Extralocal organizations and agencies have increasingly entered into the business of creative place-making—a strategy they use to encourage economic development. One such cultural development strategy is formal cultural district programs implemented by state agencies in cities and towns. While the use of art and culture as a tool for generating revenue is well-documented, less is known about the perspective of local actors—how they understand cultural district programs as a strategy to shape their place and what ways they negotiate the logics and strategies imposed on them from extralocal organizations. The Massachusetts Cultural District Program supports communities in their efforts to attract artists and cultural enterprises, encourage business and job development, establish tourist destinations, and enhance property values. In two Massachusetts cultural districts, I explore the “public” and “hidden transcripts” of state and local actors as pertains to their use of art and culture for fashioning locales as destinations and economic engines, on the one hand, and as places that respond to the wants and needs of the community on the other. Analysis of field notes from participant observations and in-depth interviews indicates a mismatch between the local and state logics that govern cultural districts—particularly around definitions of culture, place, and success. To cope with these mismatching cultural development logics, local actors find ways to harmonize with, modify, and circumvent extralocal logics to meet their own community goals. While these findings show that locales are not simply at the mercy of extralocal actors implementing their programs, they also expose opportunities for local actors to lead the policy conversation with their own logics and strategies.

Adaptiveve [re]use is a process that makes use of the principles of [re]duce, [re]use and [re]cycle, often giving products an extended lifespan not initially associated with the original function. Environmentally adaptive [re]use makes sense as the embodied energy of the host building is [re]tained opposed to the amount of energy [re]quired to construct an entirely new building. The purpose of the urban group framework was to increase density within the city and provide a wider range of commercial, social and cultural activities that take place in a 24 hour cycle. Another aim was to [re]store existing buildings within the city, [re]juvenating the area and its surrounds. The design strategy of this thesis was to investigate how new interventions could be in contrast to the existing building. This was achieved by allowing new structures to be read differently from the host building. The contrasting use of materials and construction technologies [re]sulted in an architectural language of “lightness”, allowing new components to be sensitively inserted into the existing building. Additionally the design strategy included the exploration of layering and place making. Layering involved the preservation of the original building’s form and identity, while new structures are layered over the existing in order to create new spaces. Place making was achieved by adding new hanging structures to the northern and southern façade in turn articulating new functional spaces. All new adaptations and interventions are constructed in such a manner so as not to hamper the flexibility and future adaptability of the building. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

This thesis puts forth a model for analyzing and understanding the social construction of the concept of place. The Place Deconstruction Model (PDM) consists of a decentered and a centered perspective. The decentered perspective identifies three instances of sense making, at the levels of perception (crude place), meaning making (constructed place), and the building of artifice (commodified place). The centered perspective accounts for the subjectivity of the observer, as determined by memory, expectations, and the experience of the here and now. The method of analysis involves the juxtaposition of spatial (space, place identity, place image), temporal (time, history, heritage), and social (being, self identity, self image) lenses that require adjustment of parameters such as perspective and unit of analysis. The findings derived from the application of this model have both academic and practical applications.

The research field regarding healthier cities and how to promote and enable possibilities for physical activity is considered to be one of the most important research fields in current urban planning research. In academic research, there is a research gap when it comes to how urban characteristics that promote and enable possibilities for physical activity are treated in practice, as well as how municipalities are working with questions regarding creating healthier cities. This is related to the societal challenges of increasingly sedentary lifestyles that are currently considered a global health crisis. In this context, the concept of a healthy city only regards aspects connected to physical activity. The thesis aimed to investigate how the municipality of Flen works to enable and create possibilities for physical activity and how these processes assemble to make the vision of a healthy city. The study conducted semi-structured interviews with planners in the municipality of Flen from different departments and analyzed relevant strategic documents. The challenges identified were perspective congestion, limited spaces, budget, what attracts, and challenges connected to the citizens. The result shows that the municipality of Flen works with seven processes: strategic documents, maintenance, safety, attractive and social environments, available and accessible environments, knowledge and encouragement, and future developments. The studies conclude that the urban characteristics identified and acknowledged in previous research are considered from different perspectives when considered in practice.

