-reported physical activity. Study 3 addressed Goals 2 and 3 and focused on urban form association with self-reported walking. Study 4 addressed Goal 3 and involved an observational study of the pedestrian, cyclist, and vehicular movement in four neighbourhoods stratified by walkability and socio-economic status (SES). Results: Study 1 revealed agreement between public health and space syntax measures of assessing urban form. Study 2 revealed that only the objective environment was associated with physical activity. Study 3 revealed that only the perceived environment was associated with walking. Study 3 also revealed that walking as recommended was not different for individuals living in environments objectively assessed as higher versus lower in walkability. Study 4 revealed that observed pedestrian movement was higher in volume in neighbourhoods objectively assessed as higher in walkability. Cyclist movement was lower in volume in the neighbourhood classified as lower in walkability and in SES than in the other three neighbourhoods. Vehicular movement was no different in volume in the four neighbourhoods. Conclusion: Both objective and subjective urban form influence physical activity. A common Social Ecological Models - Space Syntax framework would enable a better understanding of urban form influences on physical activity.

Second homes have been rapidly increasing throughout the world, especially in high amenity landscapes due to increasing mobility, greater leisure time after retirements and development of transportation means. Second home development in Turkey has been accelerated in the Mediterranean and Aegean coastal resorts especially after the 1980s. Fascination of rural environments, low cost of living and accommodation for holiday, considering second homes as investments and future permanent homes after retirements, and less stressful way of living in such coastal towns attract domestic and foreign tourists to buy second homes in amenity rich coastal areas of Turkey. This has been led to second home invasion and construction pressure on amenity rich landscapes, protected lands, countryside and natural environments. This thesis aims to investigate the challenges of coastal resort towns regarding second-home developments.

Aim of this thesis is to explain the role of property relations in the production of urban form. It is assumed that urban form is produced not only as a physical setting but also as a concrete and relatively fixed manifestation of property relations. In this respect, urban form should be considered in a relational conception of space. The study departs from the proposition that property relations are the main determinants of the formation of urban space, and private property constitutes the generator of the dynamics and contradictions of urban formation, through a continuous process of fragmentation. For this reason, in the control of urban formation, property rights are the basic element that city planners have to face. Therefore, this study presents a comprehensive framework that integrates the categories of urban morphology with a structural analysis of urban formation process. As the essential unit of capitalist city, &ldquo / production of the parcel as a commodity&rdquo / is elaborated as the core of urban formation process. In this framework, morphogenesis of Yenisehir&ndash / Ankara is analyzed in order to understand its historical transformation with reference to the context of property relations. Its morphological layers are depicted as a product of the contradictory relation between urban planning and property relations. It is seen that the morphogenesis of Yenisehir includes three distinct layers of formation, which are characterized by the gradual domination of commodity production in the formation process of urban space.

Property rights within historical urban contexts, an important aspect when considering how inhabitants create an urban pattern from an urban context, being starting point of living, using, building, designing and forming the built environment. Property rights can refer not only to the physical forms, socio-cultural structures, administrative issues, and political and economic conditions of the urban context, but also their way of defining an order between the context and its inhabitance, investigates the combination of tangible and intangible values and their continuity in an urban context, which has emerged as an important issue in urban conservation studies. While urban conservation studies have sought rational solutions to investigating the combination of tangible and intangible values and its hidden values in the historical urban context, the thesis is to focus to research the relationship between ownership and the physical urban context so as to define the tangible and intangible values of human experiences within the urban context. The city of Antakya (Antioch) has been selected as the case study of this thesis as not only a crucial empirical case owing to its rich historical, multi-cultural historic urban core, but also due to the fact that the current historical urban form was affected and formed under Islamic ownership norms, and later developed under Ottoman land tenures. Additionally, as archive documents such as title deeds have been translated into Turkish, and the cadastral plans of the urban form have been prepared during the French Mandate Period, they can be viewed as sources of reliable information on ownership norms for every single property unit, which is a key asset when attempting to decode the physical urban structure and reveal the hidden salience of the city. Fundamentally, this research clarifies that ownership has the means of affecting something that lies beyond the existence, beyond the apparent, beyond the known and beyond the man-made settlement boundaries that define elusive historical urban forms. The Antakya case reveals clearly that property rights have major implications when attempting to understand the formation and persistence of every single component of an urban form / and accordingly, these aspects deserve greater consideration in urban conservation when attempting to make holistic assessments.

