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The overall objective of the research was to evaluate the performance of the Chinese planning system on design, urban design in particular, and to search for ways to integrate urban design thinking with existing urban planning agendas to improve design control in China. The reason for undertaking this research was due to the general perception that urban design did not play the role that it deserved in China. Despite an increasing number of initiatives, the question of how to address urban design issues in planning and development control remains a source of controversy. Focusing on the Chinese planning system, the research examined the approaches, the procedures, and the general effectiveness of design control in China. The research emphasised more at a local level by taking Guangzhou as a case study. It also evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the recent urban design initiatives, namely, the Urban Design Plans for specific districts and the Model Community Program. Moreover, the research has examined the British design experience and looked in more detail at the recent experience of Glasgow. The research revealed that the main defects were the incomprehensive design concerns in local policies and plans, the inability of current statutory plans to deal with design issues, the lack of appropriate design guidance, the poor understanding of the local character, and the lack of openness and co-ordination in the planning process. Recent urban design initiatives have generated interest but have achieved limited success due to the lack of strategic level thinking. The examination of the British design experience has offered some valuable lessons. These include the incorporation of urban design principles at all levels of planning, an emphasis on the quality of the public realm, careful and detailed analysis of the local context as the basis for the development of design policy and guidance, and an appreciation of the value of public participation and involvement. Combining this understanding of the inefficiencies of China's design control with the lessons drawn from the British experience, the thesis also makes a number of recommendations for improving China's planning and development control system.

<p> The main objective of this research is to examine the effect of city-level urban characteristic, such as urban form and trip generation factors, on traffic safety in general and pedestrian safety in particular. For this purpose, the information for 100 major Urban Areas (UAs) in the United States in 2010 is studied. Factor analysis is applied to construct latent variables from multiple observed variables to measure and describe urban form, macro-level trip generation, citywide transportation network features and traffic safety. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is then used to investigate how city-level urban form and trip generation affect traffic safety directly and indirectly (through mediators of transportation network features).</p><p> Based on the statistical analysis, it is found that encouraging the use of non-driving transportation modes and controlling traffic congestion, as significant mediators, are effective policies to increase overall traffic safety and pedestrian safety, respectively. In this regard, urban areas with a more even spatial distribution of job-housing balance (more polycentricity), more uniform spatial distribution of different social classes, higher urban density (less sprawl), and more connectivity in their transportation network (more accessibility) have the safest urban form designs.</p><p> Moreover, mixed land-use designs with provided local access to services and amenities, food and beverage centers, and religious organizations, followed by strict pedestrian safety standards for neighborhoods are the safest type of land use designs in urban areas. In addition, regulating the off-peak hours allowed time for heavy vehicles and changing the work schedule of workers who do not reside in the urban area can also help city planners to increase traffic safety.</p>

<p> This thesis connects the lived experience of displacement to the greater paradigm of neoliberalism. The presence of neoliberalism is insidious and ubiquitous and yet even its existence is disputed in the literature. Neoliberalism is not only capitalism on steroids, bigger and in more places, but a new regime of logic that reduces human relations to profit, naturalizes competition and pushes responsibility onto the individual. Urban space in America and especially the process of gentrification, the reshaping of the built environment to facilitate profit, is a powerful space of expression of neoliberal policies in everyday life. Displacement is a violent and dehumanizing realization of the commodification of land. This research follows the lived experience of families displaced from a mobile home park in Flagstaff, Arizona. Residents received a letter of eviction a week before Thanksgiving of 2017 and the mobile home park was boarded up by July of the following year. Through in-depth interviews with the residents and participant observation in the ensuing movement to keep these families in their homes, this research compiles the lived experience of these individuals and provides an analysis of their situation. Paulo Freire argued that every person has the ability to understand and build solutions to their reality in them. This research hopes to illuminate the lived experience of neoliberalism, gentrification, and offer a powerful message of generative solidarity collaboratively distilled from the experience of the displaced residents.</p><p>

<p> Traditional avenues of influencing planning decisions are not intuitive for diverse, historically underrepresented community residents in many neighborhoods and many immigrant residents come from societies where engaging in public discourse is discouraged or dangerous. The focus of this study, the Planning Outreach and Engagement Liaison (POEL) program, was designed to address these discrepancies, yet whether the program was successful is unknown. Using participatory democracy as the theoretical framework, the purpose of this case study was to explore whether the POEL program brought diverse residents together to participate in the neighborhood planning process. Data were collected through semi structured interviews with planners, community coordinators, public outreach and engagement liaisons, and members of non-governmental organizations (<i>n</i> = 10) and official government records and documents. All data were deductively coded and then analyzed using a thematic analysis procedure. Six themes emerged from the study including (a) measures of program success, (b) outreach and communication, (c) collaboration, (d) intimidation and fear, (e) time limitation, and (f) building relationships. POELs identified and understood that barriers such as lack of time, lack of child care, persistent fear of government intentions, and religious and cultural norms inhabit the process, but found that using outreach and communication promotes interest in and participation in neighborhood planning. When neighborhood residents are empowered and given information about the process, they make informed choices. The study promotes positive social change by showing that mitigating some of the barriers to participation supports greater inclusion of underrepresented persons in the neighborhood planning process.</p><p>

acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Peyton Jones