Public space in the American city is in a state of social and spatial indeterminacy. Situated within a sprawling aggregation of suburban back lawns, the redundant green space of the park appears as an absurd deformity in the Mega-Grid. Moreover, the myriad access points for mass media within the modern home facilitate collective experiences and public assertions of identity with unparalleled ease. The urban park, while providing a particular pastoral experience, is no longer the site of our collective life. This project proposes to redirect public and private capital to transform residential parks into alternative venues for collective media-event experiences offering a new scale of communality between the media room and the stadia. Through the deployment of infrastructures to Media-Event Hybrid Infrastructures, the Parks System can act as pastoral and spectacular bait, catalyzing an emergent collectivity by making public the latent spectacle within our domestic leisure activities.

In the course of the European Commission’s aim at planning for economic territorial cohesion, an increased accessibility of the European regions and a strengthening of the regions’ competitiveness, focus have been drawn on the improvement of infrastructure for transport. This research deals with what can be seen as a pre-discourse in the front end of a planning process for a future transport corridor between the cities of Hamburg and Stockholm, during which the actors are positioning themselves. This is done by a qualitative analysis of selected policy documents from the national, regional and municipal level in Sweden, Denmark and Germany and the European commission. The results indicate that the actors involved interpret the concept of a transport corridor in various ways, since the policy documents that have been analysed for this research reveal possible inherent conflicts. The most considerable differences can be seen between the authorities on the national level on the one hand and the authorities on the regional and municipal level on the other. However, the location of a municipality or region does also influence their interpretation of a future transport corridor.

The purpose of this study was to determine attitudes of Verde Valley residents toward the presence of National Park Service (NPS) units in the area. The study area is largely undeveloped rural land which includes a perennial riparian expanse along the Verde River in central Arizona. Three National Park Service units protect significant local archaeological relics. The general public and local land use decision makers were polled, using random mail surveys and telephone interviews, to determine local values toward economic, visual, cultural, historic and natural resource issues. Responses from each group were compiled and compared for similarities and significant divergence. Results indicate this is a fairly satisfied community which highly values local natural and scenic resources but values the cultural/historic resources to a lesser degree. Results also indicate a lack of association between the relationship of the Verde River and other natural resources with the presence of NPS units.

This study of the physical composition of greenway trail networks focuses on how a trail system interacts with a city, and how the city's population interacts with the trail system. Previous studies have suggested that a trail system's use and length have a symbiotic relationship, while other studies propose that a trail is used in accordance with its location within the city. Most current transportation and ecological studies focus on linkage, and present connectivity as the best condition of a linear system. Sixteen case studies are presented and critiqued according to criteria developed in the paper. Statistical analysis is employed to analyze the numeric data, and recommendations are distilled from the statistical analysis and literature review. It is proposed that the physical nature of a greenway system does not effect the city's commuter cycling levels, and a city's cycling culture is the most influential factor in commuter cycling levels.

Today, park use is at an all-time high with the number of city parks increasing at a growing rate each year. Designing a successful outdoor neighborhood recreational facility insures that the surrounding population has an enjoyable, safe, and lasting space to recreate. This study properly illustrates the process in designing a successful neighborhood park. A demographic analysis, conducted in Southern California's Coachella Valley, identified three neighborhood parks as ideal study sites. Likewise, the review of existing literature, site observations, and the analysis of a carefully designed survey developed the appropriate methodology in meeting the intent of this study. As author, I wish to stress the importance of process. If the designer of a neighborhood facility is to meet the recreational goals of any community, he or she must first take action in understanding the appropriate process. Once this understanding is achieved, effective design guidelines may then be developed.

