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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-207).

Thesis (M.L.A.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Open access. Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-102).

“Can the understanding of the patterns of urban development around a temple complex in India, using Christopher Alexander’s methodology, help better preserve these temple communities and their related temple architecture?” India, a country largely governed by a spiritual culture, draws sustenance and strength largely from religious buildings, thus leading to an emergence of many towns around these religious buildings and events associated with them. The temple acts as the nucleus and the body of life and township shoots from it with the cultural, religious and commercial needs acting as its driving force. Certain groups of people having similar experiential, ideological and sociological backgrounds tend to form a chorus in their pattern generation. The patterns refer to the patterns of relationship between the events that occur in the temple with the various spaces that they occur in. It also refers to the recurring relationships and influences of the temple on the temple town including both the urban development and community which shoot around the temple. The reverse recurring events also forms its own set of patterns. These patterns are seen both in the physical development of streets, shops etc around and in the intangible aspects of the culture, festivals and beliefs of people living in that town. Thus pattern language in this thesis refers to the life, culture and architecture generated by the recurring interactions and interdependencies of the temple communities as a whole. Thus this thesis concludes that the thorough understanding of these interdependencies and interconnections between the structure, its town and community helps preserve the temple architecture as well the town and its intangible culture more effectively. This approach to preservation makes the outcome more holistic and sustainable. This thesis, through its case studies of an existing successful temple town in Puri, India and an ongoing project of the Bindusagar lake, understands this interdependency and develops patterns to be applied in the context of a deteriorated temple village of Kapileswar. They are studied both as sacred places and urban growths where communities thrive. This thesis will focus its final chapters on the application of the studied patterns and its outcome in the form of a preservation model for the Kapileswar temple and temple village based in Orissa, India. However the model in its fundamental framework attempts to suggest that it can be applied on any other setting, location and architecture. This proposed model summarizes the above findings and tries to draw concepts for the preservation process of the Kapileswar temple village based on a pattern approach. The above case studies and their comparative analysis very clearly indicate the various similarities and dissimilarities between their respective settings and approaches. The proposed model for the holistic preservation model of the Kapileswar temple village draws its similarities from the culture, rituals, festivals, commercial endeavors, networks and location of the Puri Jagannatha Temple and the Bindusagar project and its differences from their management structure, devotee following, history, legends and economics. The model includes the proposed management structure and execution structure of the preservation process of the Kapileswar temple based on the above study that will help in the sustainable growth and maintenance of the temple village as a whole. The nucleus of this model is the temple. The model identifies the various elements that when incorporated in the co-operative society management structure and the space allocation diagram form the necessary patterns that ultimately make up for the pattern approach to preservation. The model also includes various charts and diagrams that prioritize and compartmentalize the many small and big items, events and spaces as a part of the above patterns. Hence the proposed model creates a flow of steps that will help preserve the Kapileswar temple and village based on a holistic pattern approach. / text

Smart growth tools address a diverse range of specific concerns, including historic preservation, farmland protection, habitat conservation, flexible architectural design, and expedited land development. Smart growth unites the traditionally separate and competing growth promotion and growth control measures into a single growth accommodation approach. In addition to these important concepts, Henry R. Richmond posits that smart growth must now be explained within the context of “new urbanism” and “new regionalism.” What smart growth tries to accomplish is thus development with implied improvements in quality of life and environmental protection rather than mere urban growth or economic expansion per se. An important obstacle to smart growth measures is that growth problems rarely respect political boundaries. Scattered development patterns, as well as the traffic congestion, environmental degradation, fiscal stresses, and other problems that often accompany them, tend to be regional in nature, extending beyond the boundaries of any one locality. Accordingly, many growth problems are better addressed through regional solutions that federal, state and local smart growth measures my not provide. The general premise of “new regionalism” is that the economic health of the city and its outlying areas are inseparably intertwined, and that without regional planning and programs, individual jurisdictions in a single region compete with one another for limited resources and economic investment. New regionalists typically advocate from one of these three competing positions: greater economic prosperity, increased environmental protection, or improved social equity. Consequently, many politicians, advocates and activists are calling for the implementation of integrated policies that address the interrelatedness of all regional challenges, including housing, transportation, water, sewage, and other regional physical infrastructure systems. Denver evidences a suite of tensions between the promise and outcomes of planning with a wider, regional applicability. On the one hand, there is a progressiveness that embraces regional governance, growth management, economic vitality and quality infrastructure. But on the other hand, there is the reality of city sprawl, competitive local government relationships, and a convergence of interest between citizen choice and development industry behavior. This report will illustrate three issues regarding effective and efficient regional planning implementation at local, state and federal levels in the context of regional planning efforts in the Denver Metro Area. First, why does infill development and economic revitalization not only benefit the central city but the region as a whole? Secondly, how do land-use assignments and development design, like Smart Growth and New Urbanism, encourage regional planning efforts towards integrated mass transit? Finally, How does government fragmentation and overlap contribute to the lack of regional consensus and efficient planning? / text