No description available.

The imposition of European borders in North America has given rise to a need to inquire into the impact of the overlay of colonial borders upon earlier ideas of geographical boundaries, and upon indigenous border nations and their connections to places and ways of being. Here, we look to delineate a tentative approach to further such inquiries into indigenous border nations who have found themselves on or near an international border by examining the relationship with ancestral lands. A thematic analysis will be conducted in the framework of a case study research design. Two cases are discussed, which suggest the relationship with ancestral lands is often discussed in transboundary terms. The discussion further illustrates cross-border mobility enacts indigenous understandings of borders, governance, land, and selfhood, and has led to negotiations over the rights which flow from these. For the future, this suggests attention to transboundary indigenous nations is necessary.

This study is an examination of the role of community-based food projects in place making and collective futuring efforts. I look specifically at food access projects in Dayton, Ohio, a city I have personal connections to. In this study, I forefront the concepts of relationality, co-creation, ownership, economic (dis)investment, soil systems, and regeneration as they emerge from my fieldwork on food access in Dayton, which consisted of interviews, participant observation, and spatial analysis. My methodology centers on critical mapping which the traces conceptual and material connections that shape food access in Dayton and situate community-based efforts within broader economic and political landscapes. In doing so, I demonstrate how food access can be conceptualized in terms of global contours and local manifestations. I draw on the work of Anna Tsing, Karl Polanyi, Jason Moore and Bikrum Gill, to develop a political ecology of encounter that examines the historical roots and ongoing practices of enclosure as a tactic of governance that shapes human-nature relations in specific ways. I demonstrate how these acts of enclosure bring to the fore certain ecological relations in ways that uphold dominant systems of power, while obfuscating other ecological relations. This allows me to theorize encounters between individuals, communities, and environments as political sites of both impasse and change. I conclude that food (in)access is a feature of the production and management of eco-social relations by governments, communities, and individuals. Thus, in focusing on the eco-social relations and encounters that are fostered through food production, distribution, and consumption, communities can (and are) working to build more socially and ecologically just futures. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study draws on research in ecological sciences and social sciences as well as data gleaned from interviews and observations in Dayton, Ohio to explore the role of community-based food systems in building resilience against the cascading effects of anthropogenic climate change. I turn to Dayton largely due to my personal connection to the city. This speaks to this study's attentiveness to community building efforts of folks in Dayton and attention to politics of the everyday. Using interviews, observations, and scholarship in political ecology, I map the efforts of Dayton residents to improve community food access within broader economic, social, and political systems to show how these projects both improve food access for communities and promote a sort of politics that contributes to the economic, ecological, and social health of Dayton communities. This positions these projects as important efforts in building resilience against ongoing and intensifying disturbances and disasters from climate change amidst the ongoing failure of political and economic institutions to enact meaningful change. Finally, I explore how these findings help to develop a broader research framework that is grounded in lived experience and attentive to broader political, social, and economic systems.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Blake M. Belanger / The main streets of the Rocky Mountain West are the social, economic, and cultural centers of their respective communities. Often, these main streets may deteriorate or become abandoned as a result of edge shopping malls and strip style economic development. Thus, a downtown or main street redevelopment effort by the community can help to ensure these economic centers remain. Yet, too often, the redevelopment efforts are oversimplified and fail to integrate the most current street development principles and design initiatives that can benefit not only the community but also the surrounding environment. I n the modern American city, almost half of all daily trips are less than three miles and a third are under one mile. (McCann 2010) “These are distances easily traversed by foot or bicycle, yet 65 percent of trips under one mile are made by automobile.” (McCann 2010) This mobility trend has led to the foundation of programs and organizations that try to promote non-motorized travel. Although these initiatives respond to the human/physical environment, they are far from comprehensive. Today, an integration of smart ecological ideals is essential. How can the revitalization efforts of Rocky Mountain communities be guided to ensure they consider not only the built environment; but also the natural environment? The face of the future main street will be multi-modal and ecologically responsible. Yet, there is presently no clear method of combining the two. A union of the multi-modal principles behind Complete Streets and the ecologically responsible ideals green infrastructure can provide a framework for a new and more inclusive redevelopment approach. The merging of modern ecological and street design principles can lead to a comprehensive Main Street redevelopment program and therefore successfully guide the revitalization efforts of small Rocky Mountain communities in a way that is responsive to future development needs as well as the cultural and ecological aspects of the region. Main Street Evolved will provide a set of tools to guide Colorado Rocky Mountain Main Street redevelopment efforts by providing strategies and implementation guidelines that focus on balancing multi-modal ideals and ecological stormwater management techniques within a small-town mountain context.