The Sonoran Desert surrounding Tucson, Arizona is the dominant matrix in a region undergoing a transition from desert matrix to urban matrix with little emphasis placed on preserving this native ecosystem intact. Instead, patches of desert, remnants, are cut off the desert matrix and surrounded by a variety of land uses including residential, transit, and commercial. 31 sites within the City of Tucson were surveyed and the site's plant species richness, woody cover, herbaceous cover, and disturbance percentage measured. The plants found on-site were classified into native or exotic, annual or perennial, and woody or herbaceous, and further broken down into growth form. Results indicated a significant correlation between a site's area and its percent disturbance, as well as correlations between its native vegetation and area.

As the population of the United States increases, pressures on Park boundaries are also increasing. The buffer zones around park units are disappearing due to external encroachment, causing adverse effects to park resources. It has always been assumed that there will be a negative effect on Park resources resulting from near park development, but the effects have not been documented. This research examines the effect that near park development has on the overall quality of visitors experience at Tuzigoot National Monument. Subjects showed a preference for natural settings by consistently rating non-built development alternatives higher than residential and commercial alternatives.

In view of the pressures accompanying modern life and population growth, there is great need and importance in the preservation of historic sites, which can create balance between the past and future and strengthen the sense of stability and cultural continuity. This study critically analyzes plans for preservation and development of four of the seven colonies which were founded in Palestine in the 19th century by the German Templers who immigrated because of religious convictions. The history of the group and their contribution to the development of Palestine are described, as are the present condition of the colonies. Criteria for critical analysis of preservation plans which drawn from existing laws in the modern state of Israel, international charters, and interviews with people connected to the colonies in one way or another. The conclusions from this analysis show that only one plan fits the criteria.

As public and private groups around the country--spurred on by the deforestation of our cities--gear up for a major tree planting effort between now and the turn of the century, many planners are seeking examples of successful planting programs to give them ideas about how best to proceed. An extensive survey of 13 acknowledged successful street tree planting programs was undertaken to illuminate a shared framework for fruitful action, including organizational structure and funding strategies. Street tree programs were targeted because these trees planted in the public right-of-way are truly community trees. Both governmental and privately run programs were part of the survey. A major finding is that many cities are moving toward a partnership between private organizations and city forestry programs to fund the planting and maintenance of trees. While the surveyed programs have proved fairly adept at matching trees with existing planting sites, there is almost a complete lack of master planning of the vegetative resource and no thought given to altering prevailing modes of urban development to make more room for trees.

This dissertation constructs a political ecology of two modern irrigation communities in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. In assessing the impacts of the 1992 restructuring of Mexico's water policy, the study contributes to debates within geography about global economic integration, the transformation of the state-society relationship, the interface of ecological change with structural and political demands, and the prescription of decentralization, privatization, and free trade strategies for improving water management in developing countries. The dissertation investigates these questions: How have the restructuring of water and agricultural policy impacted local producers in irrigation districts in Sonora? How have small communal producers (e.g., ejidatarios) responded to the water reform package? An underlying assumption is that Sonoran producers in irrigation districts are among the nation's most-advantaged, given their proximity to U.S. markets, access to irrigation, technological package, and experience with commercial production. Mexico's water and agriculture policies are intended to allow the strongest, most efficient producers to become more competitive. I argue, however, that the water and agricultural reform package overall does not benefit Sonoran producers, and particularly disadvantages the ejidatario sector of farmers, due to a cost squeeze driven by rising water and input costs, retrenchment of state support, and loss of subsidies, among other factors. Most ejidatario producers have abandoned production and their water and land assets are being privatized. Despite this overall finding, some ejidatarios have found entrepreneurial ways to adapt their productive responses to the new challenges. The global-local linkages in the districts demonstrate that different free trade agreements can have distinct impacts on producers of different crops and transnational companies can pose challenges to water-strapped local communities. The prolonged drought has contributed to a water shortage that limits profitability of agriculture. The state's promotion of water consumptive, export crops is at odds with the demands of nature that dictate less intensive agriculture in arid regions like Sonora, with implications for the sustainability of commercial agriculture. A concept of water as a social good---rather than a purely economic good---needs to be resuscitated in order to satisfy the rural development needs of Mexico's ejidatario producers.