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As the effects of climate change become increasingly damaging and costly, a public and political consensus is building for planning that will protect private property and public infrastructure. Climate-related planning has primarily focused on mitigation, assessing vulnerability, and building adaptive capacity. Adaptation has not gained substantial ground in the area of implementation. The uncertainty associated with climate change projection and variability has emerged as a dominant barrier to adaptation. However, as knowledge accrues, the global and national science communities have been developing more detailed, fine-scale climate projections. Regional climate assessments are available for the sub-national climate regions in the U.S., and have been created based on the measurement of many components of climate, often referred to as indicators. This thesis evaluates the use of those and other indicators as adaptation decision support tools. Findings suggest that indicators can be effectively integrated into a step-wise, risk-based adaptation planning process to overcome barriers to adaptation, many of which contain concern over climate change uncertainty at their core. The combination of climate science data and information about the local experience of climate change are found to be key to the effective use of indicators in adaptation, as is the direct integration of indicators into the policy-making process. Ideally, these indicators can be used to inform trigger points for phases in a flexible adaptation approach, but more work is needed to develop methods for managing the risks and costs associated with adaptation.

<p>  </p> <p>Environmental planning decisions are complex and influenced by many factors, such as federal, state, and local regulations, community values, and economic and environmental considerations. Across the United States, local elected and appointed boards and commissions are responsible for planning and implementing land use regulations. Using Indiana communities as a case study, this study focused on understanding the roles of environmental planning and community development in adopting local government policies related to sustainable development. Opportunities, challenges, and trends facing diverse Indiana communities were explored through focus groups and surveys, specifically focusing on local ordinances, comprehensive plans, and parks and recreation master plans as policy instruments. Factors of interest included environmental and sustainable development considerations in plans and ordinances, the engagement of residents, stakeholders, and other interested parties in local environmental planning processes and decision-making, the potential influence of collaboration and social capital in planning and decision-making, and technical assistance and resource needs for planners and parks and recreation staff. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Indiana communities are integrating environmental considerations into local ordinances and policies on a limited scale based on multiple factors such as local expertise, staff time, awareness, community and political acceptance, and immediate needs. Communities have little time allocated to incorporate voluntary efforts and rely most on peer groups and existing staff for models and information sharing with private consultants filling in gaps for plan and ordinance updates. There are multiple opportunities to expand environmental conservation and sustainable development efforts through increasing the diversity of local boards and commissions, enhancing community engagement, identifying and supporting succinct and targeted training for planning and parks and recreation professionals, and tapping into state and federal funding opportunities to build on local successes that build credibility and interest for broader adoption. Additional emphasis on communication and collaboration are also needed to move towards more engaged planning and policy development methods.</p>

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In times of crisis, what tools do planners and designers have to inspire a sense of well-being? How can we heal community through dialogue, recognizing the ongoing need for connection with or without a crisis? Are there ways to uncover unknown concerns and values in a community? The engagement approaches many planners and designers rely on do not typically aim to access these deeper questions in society. Surveys, public meetings and focus groups seek tangible results that target specific issues. They are often conducted out of context, taking the public out of the environment at issue to answer questions on a defined topic. What tools do professionals designing our urban environments have for discovering unknown issues in a more spontaneous and practice-based way in places where community exists? Through the Eudaimonic Tree Pilot I explored these questions, using the framework of eudaimonia to guide my process. The objective of my study began with my desire to inspire a sense of well-being, eudaimonia, in my community during a time of great loneliness and mental health decline due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This historic moment left many people feeling disconnected and hopeless, exacerbating a national trend that started well before COVID (Ammar et al., 2021). In response, I produced three installations using trees in the landscape to offer the public a means of expression. Each tree housed a different prompt rooted in eudaimonic sentiments and blank note cards for public response. Their messages hung from tree limbs and became an embodiment of the collective consciousness. This study of public engagement through participatory art unearthed profound implications for the planning and design fields. Some of the primary takeaways suggest that participatory art can catalyze community dialogue; spontaneity heightens co-creation; and highly co-created initiatives are likely to generate a eudaimonic effect. This process was led by results as they emerged, highlighting previously unknown resolutions and considerations. This heuristic, emergent methodology could be used more often by planning and design professionals as a means to perform design research that embraces the ephemeral and eudaimonic aspects of communities.

Parenting plays an important role in many adult lives. Parenting a child with profound multiple disabilities results in a distinct parenting experience. This qualitative phenomenological study examined the role of social media in the lives of parents raising children with profound multiple disabilities. Five parents raising children with profound multiple disabilities were interviewed, and resulting themes were identified. Consistent with previous research, parents described the initial adaptation to their child’s disability-related needs as the most challenging period of their parenting to date. Adaptation was followed by an acclimation to a new normal of their parenting experience. Parents described moving from medical crises, feelings of isolation, and unfamiliarity with resource systems to becoming empowered through interactions with other parents raising children with profound multiple disabilities, both in-person and through social media. Parents focused on three areas with their social media efforts: their own social needs, their child’s social needs, and their child’s disability-related needs. To address disability-related needs, parents used a social media bricolage approach to create a composite of social media group memberships that reflected their child’s complex medical, disability and intervention profiles. Parents described social media use as daily and essential to their functioning both personally and within their parenting. However, parents prioritized in-person social connections and utilized social media to make and maintain relationships both online and in-person. Parents expressed awareness and deliberate use of privacy settings in using social media. Parents described common pitfalls to social media use and described engaging in disability awareness through social media. Parents described social media as providing a sense of community through which they became empowered in their parenting. They also networked through in-person and virtual social interactions. Social media provided these parents with a networked community empowerment experience as they parented their child with profound multiple disabilities.

There is a large body of literature in the planning field on the topic of collaborative processes of decision-making, particularly in the United States and Europe. However, there appears to be less debate on the subject of complementing these ideas with contributions from urban governance. This research aims to contribute to that complementary work. In order to accomplish that, this thesis presents first a theoretical analysis of collaborative rationality and urban governance contributions. This analysis focuses on the articulation of those aspects that can offer a more holistic framework for addressing urban issues in a more inclusive way. Second, it provides a case study that takes place in the City of Rafaela, Argentina. The case study consists of an assessment of the regulatory and institutional framework that affects planning and the exploration of two contentious recent processes. One of them is the ‘Downtown Revitalization’ project and the second one is the ‘Future use of the Old Bus Terminal’. Several interviews with key actors were conducted in order to gather the information, which was combined with public and media documentation available. These two processes help to understand how significant decisions regarding uses and renovation of urban space are made and the opportunities to implement more collaborative processes in planning. The results show that the combination of the aspects highlighted by both bodies of theory can help to better address conflicts that arise regarding urban space, while increasing citizen participation and addressing issues of inequality in the process of decision-making.

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