Prior to the Iraqi invasion and occupation, there was limited landscaping in Kuwait. Public gardens, highways, streets, governmental and private buildings had been planted to some extent. In the post invasion days the Amir of Kuwait has set a goal to beautify Kuwait by intensified landscaping. Responsibility for this Plan was given to the Public Authority for Agriculture and Fisheries (PAAF) which in turn, commissioned the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) to develop the Plan, in collaboration with PAAF staff. Currently, a Strategic and Master Plan for "Greenery" Development (1995-2010) is being prepared. The plan will consist of guidelines for the gradual landscaping of Kuwait focusing on the urban areas. The objectives of this thesis is to ensure the development of guidelines into a comprehensive body of knowledge which takes these categories into consideration: sociocultural factors, functional factors, environmental/ecological factors and aesthetic factors. It is hoped that this information could be synthesized into a thoughtful, utilitarian landscape design guideline for Kuwait.

The role of urban public space in the form of a contemporary downtown city park is the focus of this thesis. The subject of study was El Presidio Park located in Tucson, Arizona. The objective was to examine the use of this public space, past and present, as well as compare it to the use of other public places in the city today. Also looked at was the contribution of an urban plaza to this city, the effects of decentralization and the downtown context. A literature review was conducted to show the evolution of the town square or urban plaza throughout history. Data were collected through a survey and statistical analysis revealed relationships in use within and among each place. Results indicated that a small percentage of the sample population (27%) used the park, usually for special events, but not for everyday use and that it was the most demographically diverse of all places surveyed.

This paper describes some of the effects of urbanization on the environment and the benefits and liabilities of environmentally oriented land use regulation, and in detail, the use of the Xeriscape Landscape and Screening ordinance as one tool to effect the goal of environmental health of the Tucson community.

A framework capable of escaping the bipolarities inherent in traditional urban/suburban classifications is designed not only for the analysis of historical form, but also as a means of identifying more affective modes of operation for the architectural and urban planning professions in an increasingly complex environment. The boundaries that have been established through settlement patterns are then traversed in order to gain a better comprehension of their nature, although not for the purpose of reassuring their stasis, but rather to reveal their movements in an effort to project future transformations. Ultimately, the tactical method of visualization is employed in the dual attempt to represent the future and to prepare for entry into it.

I am interested in erasing the disparity between the body and the automobile by allowing both to participate in a new and common public space simultaneously. This new public space incorporates various diverse models of trade; bazaar, market, ATMs, drive through restaurant etc...into a series of striated zones or bands having to do with the deceleration of the automobile. The car by virtue of its speed becomes the pedestrian and its space becomes a market. By annexing a portion of the set back off the street for slow traffic the first transition zone is established for the automobile. This allows motorists visual access to the business and amenities. The second zone is compromised of a series of drive through booths for the businesses on the lot. Within this band are permanent stalls for temporary or seasonal venders. The last zone farthest off the street is reserved for the traditional store restaurant and businesses.

