One of the most urgent long-term issues is the impact of climate change and learning how to mitigate and adapt to its effects through adopting new development approaches over time. Learning more about sustainability and green buildings will hopefully help cities and towns address these future challenges of achieving local developments while decreasing global warming rates. Because there is at present relatively little data in Massachusetts about use of more sustainable practices in particular communities and regions, this thesis looks at the MetroWest Corridor region in Massachusetts as a case study to learn more about its new development methods: in what ways and to what extent do MetroWest towns include sustainable building practices in their planning codes? The MetroWest Corridor is discussed through basic review of its history and current projects within the region. This study included distribution of surveys to thirty municipalities in the region, and the information collected helped to clarify what and how much has been done to promote green building practices. The limited findings from this study indicate that a simple survey by itself will not provide a complete understanding about sustainable projects in terms of what is known or done by local planners. However, with more thorough research methods, there are ways to better identify current local sustainable building projects, policies and programs in Massachusetts, even if they were only partly understood from these limited prelminary survey results.

Wind energy is a means of energy production without carbon emissions, facilitating regional and national energy security. While there are currently no offshore wind farms in the United States, there has been growing success in building land-based wind capacity. Within the wind industry, there is a call for a streamlined permitting process, as well as an objective evaluation of current stakeholder processes. Within city and regional planning, the stakeholder process and public participation in general have long been subject to research and discourse, as scholars and practitioners alike seek to identify and typify what exactly makes public participation robust or rigorous. In Europe, researchers have found that a stakeholder process characterized by early inclusion and local decision-making increases community acceptance of large-scale wind projects, and that a ‘soft-path’, decentralized approach to infrastructure development, as seen in Germany, leads to greater community acceptance as well, versus the ‘hard-path’, centralized approach to infrastructure development as typified in early Dutch wind development. While the public process should not supplant the formal permitting process, or detract from technical expertise, a better understanding of what type of siting and decision-making process are construed by participants as positive or negative could help to formulate stakeholder involvement more effectively in future projects. It could also help to decrease the length of permitting times by promoting consensus-building rather than inadvertently creating an adversarial decision-making climate. This thesis uses a case study methodology to compare three land-based wind farms in Massachusetts and Vermont. It also compares the wind development policies between the two states. From each site, stakeholders are identified and interviewed concerning their experiences and perspectives of the stakeholder or public process. Interviews are analyzed using a matrix composed of success criteria pulled from the fields of regional planning and public participation theory, collaborative planning, and adaptive resource management. Findings include evidence as to what degree there was a stakeholder process, and to what degree participants found it positive or negative. The research found that the characteristics and practices of ore robust or rigorous stakeholder engagement are largely lacking in New England land-based wind development. These characteristics or practices included third-party data collection and reporting; early and broad stakeholder inclusion; collaborative ground rule setting; and no third-party mediation or facilitation. Stakeholder process perspectives are easily divided by wind-energy attitudes: anti-wind stakeholders reported greater antipathy toward the process, whereas proponents of both specific projects and the technology in general reported greater favorability toward the process and outcome. Vermont and Massachusetts have distinct wind development processes and distinct mechanisms for public participation and stakeholder engagement in a renewable energy technology context. In many ways, the siting of renewable infrastructure still follows the ‘decide, announce, defend’ character of conventional infrastructure and facility siting. Wind proponents, and proponents of other renewable energy technologies and sustainability measures in general, should pause and consider how to craft meaningful, robust and rigorous stakeholder processes prior to site selection and development. This will lend legitimacy to both the process and technology, lending political and social sustainability to a technology that is well needed for social, economic and environmental well-being. Continued avoidance of early and robust stakeholder engagement may contribute to ongoing conflict and confusion regarding renewable energy siting, permitting and development. Stakeholder experiences and perspectives also demonstrated that there are many factors contributing to public and social perceptions of wind technology and specific projects, including the financial gain or reward to communities and stakeholders; the size of individual turbines; project ownership and management; and project scale. There is opportunity for enhancing the public process and allowing rigorous and robust stakeholder process in wind energy development.

