Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 122 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-116).

Thesis (MS)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2009. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: William Wyckoff. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 249-267).

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Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 65 p. : ill., col. map. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-63).

Urban design has splintered into increasingly narrow specialist disciplines since the mid Twentieth Century. Traffic engineers, statutory planners, civil engineers, landscape architects and architects each make specific but isolated contributions to urban design frameworks. Each consultant documents their position predominantly through text and two dimensional representations, occasionally with specious perspective images produced by a hand rendering specialist. This fragmented and sequential design approach inadequately addresses contemporary urban agendas, practice constraints or the potential of digital design techniques, particularly in light of increasing fears of an imminent environmental crisis and peak oil, and concerns for health, amenity and accommodating an increasingly urbanised population. The aim of my thesis is to identify and address disparities between contemporary urban design practice and society's prevailing urban agendas for integrated and sustainable cities. The hypothesis tested by my thesis is that the gulf between prevailing urban agendas of society and urban design can be reduced by developing a 'defragmented' design approach that uses rapid, parametric, four-dimensional, digital analysis and design techniques, which build upon software commonly available within the industry. This hypothesis has been tested in four ways: firstly through the analysis of urban agendas, design techniques and urban design paradigms, in both historic and contemporary contexts; secondly by identifying currently available technologies with the potential for adaptation and customisation; thirdly by development of new digital techniques; and finally by testing this defragmented approach on both simplified models and various case studies within an urban design practice as part of the embedded research program. Techniques I have developed and tested as part of the approach fit into four categories: firstly pedestrian connectivity - walkability and accessibility; secondly daylight amenity assessment; thirdly visual impact analysis assessing urban form visualisation, generation and composition; and finally feasibility modelling, including linked data yield analysis. I have evaluated the success of the approach in these studies with regard to practice constraints (time and budget) and contemporary society's pr evailing urban agendas. My rapid, defragmented design approach has resulted in new techniques shown to be used quickly and concurrently 'in-house' contributing to the urban design process, whilst meeting fee budgets and project deadlines. I have demonstrated that issues that are currently difficult to solve using the constraints of conventional planning techniques can be addressed more effectively than they are currently, whilst avoiding the considerable expense of specialised hardware/software or the appointment of additional consultants. My thesis concludes that the rapid, defragmented approach can demonstrably yield more synergistic urban design responses. The inherently flexible approach can be tailored for a myriad of different urban design scenarios, as well as potentially other disciplines. The defragmented approach can expand the realm of urban designers and increase their contribution in the generation and advocacy of sustainable planning policy and reduce the disparities between contemporary urban design practice and society's need for integrated and sustainable cities.

Forest management strategies directly affect landowner welfare, and factors ranging from natural disturbances to institutional environments play important roles in influencing the outcomes for both landowners and society. This dissertation, consisting of three essays, delves into the forest sectors in both developed and developing countries with an aim of uncovering the impacts of various factors in forest management, as well as resulting welfare changes felt by landowners and society. The first essay extends previous literature on natural disturbances and forest management, where a single disturbance and immediate clearcut after it are always assumed, through the introduction of multiple disturbances and flexible harvest timing. A Faustmann-type rotation model is developed and used to guide simulations of loblolly pine management in the southern United States. We show that failure to consider the possibility of multiple disturbances and the oversimplification of harvest rules after a single disturbance leads to suboptimal harvest decisions. The second essay further extends the natural disturbance literature by considering the amenity value of unharvested forests in addition to timber value. As before, multiple types of disturbances as well as flexible harvest timing are incorporated into a Hartmann-type framework. Alternative amenity functions are employed in the simulations in which socially optimal harvest strategies are derived. We further examine the discrepancies between optimal harvest decisions of the landowner and those of the social planner, and compute social costs of ignoring amenity value. Our results show that ignoring amenity value can generate social costs and render harvest decisions socially suboptimal. Forest production in developing countries also suffers from institutional weaknesses that distorts household decision making. The third essay therefore investigates impacts of village democracy on rural household welfare in China through changes in production efficiency in forestry and agriculture sectors using data collected from a household survey. A theoretical framework is first established, and based upon that framework stochastic production frontier models are estimated where democracy is incorporated as a potential factor affecting the variation of technical efficiency. We find that higher levels of village democracy significantly increase production efficiency. A first study on how village democracy affects rural household welfare, we provide policy lessons for other developing countries undergoing democratization. / Ph. D.

This research investigates why British Columbian local governments are motivated to implement Community Amenity Contributions (CACs). Local governments that are considering adopting a CAC policy may benefit from this report. Data was obtained from developers, planners and politicians through online surveys and semi-structured interviews. The survey was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the interview data was analyzed using content analysis. All participants viewed CACs as an effective means to raise revenue to pay for growth-related costs. All participants agreed that CACs are not used as a market-based planning tool to influence urban form. Four recommendations are made: 1) obtain Canadian empirical data on the impact of Development Charges 2) improve CACs by broadening the scope of provincial DCC legislation to include amenities now funded through CACs; 3) consider the market effects of CACs, especially on affordable housing; and 4) employ economists to analyze externalized costs of development for planning departments. / October 2015

“I want my street to be like an extension to my driveway, where the kids can play safely and where the traffic does not bother us,” said one resident. Another said that she “likes traffic... We live in a city.” This gives an idea of the broad range of opinions and views that exist on traffic. Traffic in local streets in a concern for residential amenity. There is always conflict between the residential amenity and traffic access functions of local streets. There is much debate on what a true local road is. The concept of environmental capacity was developed to identify a suitable maximum traffic volume on local streets, without overly adversely affecting residents. It was first introduced by Buchanan and Appleyard in separate research in the 1960s. Both men settled on thresholds of 2,000-3,000 vehicles per day. Chesterman, in 2009, carried out a study in Christchurch, surveying residents on four local streets with varying traffic volumes. He found residents living on busier streets felt that their streets were busier, noisier and less safe. There was also an increasing trend for these residents to have their houses turned away from the street and they tended to have less personal involvement with their neighbours. He found that perhaps a more suitable environmental capacity estimate was between 1,500 and 2,000 vehicles per day. This study looked at further Christchurch streets, this time with street treatments, such as street calming and tree plantings, aiming to find an environmental capacity for these streets as well as seeing whether the street treatments affected the perceived environmental capacity. As well as reinforcing most of the conclusions found by Chesterman, a higher environmental capacity of around 2,000 vehicles per day was found for the surveyed streets. This suggests that indeed, street treatments such as those used in the surveyed streets can increase the environmental capacity, which has implications for local councils who want to maintain road traffic carrying capabilities without having unsatisfied residents.

Stormwater management systems reduce the impact of surface runoff in urban environments. The Toronto Green Standard (TGS) has been developed to further mitigate effects of urban runoff by mandating runoff control implementation in new developments at the site level. The intended effect of these measures is to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of water. Recent concepts of sustainable stormwater suggest that amenity is an equally important aspect of such a system. This study evaluated Best Management Practices suggested by the TGS for their performance and amenity characteristics. Design professionals selected for prior experience with the TGS were consulted to determine industry perceptions of the requirements, and how the standards could be altered to improve amenity value. Several concerns were identified which appear to impede the successful implementation of sustainable stormwater management solutions, to which recommendations are proposed which may help balance performance and amenity requirements in the TGS.