As it is often the failure of governments to meet the perceived needs of identity groups in a divided society, the challenge is incumbent upon them to provide a fair and equitable distribution of a variety resources, from land, to infrastructure, to financial assistance to industry. Thus, urban planning can create the physical basis for either ameliorating or exacerbating ethnic conflict, as these conflicts are often manifest in claims on the physical environment. A strong interest in studying the dynamics of planning in polarized societies is reflective of the need to fully understand the implications of urban change in this context. This research is an exploration of national planning mandates and their effects upon ethnic conflict. Specifically, it analyzes how communal relations can deteriorate even when government leaders make genuine efforts to meet the need and demands of competing groups. This paper is a study of Northern Ireland in the early 1960s during the introduction of regional planning by way of the Matthew and Wilson Plans. These national policies, intended to promote both physical and economic development and better community relations, actually contributed to a deepening of tensions between the Catholic and Protestant communities. Through archival research, a series of three case studies undertaken at the regional, city and neighborhood levels uncovers how the plans were perceived by both groups to potentially destroy their ability to secure economic opportunity, determine the use of their land, and maintain their identity and way of life. Therefore, the plans created a context which instigated the worst collective fears of both communities, ultimately resulting in protest and violence and what had initially promised to be a relatively peaceful decade ended in some of the worst violence the region has ever witnessed.

Landscape planning is an approach to planning land use based on analysis of physical, biological, cultural, and aesthetic resources. Its aim is creative resolution of land use conflicts through the development of physical plans. These plans result from synthesis of scientific analyses produced by specialists from multiple disciplines and from reconciliation of the interests of different user groups. Landscape planning developed primarily as a specialty area within landscape architecture in the 1960s and 1970s. Its most recognized practitioner was Ian McHarg, author of the influential book Design With Nature (1969). Thirty years ago, landscape planners were on the cutting edge of environmental research. Their work led to methods for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the development of geographic information systems (GIS). Bridging the cultures of scientific research and professional planning practice was the aim of the first scholarly journal in the field, Landscape Planning, and it is a sentiment that characterized landscape planners quite well. In recent years, the profile of landscape planning has diminished considerably. Those who might have called themselves landscape planners in the past now identify themselves as ecological modelers, landscape ecologists, or environmental planners. Is it possible that the mission of classic landscape planning has been subsumed by these newer specialty areas? Or does landscape planning still have a role to play in the resolution of today's environmental and land use problems? These are the questions that this research addresses. To understand the evolution of landscape planning, its history is placed in context with the histories of city planning, ecology, and landscape architecture. To document the current status of the field, scholarly literature is analyzed through journal network analysis and content analysis of the last five years of landscape planning articles. This research sheds light on the complex relationships between disciplines engaged in environmental problem solving. Results suggest that there is still a need for landscape planning today, but that weaknesses must be overcome to make the field more effective. A new model of landscape planning is proposed to address the problems and yet still retain the strengths of the classic model.

Integrating the urban, the environment, and the public spheres in a modeling approach is an important goal for planners. Nevertheless, different terminologies, objectives, models, and the high complexity involved make it very uncommon. Modeling these different components is a challenge since it requires models that can integrate time and space dynamically, and incorporate complexity instead of dismissing it. This dissertation attempts to include these three spheres (urban, environment, public). It uses Cellular Automaton (CA) as the modeling environment, and the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML) and the Porto Metropolitan Area (AMP) as the areas of study. After introducing the subject of integrated studies and complexity, the area of CA is presented, and the organization of the dissertation is detailed. A second chapter describes the study areas. Chapters three, four, and five describe respectively the urban, the environmental landscape planning strategies, and the public inclusion. Chapter six interrelates the three components. The simulations that include the environmental, urban and expert's inputs develop scenarios that vary both visually and quantitatively. The simulation using the SLEUTH urban CA presents a trend scenario and demonstrates that by varying the pressures on the ecological (REN) and agricultural reserves (RAN) it is possible vary the urban pressures: relaxing RAN regulations decreases the number high probability of urban pressures, but spreads more areas of average pressures. The option for a limiting ‘no-growth’ strategy had similar results when including the sketch drawing from an expert workshop. The participant's concern with the urban image promoted a concentration of growth, an increase the number of cells with high probability of urban cells, but a reduction of the pressures of average probability urban cells. The countervailing model (CVCA) applied four landscape planning strategies in order to guide urban growth to more favorable areas that do not conflict with environmental land and the intensity of the urban pressures promoted more offensive urban pressures. Five main findings derive from the analysis of the results of each chapter: phase-transitions, existence of a “DNA” for each region, concepts of different images for the same Metropolitan Area, and the importance of integrating different models for metropolitan urban planning.