In economics, new growth theory suggests that knowledge creation and innovation are key drivers of growth. As a result, the ‘new economy’ is increasingly reliant upon the knowledge, skills, and abilities embodied in its workforce, also known as human capital, that facilitate the stimulation and generation of new ideas (Romer 1986, 1990 and Lucas 1988). This research contributes to the understanding of the relationship between stocks of human capital and economic output. I construct metrics to measure concentrations of basic worker skills using the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Information Network (O*NET) and employment estimates for 353 US metropolitan areas. In general, I find that basic skills are positively correlated with higher productivity. Specifically, I find that higher levels of the skills math and critical thinking partially explain higher levels of regional productivity. Science, though not statistically significant, has a negative correlation between higher levels of skill and regional output.

Today our cities have surpassed the industrial state that originally organized them, where our social network is no longer bound by the limits of the cities streets, sidewalks, blocks and city centers, but rather by our internet connection. Our cities have become “global-cities” or mere hyperlinks to a global network of information where we have the world at our disposal at the blink of an eye. Technologies i.e. the internet, mobile technology, virtual environments etc. provide us with infinite information, connectivity, accessibility and even experience. One can argue that the way we live and experience our lives is directly associated with our technological capabilities and accessibility to these technologies. While this connectedness exists virtually through the streaming of data throughout space, it cannot be experienced physically. This network of information possesses relationships amongst itself as well as with everything else in the world. While our cities today have become digital melting pots, their image does not reflect the informational state of our society, but rather still resembles the industrial city. Since virtual environments are nothing more then an extension of the physical environment, we cannot limit our perception of space to the way in which we currently experience it, but must understand the various levels of complexity which define the space in all dimensions. While Boston City Hall Plaza currently exists as a baron sea of bricks, it contains virtual information which digitally connects it to the rest of the world. This information, variable X, will be the cities design input to creating new spatial relationships, in turn circulating people into these programmatic voids, as well as reflect the state of our society.

The $15+ Billion "Big Dig", replaced Boston's deteriorating six-lane elevated Central Artery, known as the Green monster, with a widened highway tunnel running underground through Downtown Boston and crossing the Charles River, creating more than 27 acres of new land area for reuse in Downtown Boston. Today, a significant portion of the land has been turned into a system of parks known as the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. Since its completion in 2008, five civic and recreational developments planned for the Greenway have been abandoned due to poor funding, rising construction estimates, and a general lack of support. Disconnected, under-programmed and ill-maintained, the Greenway is in danger of becoming a no-man's land. There have been many visions, but no solutions. This thesis will provide a solution that will reconnect the North End and the Waterfront with downtown Boston, improve the continuity of the park system, provide a structural approach to construction above highway tunnel exit ramps, and most importantly promote widespread use of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

The lives of graduate students are often insular and focused, with high workloads and resultant stresses. Beyond the unifying demands of academia, graduate students have a diverse set of individual challenges. Some students have families, some are visiting the US and learning to live in a new culture, and some are fresh out of undergraduate studies and living on their own for the first time. In addition to these challenges the graduate student body is a diverse and disparate group, representing varied cultures, experiences and generations. Due to these demands and circumstances the students have little time and energy to build a community with fellow graduate students, and therefore don't have a strong and supportive community when they need it most. The idea of creating and supporting intentional communities through the design of housing has been architecturally explored for many years. From the mass housing of the early modernist movement through contemporary cohousing, there have been varying degrees of success.The intent of this thesis project is to design a place of dwelling for graduate students within the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. By analyzing examples of intentional communities and the actual needs of the graduate community at UMass Amherst, I intend to design a place of dwelling for graduate students that supports the development of community, and therefore the individual residents.

