The transit shelter, the space where riders make the transition from open space to more controlled buses and trains, is in many cases the site of a public-private transaction. Here, government agencies contract private companies to build and maintain shelters in exchange for governmental allowance of advertising in these locations. This dual purpose—the shelter serves concurrently as protection for transit users and as a moneymaker—means the space is contested, with economic and social needs often at odds. Bus shelter advertising contracts (BSACs), increasingly operated by large corporations, have resulted in widespread networks of bus shelters; observing these renders processes of globalization—generally not visible at the street level—more legible. Drawing from case studies of Lyon, France, and Los Angeles and New Orleans, United States, this thesis describes successes and failures both in the implementation of bus shelter contracts and in the provision of public amenities via shelters.

The research, presented here, is about the collaborative governance and adaptive management in coastal planning efforts of Louisiana. Fundamental conflict, between the idea of environmental conservation and developmental growth, has always existed in the coastal regions. The presence of the large number of environmental laws, at various levels of government and their different management objectives for utilization of coastal resources, requires study of intergovernmental relationship. Taking Plaquemines Parish as a case in point, this thesis will, therefore, review the critical restoration plans for intergovernmental coordination and conflicts. It will also provide recommendations, for elected representatives and policy makers, with an aim to promote collaborative governance and improve adaptive management of coastal resources.

The extant literature on the play behavior of youth normalizes adolescent behavior in public space as transgressional, resistant, and in need of social control. The dissertation counters this trend by looking to see if physical qualities, peer effects, and neighborhood context of settings play a deeper role in youth behavior. The study documented urban context, peer effects, physical features, and play behavior across 21 urban settings in New Orleans. Unobtrusive observations employed a highly innovative technique based on YouTube videos and analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Coded observations of risk-taking and prosocial behavior demonstrated some stability in behavior amongst adolescents—“youth” ages 12-19—within each site, suggesting that site-specific factors can constrain youth behavior. Yet, more interesting, teens appropriated sites. Specifically, the study found that (a) adolescents consistently adapt play behavior due to settings and (b) that adolescents adapt sites to support play behavior. The latter finding is novel and diverges from normative theory on adolescent behavior by suggesting that teens exercise interdependence when engaging in urban environments away from home and school. Interdependence is a term derived from economics that means mutual dependence upon others for some needs. That adolescents display increased risk-taking behavior in environments with low appropriation and increased prosocial behavior in environments with high appropriation advocates for cities to support adolescent appropriation of urban space.

Transportation availability and land use intensity demonstrate a strong relationship, with intense development concentrated near significant transportation investment. Transportation networks evolved in response to emergent transportation technologies and changing urban land uses. The irregular distribution of transportation systems reinforced patterns of land use development, shaping urban form. Understanding the relationships between transportation and the intensity of land uses allows urban geographers and city planners to explain the urbanization processes, as well as to identify areas historically susceptible to future development. The goal of this research is to develop a quantitative framework for the analysis of the development of urban form and its relationship to urban transportation systems. This research focuses on transportation accessibility, building density, and the structural massing as the basic metrics in the categorization of urban form. Portland, Oregon serves as the case study environment, while the research methodology examines the spatial and statistical relationship between these metrics for much of the city's urban area. Applying geographic information systems (GIS) and k-means cluster analysis, urban form metrics are compared within the ADaM (Accessibility, Density, and Massing) cube, a model demonstrating comparative relationships, as well as the geographic distribution and patterns of urban form in Portland, Oregon's neighborhoods. A finalized urban form catalog describes existing urban environments, but also indicates areas of impending transition, places having the strong potential for reorganization with respect to higher levels of transportation accessibility. The ADaM Cube is a tool for characterizing Portland's existing urban form, and describing the vulnerabilities of urban neighborhoods to the pressure of redevelopment.

Federal legislation enacted in January 1974 created federal agencies to produce a rail plan process for the Northeast United States and to monitor and evaluate the programs. A a result of the federal enactment, many states are producing rail plans. Wisconsin is presently preparing one such plan which included the elements of freight operations. The State also has produced a Manual for State Railroad Planning. Both documents have included railroad abandonment as topic of discussion. The present planning process in the State is not sufficient to determine future courses of action concerning abandonments. A case study is presented to determine whether the future State Rail Plan adequately meets the demands of a planning process for abandonments. A summary of future planning practices of railroad abandonments is also included.

This thesis explores the process of integrating cycling infrastructure into transportation networks in major cities. It starts by contextualizing the process in Copenhagen, Denmark (often called the best bike city in the world) during its cycling movement in the mid-20th Century. The findings from Copenhagen show that cycling is both viewed as a legitimate and respected mode of transportation and that the city layout, density, and topography is conducive to cycling. In the United States, this thesis explores the federal policies that have been created in support of the Complete Streets movement and makes the case that Complete Streets generally yield many benefits. In the final section, this thesis contextualizes these studies with a case study of Seattle and explores the challenges that have been associated with implementing Seattle’s Bicycle Master Plan. Although the city has made some small-scale cycling infrastructure, the number of cyclists in the city remains low and the bike network remains disconnected. There has been tremendous citizen pushback against lanes for fear of increased traffic and gentrification, and Seattle’s layout and topography presents additional challenges. While the author is in support of bicycling and cycle networks, she believes it is important to consider the opposition to implementing this infrastructure so that we can be more deliberate, sensitive, and inclusive with creating cycle networks in the future. The author proposes that cycling infrastructure may need to be done in smaller pockets before a citywide network can be successfully developed.