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

This is about acting from a situation, a place, its conditions and its actors. It is an attempt to understand the ongoing transformations of the city of Umeå, to grasp how it functions and gain the knowledge to be able to act within and suggest new possible futures. By looking at Umeå and the current situation with the parking lot as an index, a tool, a laboratory, and a possible new common, new ways of building the city while living within it will be suggested. The non place of the parking lot with its singular purpose is part of the mechanisms that makes our city, at the same time it is the effect of this city making and it is also a great place to start a change of such system. The 2.5x5 meters that makes a parking lot is small in comparison with the city, and even more so in comparison with the country or the world, but the size also makes it possible to grasp, touch and inhabit. The smallness makes it seem rather innocent and without much importance but the power lies within its multiplicity. A change within a parking lot might not be much, but the possibility of spreading throughout the city and the world makes the parking lot a very powerful place. Since humans can sometimes be creatures of habit, I believe that it is extremely important to keep on questioning the way we inhabit the world together. Widely spread and accepted habits can start acting like dysfunctional natural laws steering us in a direction we might not have chosen if alternatives were presented to us. By investigating and testing the possibilities of such a bland and unquestioned place as the parking lot, I am looking to find glimpses of alternative ways of making the world while living it.

This Master’s Report explores how the social geography of Buenos Aires transformed between 1887 and 1910 and how these changes affected the city’s development. It argues that despite the state’s purported willingness to provide security and sanitation services to its citizenry, changing settlement patterns and expanding democratic participation led to the unequal distribution of public resources and the decay of neighborhoods in the south and west of the city. It argues that as public works removed inexpensive housing in the city’s downtown and transportation networks linked the city’s peripheries closer to the nucleus, members of the middle class and elites increasingly congregated in center and north of the city. Buenos Aires’ neighborhoods became segregated increasingly along class lines and patronage networks broke down. Members of the working class, now concentrated in their own neighborhoods, were unable gain the same resources. Inequality in the allocation of government benefits created clear physical and cultural barriers between rich and poor segments of the city. Unequal access to security forces played an especially important role in stigmatizing poor regions. While the police department vigilantly protected safety, private property and order in some parts of the city, they did not provide enough officers to complete the same tasks in others. Crime went unchecked in poorer regions. The municipal government published statistics and commentary on crime in the southern and western districts of the capital. This imagery cast the area’s residents as threats to public safety and sanitation that the state should control and maintain segregated rather than aid. By casting them as a threatening “other,” city officials denied inhabitants of poor neighborhoods’ future claims to public resources. / text

Sustainability is vital to the success of our cities and settlements. While communities are becoming increasingly conversant with sustainability concepts, uncertainty remains over how to translate these into planning practice. This practicum explores the role of sustainability checklists as one tool for planning and designing more sustainable communities. The inquiry examines the design, implementation and effectiveness of these tools and seeks to understand the motivation and context in which they are developed, the varying approaches and components of checklist tools, and the impact that they are having on planning and development practices. A review of twenty-four sustainability checklists from a selection of BC municipalities, an online survey and key informant interviews were used to inform this study. Nine key findings are identified suggesting that while checklists are helping to communicate sustainability objectives and are encouraging better development, they are not resulting in the large scale shifts to development patterns and urban systems that are required to achieve sustainable outcomes; therefore, checklists need to be integrated with other policies, regulations and tools in order to assist in achieving sustainable settlements.