It is well known that city centers are fragile places and in constant change. The construction of new commercial developments on the periphery of cities greatly influenced the decline of city centers and of the more traditional forms of retailing there installed. The increasing awareness of this reality led different forms of government to act together with merchants to channel European Union funds to modernize traditional retailing enterprises and to revitalize shopping areas in city centers. This process led to the consideration that retailing is an important element in the livability of cities in Portugal. The commercial urbanism projects financed by the PROCOM Program created for the first time in Portugal a large debate about the importance of commercial planning and commercial revitalization of the city centers. The need to increase the private sector participation in this collective effort, as well as the need to find additional sustainable financing, besides the public subsidies, makes critical the call for proper answers to a more adequate and effective commercial revitalization of city centers. Given the fact that the commercial development on the outskirts of cities is not a unique Portuguese phenomenon, it is important and timely to reflect about foreign experiences in this area. The main objective of this dissertation is to discuss and analyze foreign experiences, mainly North American and British, in terms of commercial revitalization, the creation of public-private partnerships and city center management and present how they can relate to the Portuguese experience. The research methods involved literature reviews, comparative analyses, case studies, semi-structured interviews, meeting observations and a discussion of the implications for the Portuguese reality. The conclusion shows an updated knowledge of international best practices in terms of the creation and implementation of city center management partnerships. Finally, the recommendation section presents a set of proposals and principles that can be useful to Portuguese policy makers in the development and implementation of the second generation of commercial urbanism projects.

The purpose of this research is to determine how Geographic Information Systems (GISs) can be modified for more efficient use in land use planning and design. While information-oriented GIS technology has proven useful for routine and administrative aspects of planning and design, it is not yet capable of providing information and knowledge interactively within a problem solving process that can be characterized as "ill-structured." This suggests that GIS technology must be embedded within a larger problem solving process of planning and design. The hypothesis of this research is that implementation of conceptualization-oriented Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSSs) will significantly improve the use of GIS technology for ill-structured land use planning and design problems. A residential design problem is introduced as a prototypical ill-structured application for the SDSS model. Drawing on this application, several new ideas are described in terms of human information processing: "Bubble-centered Design Support Systems" as an extension of short-term memory, "Prototypes" as an extension of semantic memory, and "Scripts" as an extension of episodic memory. For the future implementation of these ideas, some important SDSS functions, such as linked views and multiple representations, are described. Finally, discussions of the novel approach provide direction for future GIS technology in ill-structured planning and design process.