Grappling with the success of their business ventures and coping with the rise in number of new products FifeX was working on, operating out of their shared office in the St Andrews Technology Centre, the co-founders were feeling more ‘cramped’ than ever before. The decision was made to relocate. Although it was felt to be long overdue, much to their relief they finally moved to larger premises in Tayport in July, 2006. The activity of moving was a starting point for a number of place making activities. Using the case of FifeX, this thesis explores the process of place making. It seeks to understand place making from ‘inside’ the activity of place making itself. The guiding research question in this thesis is, what happens -during place making- when people move into ‘new’ business premises? More specifically, this thesis asks the following questions: (i) what are the comparative advantages / disadvantages of the alternative ways of explaining place making? and (ii) which theory or combination of theories, has greater explanatory value in analysing place making / moving? The study, which uses FifeX as an empirical setting is best described as an in-depth qualitative narrative exploration, and thus narrates the unfolding processes of deciding to relocate, relocating, moving and place making. Three different theoretical perspectives (control, engagement, polyphony) were applied, each in turn, to three separate (yet interrelated) instances of place making (a story about a wall, one about chairs, and one about a worktop) in order to cast fresh light on the constitutive talk-entwined-activities of place making. The study demonstrates that although efforts to control space may dominate the discourse and activities of place making, control only explains some of what happens during place making. The findings of the case suggest that place is the outcome of inhabitants’ ongoing experiences and understanding. This thesis argues that alternative theoretical perspectives (engagement and polyphony) are better at explaining what goes on. But because they do not operate ‘naturally’ within the dominant paradigm, it is noted that an alternative practice-based perspective is needed which combines the effectiveness of engagement and polyphony, with the attractiveness of control. A model is presented to help reflect on place making which provides an alternative route for thinking about relocating, moving, and place making that is expected to create engagement and polyphony in a decent way. The proposed model is centred on thinking directed toward: (i) individual place, (ii) inside space, and (iii) what story(s) the space tell outsiders. The focus is on balancing the tensions that emerge from dialoging on these three aspects of space and place.

This thesis aims to demonstrate how the processes of gentrification and displacement are interrelated processes that invent new ways of perpetuating anti- blackness in the U.S. I demonstrate this through an engagement with Christina Sharpe’s (2016) analysis of the imagery of the wake, the ship, the hold, and the weather as axis points that position Black life in the afterlife of slavery—how the conditions of slavery are ongoing today—presenting the racist encounters at Lake Merritt as illustrative examples. In her most recent book, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Sharpe (2016) deploys an interdisciplinary approach to critically theorize Black subjection and grief through a Black feminist framework, offering care, or what she terms “wake work” as an anecdote to state-sanctioned anti-black violence. She turns to poetry, film, historical archives, and intimate personal experiences to thoroughly articulate how the past is not passed; I reveal how capitalist logic simultaneously structures media representations of Black people in ways that distort what we signify— monstrosity, threat, and criminal are three examples of this distortion—and fix abstract space in hegemonic spatial imaginaries through privatization and commodification. Most importantly, I turn to art and expression—prominent examples being “BBQ’N While Black” and "The Black Spatial Imaginary" as a community response to BBQ Becky and serial displacement in Portland, Oregon respectively—as resistance and examples of place-making practices that Black people have been engaged in historically to articulate their self-hood, belonging, and beauty through Black love. I strive to undertake this work with intentionality and care, which necessitates an undisciplined approach as academic disciplines have historically deployed methodologies that construct narratives on Blackness that reproduce colonial and anti-black violence.