Decaying urban spaces are common in post-industrial New England. When manufacturing activities withdrew from New England they left holes in the urban fabric. Physical absence of these former economic drivers is easy to note in empty mill buildings, warehouses, and storefronts. Farther reaching impacts of this exodus are less apparent. Jobs went with manufacturing. Raw materials needed to be harvested and made available to manufacturers; the finished products needed to be distributed, sold, and moved; supporting businesses provided for these needs. Many other groups supported manufacturing; some through the management of the companies, some catered to workers’ needs, or the needs of workers’ children and families. This network of groups and individuals connected to industry made up vibrant communities in the heyday of manufacturing in New England. When manufacturing left many of the groups providing support functions collapsed. Many people moved away, or if they stayed they were left unemployed or underemployed. Whole communities were damaged when manufacturing left New England. Many have not yet fully recovered. The goal of this thesis is to propose a path toward the revitalization and repair of the urban fabric of depressed post-industrial communities in New England. Many post-industrial New England communities have lost their identity. These places have empty buildings, empty lots, and their main streets, former “downtowns,” are quiet. There is little to recommend these areas as a place to be. These depressed and decaying places need revitalization. They are no longer centers of manufacturing or industry; they need a new identity, one that reflects what they are now and what they would like to become in the future. Revitalization should be grounded in a study of the unique place it addresses. There are communities and inhabitants present in even the most depressed places. These groups need to be recognized and their needs identified before revitalization can be undertaken. Revitalization should be inclusive. Residents should feel encouraged to stay in, and be proud of, their community. Revitalization should be sustainable; socially, ecologically and economically. If revitalization of a depressed area calls for attracting more residents and businesses, those targeted to inhabit the revitalized space should fit into the existing community, not displace it. This thesis proposes a revitalization of a depressed post-industrial area of Millers Falls, Massachusetts in the vicinity of East Main and Bridge Streets. This revitalization proposal will be carried out within a framework of study of place, inclusivity, and holistic sustainability.

This project was an exercise in aligning my intuition, community experience, and design sensitivities under the pretext of an architectural expression. My desire was to work endogenously, or out of my home environment, on a project that had no clear programmatic or formal requirements or limitations. I began by assessing a prevalent issue in my home town (a connection between the river and the town center) both from the top down and the bottom up. Throughout, I sought to challenge my preconceived notions of what might be, and allow a design process to emerge out of the layers of information I had absorbed as a participant in this holistic landscape. Inflection and change became a driving force in this pared down design process, and through them came a working territory that framed the programmatic and formal specificities of the South River P.O.R.T.

Mining is the primary method through which modern society obtains the minerals needed to fuel the global economy, provide for modern energy requirements, and support the built environment. Presently, mining accounts for nearly 1% of the global ice-free land surface, with a dramatic increase anticipated in the coming decades. Mining permanently changes and often destroys the pre-existing topography, hydrology, and ecology of the ground, and efforts to reclaim mining landscapes—with the aim of encouraging reforestation and soil replenishment—are often unsuccessful, rendering the land of abandoned mines both unusable and uninhabitable. This thesis addresses the current state of mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and focuses specifically on a cobalt and copper mining complex within and adjacent to the town of Kolwezi. This is a complex site that is crucial for the global transition to renewable energy, and yet contains many of the climate and social injustices currently implicit with mining. This research formulates a novel model of mine reclamation for the landscapes of Kolwezi, and, in the process, introduces new options for the symbiosis of extraction and inhabitation: the results of which will challenge many of the existing narratives within architecture. This model is guided by concepts of geologic and deep time, with an emphasis on long-term holistic solutions and uses the opportunity of building in terraformed land as a practice to invert traditional relationships of vertical space and hierarchy. Finally, this thesis works to create an alternative design for living, one that accounts for our outsized impact on planetary ecologies, ultimately redesigning and restructuring our relationships to our sacred ground.

The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program (MVP Program) has funded Community Resilience Building workshops in hundreds of communities over the past 6 years. The Planning Reports produced by these workshops offer valuable insight into the climate adaptation and climate justice priorities of Massachusetts municipalities. Climate justice literature holds that the impacts of climate change will be disproportionately felt by marginalized communities, and those addressing climate change should address the risks faced by those communities, referred to as Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities in Massachusetts. Using an inductive qualitative coding approach, this study analyzes 30 Planning Reports from towns with High, Medium and Low presence of EJ populations. The analysis found that the MVP program has been effective at incentivizing towns to plan for future climate change hazards, by gating funding for immediate projects behind a long-term planning process. The study also found that town Planning Reports tend to prioritize flooding adaptation and prevention over other climate hazards, even hazards that are externally reported to pose greater risk to the community. Finally, when discussing the protection of vulnerable populations, towns tend to define “vulnerable” narrowly as elderly populations, although some High-EJ towns broaden that definition to include other marginalized populations. The findings offer insight into the effectiveness of the MVP program for other states who might use it as a model. The findings can also demonstrate how municipalities in Massachusetts and beyond are planning to use climate adaptation funding as it is made available.