The traditional travel demand modeling process is designed to develop relationships among travel characteristics, land use activities, and a simulated transportation system network. The models are calibrated to base year conditions through comparisons of theoretical travel patterns, trip length characteristics, and traffic volumes with similar observed values. For projections of travel to future time periods, the assumption is made that the established database and relationships, and in particular the traffic analysis zones to which these data are assigned, will be the same for the forecast period as at the time of calibration. The primary objective of this research was to establish criteria for decision-making regarding which zones should be subdivided and to develop a technique for deciding how to subdivide. The eventual goal of the research was to improve travel demand forecasts. This research investigated whether travel demand estimates can be improved through the reconfiguration of traffic analysis zones for the future year projection period and through an associated restructuring of the centroid connectors for the future network. Similar subarea techniques have been applied by others in attempts to develop more accurate traffic data for project-specific needs. The subarea approach suffices for project needs, but the adjustments and modifications are not usually fed back into the modeling process. Therefore, the time and effort expended in obtaining project data are not applied to the improvement of the overall travel demand forecasts on a study-wide or regional basis. Under these conditions, system planning efforts and corridor analyses do not receive the benefit of updated information or system refinements. The findings of this research indicate that there is little improvement in the travel forecasts as a result of the subdivision of 9 zones in the New Castle County model into a total of 23 new units. Link-by-link comparisons of traffic assignments based on the New Castle County original 228 zone system and the modified 242 zone system reveal no significant improvements. One reason that can be identified is the detail of the simulated roadway system, which nearly duplicates the existing street and highway network and leaves little opportunity to provide alternative travel routings resulting from the creation of small traffic analysis zones.

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<p> The purpose of the study was to determine whether family and peer risk and protective factors predicted alcohol, marijuana and cigarette use as well as alcohol-related problems among 6^th, 8^th, and 10^th grade students. This study also determined whether age moderated the relation between family and peer influences and substance use outcomes. Results demonstrated that peer alcohol use, peer positive alcohol use attitudes, and family history of drug and alcohol problems were associated with higher alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette use, as well as alcohol-related problems. Conversely, parental monitoring and peer negative alcohol use attitudes were associated with lower alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette use, as well as alcohol dependence. Moderation analyses demonstrated that among older adolescents&rsquo; social risk and protective factors were associated with higher or lower substance use, respectively. However, younger adolescents&rsquo; reported lower substance use, regardless of the level of the social influence. Implications regarding prevention programs are discussed.</p>

Master of Science / Department of Landscape Architecture Regional and Community Planning / Huston Gibson / The provision of services in a community is often taken for granted, or done the way things have always been done. It is sensible to examine those practices to see if the system in place is advantageous to all parties involved. This paper examines the forms of municipal trash collection used in the United States and specifically Manhattan, Kansas. This examination includes a literature review of forms of solid waste collection and how informed vs. uninformed consumers act when purchasing goods and services. The specific traits of seven municipal trash service providers in Manhattan are analyzed. The findings of this project include a spread in prices that economic theory alone may not explain. These finding, supported by literature, would suggest that there is a breakdown in the transfer of information between service providers and consumers.

Master of Science / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Stephanie Rolley / Small group creative practice has the potential to set the conditions necessary to develop or strengthen community networks, as a form of social capital, in a disempowered, traumatized community. Traumatized communities require the process of building social capital to begin at an earlier point than in other communities and by addressing the background of trauma first. Case studies of three programs present the opportunity to inform the design of future development work with disempowered, traumatized communities like those of many women in countries engaged in armed conflict. The case studies examined are a government founded shelter for abused women; a localized project to teach agricultural skills; and a project to teach women artistic skills as a therapeutic exercise to build trust levels necessary to increase networks. Social capital provided perspective for examining the bonds between individuals and groups and how they affect individuals’ access to resources. Framed by a literature review, the case studies synthesized literature and first hand experiences and knowledge. A question protocol was used to query the case studies in order to identify best practices. The literature review demonstrated that the most reliable indicators of social capital are trust and association and suggests accepted indicators for each. By querying the case studies, it was determined that best practices for a project designed to build social capital in disempowered, traumatized communities include stipulations on the size of groups, how time is scheduled for informal interaction, identifying indicators of trust, and how conditions for group outcomes were met. This study found that, with an intentional design focus on group outcomes, as well as with attention to other best practices, creative practice is a viable method to increase the levels of trust necessary to set conditions for further development of social capital in the identified communities.