During the past 40 years, landscape architects and other designers have used many approaches for economic revitalization of deteriorating commercial centers. Examples of projects designed to revive sluggish downtown economies have shown varied, and often uninspiring, results in stimulating downtown economies. This problem is most pronounced in rural communities. The ineffectiveness of these designs stems, in part, from the failure of landscape architects to apply economic theory to the design of physical space. This study explores the role that business activity diversity plays in the maintenance of economic stability and growth, as a means to find clues to possible revitalization strategies. This analysis of business activity patterns in Virginia cities and counties, indicates that diversity among a community's businesses contributes to that community's economic health and resistance to obsolescence induced by changing economic patterns. Site programming must be conducted to support intended business activities in a way that improves their survivability and growth potential. Through this, and future research, the field of landscape architecture must move toward the design of space that supports diversity in economic activities. Landscape architects must respond with the same sensitivity to economic environments that they have shown toward aesthetic, ecological and social environments in the past. / Master of Landscape Architecture

Wong Wai Keung Terence. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 1997-98, design report." / Chapter 00 --- FOREPLAY / acknowledgements / preface / Chapter 01 --- PROLOGUE / glossary / background / precedent study / Chapter 02 --- VISIONS ANALYSIS / vision 01: a new landscape / vision 02: fluid dynamics - information and nomads / Chapter 03 --- PROCESS / conceptual study / site and contextual analysis / preliminary design / review project / revised design / study on test-bed / digital design media / structure workshop / building system workshop / computer-aided-manufacturing / Chapter 04 --- FINAL PROJECT / presentations

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

This thesis looked into the background of downtown revitalization, historical cF3.ta about the decline of the downtown area, methods and models to reverse the decline and possible alternatives to the downtown as a center for retail trade.The thesis compared this finding to two Indiana cities' individual problems with downtown revitalization, the relationship of their solutions to the models, how their decision making influenced their moves and how successful they were with their solutions. / Department of Urban Planning

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Performing arts centers have been touted as a strategy for revitalizing downtowns by increasing activities that bring in residents with higher incomes, tourists, arts employees, educated workers, and housing. Despite their popularity, civic leaders have encountered complexity in these projects, from financial challenges, to delayed openings and operating deficits. Previous downtown studies examine public facilities, such as stadiums and cultural institutions, through essays, surveys, case studies, or by quantifying transactions exchanged between the public and the facility. This dissertation focuses solely on performing arts centers, excluding all other forms of public facilities and cultural venues, by examining self-collected data on literature-based characteristics of 218 downtowns with and without performing arts centers, all over a seven-year period of time. It was hypothesized that the presence of a performing arts center would contribute to increases in the values of all downtown revitalization characteristics, and community characteristics, as well as organizational attributes of the performing arts center itself (age, size, and revenue types) would in turn, increase the values of the overall health of the performing arts center. Through the use of multiple linear regressions, this research shows that performing arts centers can play a role in revitalizing downtowns. This research also shows that a single characteristic is not solely responsible for revitalizing downtowns; rather, the increased vitality results from a confluence of the characteristics. Endogeneity tests show that a performing arts center is less likely to enter a deserted downtown bereft of vitality. Instead, performing arts centers serve as harbingers of revitalization, confirming the presence of downtown vitality, before they proceed to activate vitality further. Finally, through the use of binary logistic regressions, community characteristics are identified in order to determine the conditions of downtowns that would be most equipped to open a performing arts center, as compared with downtowns that could not.

The decline in patronage, decrease in building density, and loss in property values suffered by Downtown Muncie, Indiana is a result of competition from shopping malls. This deterioration will continue unless there is a concerted effort by citizens, property owners, and the city to promote commercial revitalization of this area.The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Street Center suggest that communities can achieve commercial revitalization through a four part program which combines organization, design, promotion, and economic restructuring. Mary Jo Ruccio of the National Development Council, suggests that commercial revitalization cannot be successful unless the approach includes a comprehensive plan that addresses a downtown's unique problems.In order to create a functional commercial revitalization strategy for Muncie's downtown, the commercial district's history was reviewed, the existing buildings were surveyed, published historic preservation plans and commercial revitalization plans ware reviewed, and a variety of funding sources were studied. These efforts led to the development of a commercial revitalization strategy that is patterned after the Main Street Center's program. A major component of this strategy is the Downtown Commercial Revitalization Network that is recommended to act as a steering committee for a Downtown Development Director whose sole purpose is to direct downtown revitalization. The strategy recommends residential adaptive-use of the second stories in downtown buildings to promote economic development, and to preserve the historic structures. Low-interest loans with design standards are recommended to provide funds to create this housing stock without damaging the historic fabric. This will supply downtown with regular customers, thus strengthening existing establishments, creating the need for new businesses downtown, and diversifying the economic base.This strategy can be applied to the current downtown revitalization efforts by the City of Muncie. The ideas and general theories can also be applied by small Indiana towns which suffer from economic problems. A comprehensive plan that is tailored specifically for a downtown which account for the organization, design, economic, and promotion needs of downtown will set the course for successful commercial revitalization. / Department of Architecture

American downtowns were once the place to see and be seen, but the introduction of the shopping mall in the late 1950s challenged this notion and gave the American consumer a different place to spend their time and money. The prevalence of shopping malls has slowly been declining across the country since the beginning of this century, leaving room in the American retail landscape for downtowns to reclaim their status as community and retail centers. Towns across the U.S. are turning to national and local organizations to assist them in revitalizing their downtown districts. Downtown Bloomsburg, Inc. (DBI), a non-profit organization located in the small town of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, has been working since 2006 to revitalize its town’s downtown and main street area. The unique findings presented here were derived from a four month long ethnographic study of downtown Bloomsburg merchants and shoppers and are meant to be used by DBI as a supplemental guide for further revitalization of the town.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Bibliography: leaves 80-83. / by Joseph Leader Soley. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (M.S. in Advanced Studies)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1978. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: leaves 108-111. / M.C.P. / M.Arch.A.S.