<p> I begin this dissertation with a historical overview of the demographic, economic, and political trends that have helped shape existing urban form, transportation infrastructure, and travel behavior in Mexico City. Despite an uptick in car ownership and use, most households&mdash;both urban and suburban&mdash;continue to rely on public transportation. Furthermore, suburban Mexico City has lower rates of car ownership and use than its central areas. In subsequent chapters, I frame, pose, and investigate three interrelated questions about Mexico City's evolving suburban landscape, the nature of households' travel decisions, and the relationship between the built environment and travel behavior. Together, these inquiries tell a story that differs significantly from narratives about US suburbs, and provide insight into the future transportation needs and likely effects of land and transportation policy in these communities and others like them in Mexico and throughout the developing world.</p><p> First, how has the influence of the built environment on travel behavior changed as more households have moved into the suburbs and aggregate car use has increased? Using two large metropolitan household travel surveys from 1994 and 2007, I model two related-but-distinct household travel decisions: whether to drive on an average weekday, and if so, how far to drive. After controlling for income and other household attributes, I find that the influence of population and job density on whether a household undertakes any daily car trips is strong and has increased marginally over time. By contrast, high job and population densities have a much smaller influence on the total distance of weekday car travel that a household generates. For the subset of households whose members drive on a given weekday, job and population densities have no statistical effect at all. Contrary to expectations, a household's distance from the urban center is strongly correlated with a lower probability of driving, even after controlling for income. This effect, however, appears to be diminishing over time, and when members of a household drive, they drive significantly more if they live farther from the urban center. The combination of informal transit, public buses, and the Metro has provided sufficient transit service to constrain car use in the densely populated suburban environments of Mexico City. Once suburban residents drive, however, they tend to drive a lot regardless of transit or the features of the built environment.</p><p> Second, how much are the recent trends of increased suburbanization, rising car-ownership, and the proliferation of massive commercially-built peripheral housing developments interrelated? To investigate this question, I first disentangle urban growth and car ownership trends by geographic area. The fastest-growing areas tend to be poorer and have had a much smaller impact on the size of the metropolitan car fleet than wealthier, more established neighborhoods in the center and western half of the metropolis. I then zoom in to examine several recent commercial housing developments. These developments, supported by publicly-subsidized mortgages, contain thousands of densely-packed, small, and modestly-priced housing units. Their residents remain highly reliant on public transportation, particularly informal transit, and the neighborhoods become less homogenous over time as homeowners convert units and parking spaces to shops and offices. Finally, I use the 2007 household travel survey to model households' intertwined decisions of where to live and whether to own a car. If housing policy and production cannot adapt to provide more centrally-located housing, growing incomes will tend to increase car ownership but concentrate more of it in areas where car-owning households drive much farther.</p><p> Third, how has the Metro's Line B, one of the first and only suburban high-capacity transit investments, influenced local and regional travel behavior and land use? To explore this question, I compare travel behavior and land use measures at six geographic scales, including the investment's immediate catchment area, across two time periods: six years before and seven years after the investment opened. Line B, which opened in stages in 1999 and 2000, significantly expanded Metro coverage into the densely populated and fast-growing suburban municipality of Ecatepec. While the investment sparked a significant increase in local Metro use, most of this increase came from people relying on informal transit, rather than cars. While this shift reduced transit fares and increased transit speeds for local residents, it also increased government subsidies for the Metro and had no apparent effect on road speeds. Furthermore, the Metro remains highly dependent on informal transit to provide feeder service even within Ecatepec. In terms of land use, the investment increased density around the stations but appears to have had little to no effect on downtown commercial development. In short, the effects of Line B demonstrate much of the promise and problem with expanding high capacity transit service into the suburbs. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)</p>

The current state of the 4th ward is one of atrophy and gentrification. The existing housing stock, as well as existing demographic and community structures are being replaced block by block with a drastically different, homogeneous housing type and demographic. Considering its place in the city, this new housing stock is very understanding of the density necessary for the future of this area, but has no reference to the existing housing types or demographic. The desire to maintain and rebuild what is left of the 4th ward, and its community, is faced with the necessity of densification and diversification. And to do this, we have to resist the urge to replicate the aesthetic icons of the past, such as the shotgun house. Through analysis, we see that the housing types of the 4th ward, rather than being defined by stylistic choices, are actually defined by their form in relation to use and proximity, and on a larger scale, by their varied, incremental patterns of development. It is these quantitative aspects of the 4th ward, at the scale of the city lot & the urban block, that can be preserved and incorporated into the inevitable densification of the area.

An inquiry into the loss of urbanity in the contemporary city initiated a historical study of public space. The public space of today's mall is introverted and isolated from its environment--the disintegrated, decaying city. The political implications of this transformation are the tendency towards privatization of public space and increasing segregation of society. Public space and public services are more and more taken over by profit-oriented private businesses and no longer available to everybody, e.g. the 'central business district' demonstrates the replacement of the public realm by the corporate realm. The Houston tunnel system exemplifies this tendency: it is owned by private corporations, accessible to the public only from their buildings. The Design Thesis attempts to return this part of the urban infrastructure to the public realm. Entrances from the street are intended to make the pedestrian tunnels more easily accessible to the individual.

The lack of zoning in Houston weakens typological identity in the architecture of the city and precipitate new morphologies in urban form. A formal analysis of commercial development in the residential area of Montrose shows the mixed fabric of the city, both in scale and type. This analysis is the basis of an alternate strategy of suture in the development of the block in the fabric of the city and is applied to housing design. In conclusion, such a strategy is by necessity ad hoc if it is to be responsive to unforeseen growth patterns in a city without zoning.

In the next 25 years, la Democracia, a town of 4000 people in the Pacific coastal plains of Guatemala, Central America, will double in population if current population growth trends continue. In this thesis, the author investigates the current state of infrastructure; waste disposal, streets, education, health, and housing and proposes solutions for the town's future infrastructure needs.