Increasing vehicle dependence in the United States has resulted in substantial emissions of traffic-related air pollutants that contribute to the deterioration of urban air quality. Exposure to urban air pollutants trigger a number of public health concerns, including the potential of inequality of exposures and health effects among population subgroups. To better understand the impact of traffic-related pollutants on air quality, exposure, and exposure inequality, modeling methods that can appropriately characterize the spatiotemporally resolved concentration distributions of traffic-related pollutants need to be improved. These modeling methods can then be used to investigate the impacts of urban design and transportation management choices on air quality, pollution exposures, and related inequality. This work will address these needs with three objectives: 1) to improve modeling methods for investigating interactions between city and transportation design choices and air pollution exposures, 2) to characterize current exposures and the social distribution of exposures to traffic-related air pollutants for the case study area of Hillsborough County, Florida, and 3) to determine expected impacts of urban design and transportation management choices on air quality, air pollution exposures, and exposure inequality. To achieve these objectives, the impacts of a small-scale transportation management project, specifically the '95 Express' high occupancy toll lane project, on pollutant emissions and nearby air quality was investigated. Next, a modeling method capable of characterizing spatiotemporally resolved pollutant emissions, concentrations, and exposures was developed and applied to estimate the impact of traffic-related pollutants on exposure and exposure inequalities among several population subgroups in Hillsborough County, Florida. Finally, using these results as baseline, the impacts of sprawl and compact urban forms, as well as vehicle fleet electrification, on air quality, pollution exposure, and exposure inequality were explored. Major findings include slightly higher pollutant emissions, with the exception of hydrocarbons, due to the managed lane project. Results also show that ambient concentration contributions from on-road mobile sources are disproportionate to their emissions. Additionally, processes not captured by the CALPUFF model, such as atmospheric formation, contribute substantially to ambient concentration levels of the secondary pollutants such as acetaldehyde and formaldehyde. Exposure inequalities for NOx, 1,3-butadiene, and benzene air pollution were found for black, Hispanic, and low income (annual household income less than $20,000) subgroups at both short-term and long-term temporal scales, which is consistent with previous findings. Exposure disparities among the subgroups are complex, and sometimes reversed for acetaldehyde and formaldehyde, due primarily to their distinct concentration distributions. Compact urban form was found to result in lower average NOx and benzene concentrations, but higher exposure for all pollutants except for NOx when compared to sprawl urban form. Evidence suggests that exposure inequalities differ between sprawl and compact urban forms, and also differ by pollutants, but are generally consistent at both short and long-term temporal scales. In addition, vehicle fleet electrification was found to result in generally lower average pollutant concentrations and exposures, except for NOx. However, the elimination of on-road mobile source emissions does not substantially reduce exposure inequality. Results and findings from this work can be applied to assist transportation infrastructure and urban planning. In addition, method developed here can be applied elsewhere for better characterization of air pollution concentrations, exposure and related inequalities.

Urban air pollution is responsible for high levels of morbidity and mortality in exposed populations due to its effects on cardiovascular and respiratory function. Transportation-related air pollutants account for the majority of harmful air pollution in urban areas. Forests are known to reduce air pollution through their ability to facilitate dry deposition and atmospheric gas exchange. This work characterizes the interactions between transportation air pollutants and urban forests in Hillsborough County, Florida. A highly spatially resolved passive air sampling campaign was conducted to characterize local concentrations of nitrogen oxides, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) in Hillsborough County, Florida. Sampling locations included a proportion of densely forested urban areas in order to determine the effects of Hillsborough County's urban forest resources on localized concentrations of selected transportation pollutants. Recommended approaches for the use of urban forests as an effective air pollution mitigation technique in Hillsborough County were generated based on results from the sampling campaign. Results show mean concentrations of 2.1 parts per billion and 6.5 µg/m3 for nitrogen oxides and total BTEX, respectively. High spatial variability in pollutant concentrations across Hillsborough County was observed, with the coefficient of variation found to be 0.61 for nitrogen oxides and 0.79 for total BTEX. Higher concentrations were observed along interstate highways, in urban areas of the county, and near select point sources in rural areas. Differences in concentrations within forested areas were observed, but were not statistically significant at the 95%#37; confidence level. These results can be used to identify elements of urban design which contribute to differences in concentrations and exposures. This information can be used to create more sustainable urban designs which promote health and equity of the population.

This thesis expands upon the dialogue between speed and architecture, investigating how architecture reinterprets the linear city, originally defined by the continuous fabric of the freeway and more recently reconfigured by the high speed rail line. Using the linear city as a site of exploration and high speed rail as a ground to test new typologies of architectural insertions at amplified speed, this thesis produces an extended civic space along the proposed high speed rail line connecting Tampa and Orlando. Combining a series of performance and commercial programs, this new typology will make the obscured visual experience along the extended territory of the rail line legible, through a sequencing of specific architectural intersections, exploring how monumental civic space will be made and occupied in the sprawl of the American city.

No description available.

Many cities, including some in New Zealand, are investigating, developing or implementing urban form strategies and, separately, Park and Ride systems. These two matters are not generally considered alongside one another. This paper explores the relationship and interactions between urban form and Park and Ride systems through the identification of objectives for each, and considering the degree to which objectives of various urban form types may be achieved with different types of Park and Ride systems. The purpose of this research project is to investigate and develop a predictive methodology that would allow the identification of the most suitable Park and Ride system (from a proposed classification scheme) for a given set of urban form objectives. Classification systems for urban form and Park and Ride systems are proposed in light of information from an extensive literature and information review. They are used as a basis for an Assessment Framework Matrix of urban form type against Park and Ride type. The matrix is populated from a spreadsheet-based analysis process, which considers the degree of achievement of urban form objectives by various Park and Ride categories. This process is hampered by the lack of (easily accessible) data, particularly for strategic assessment of existing Park and Ride systems worldwide. A range of tests are conducted on the proposed Assessment Framework Matrix using real cities, a range of hypothetical urban areas, and several sensitivity tests. Subsequently, a case study applies the matrix to Christchurch, New Zealand. The main findings of this research project indicate that the proposed methodology works, needs refining with better data, could be useable in public or stakeholder engagement processes, and would benefit from a "User Manual" and some simplification. The case study tentatively indicates a recommended Park and Ride system type for Christchurch.