Levees provide protection for vast amounts of commercial and residential properties. However, these structures degrade over time, due to the impact of severe weather, sand boils, subsidence of land, seepage, etc. In this research, we focus on detecting sand boils. Sand boils occur when water under pressure wells up to the surface through a bed of sand. These make levees especially vulnerable. Object detection is a good approach to confirm the presence of sand boils from satellite or drone imagery, which can be utilized to assist in the automated levee monitoring methodology. Since sand boils have distinct features, applying object detection algorithms to it can result in accurate detection. To the best of our knowledge, this research work is the first approach to detect sand boils from images. In this research, we compare some of the latest deep learning methods, Viola Jones algorithm, and other non-deep learning methods to determine the best performing one. We also train a Stacking-based machine learning method for the accurate prediction of sand boils. The accuracy of our robust model is 95.4%.

With the largest U.S. generation in the midst of retirement, the Baby Boomer cohort is vastly changing the senior housing landscape. As the housing market gradually improves and the development of senior housing chases the increasing demand, Baby Boomers are a highly selective cohort with more buying and spending power than their predecessors, are healthier and more active, and are demanding an unconventional modification of alternative senior housing. The “traditional” senior community is outdated and no longer seen as a viable choice for retirement, and new and innovated models have surpassed the old-fashioned establishments. Among the innovative senior community models, the Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) combines a variety of unique residential options and comprehensive services that meet the needs of new and active retirees and aging seniors. Focusing on the Baby Boomer cohort in conjunction with a modified CCRC model, this project examines the current demographic and housing landscape for Baby Boomers and seniors, as well as assesses trending planning techniques and design elements to formulate an ideal senior living prototype for the 234 acre Sinclair Ranch in Chinese Camp, California. In culmination of research, academic literature review, survey analysis, and case study review, key trending planning and design elements have emerged to develop a state-of-the-art CCRC intended to meet market demands and desires of a growing and highly selective senior cohort. Thus, this project concludes with a design Draft Plan for the Sinclair Ranch that captures both the characteristics of an innovative CCRC and the emergent desires stemming from the shifting senior landscape. With key design recommendations and proposed community features, the draft plan is intended to outline and guide the vision of the proposed development for the Sinclair Ranch CCRC.

This paper explores two potential land use planning strategies that can be used to preserve and enhance the economic viability of agricultural operations surrounded by suburban development in Santa Barbara County’s Eastern Goleta Valley: buffers between agriculture and other land uses, and agritourism. In the case of buffers, academic literature is examined to determine how effective buffers are at various tasks (filtering runoff, mitigating dust and wind, providing habitat, etc.) and how to construct buffers to maximize their effectiveness. Land use plans and codes from several California jurisdictions are studied to see how buffers are put to use. Academic literature is then reviewed to discover the benefits and potential drawbacks of agritourism to agricultural operations and the larger area. The zoning codes from the top five agritourism counties in California are evaluated to see how effective they are at facilitating five common agritourism uses; these best practices are then compared to the current zoning in Santa Barbara County. This paper concludes by summarizing the applicability of the literature and case studies to Eastern Goleta Valley, and proposes a new zoning designation and other policies to help maintain the urban agriculture operations. This new zoning designation includes a 30-foot minimum width for buffers and a three-tier categorization of land uses capable of promoting agritourism.

During the past several decades, most U.S. metropolitan areas have experienced strong suburbanization of housing and jobs (i.e., urban sprawl). The sprawl that arises from urban growth has become a big issue in many metropolitan areas in the U.S. In response, there has been increased interest in urban containment policies. There are contrasting views (planning-oriented vs. market-oriented) of urban sprawl and urban containment policies. Planning-oriented scholars asserted the problems of 'geographic sprawl (GS)' and the positive effects of urban containment polices, while market-oriented scholars asserted the problems of 'economic sprawl (ES)' and the negative or negligible effects of urban containment policies. Therefore, this dissertation analyzed whether urban containment policies affect urban sprawl, employment center formation, and urban commuting. The results of this dissertation indicate that urban containment policies play an important role in affecting urban sprawl, employment center formation, and urban commuting, as well as explaining the contrasting views (planning-oriented vs. market-oriented) of urban containment policies. Implementing urban containment policies can produce positive effects such as compact development, which can promote J-H balance. However, as seen in the relationship between urban containment policies, urban sprawl and housing values, stronger urban containment policies can produce negative effects, such as traffic congestion and an increase in housing prices.