Throughout the country, new development continues at a rapid pace, sprawling away from city centers leaving behind gaping holes in the community structure. This new development contains a disappointing sameness creating places devoid of unique identity or character. As a result of this movement outward, inner city neighborhoods are left struggling to survive. These older neighborhoods lose residents and businesses, and suffer both socially and economically as residents flee to the suburbs. Such flight leaves pockets of decaying, deserted areas within the urban core.In order to decrease the incidence of this characterless new development from occurring, older neighborhoods need to be revitalized to provide interesting, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that are desirable places to live. Most of these older neighborhoods contain desirable characteristics that distinguish them from other places such as distinctive architecture and a unique identity. They were built to a human scale that is far superior to the automotive scale of suburbia. These neighborhoods can be revitalized to emphasize their inherent community character, making them more memorable and lasting. Through such revitalization efforts, these neighborhoods would provide a higher quality of life.This creative project identifies neighborhood design principles necessary to restore deteriorating areas of urban neighborhoods and demonstrates that these renewed neighborhoods can, over time, redevelop a unique sense of place. Application of these restorative principles will be illustrated in a revitalization of an urban pocket of the Fountain Square neighborhood in Indianapolis, Indiana. / Department of Landscape Architecture

This creative project has examined the cooperation between the public and private sectors (public-private partnerships) and how they effectively combined resources to revitalize downtown Indianapolis. The public-private partnership process operating in Indianapolis was explored using two specific partnership efforts. A detailed discussion of the development of Market Square Arena - the city's first major partnership effort - and the development of the proposed Circle Centre Mall - the city's latest and reaching attempt at public-private cooperation - serve as two examples in defining the partnership process.In addition, the creative project defines five components necessary for public-private partnerships to operate effectively in Indianapolis. / Department of Urban Planning

The phenomenon of suburbanization has contributed significantly to the decline of many larger urban centers in many countries. As a result, many cities have experienced deterioration of infrastructure, a climate of disinvestment, and other consequences such as population losses, high rates of unemployment, increased poverty rates, fiscal distress, housing and neighborhood deterioration, and a negative image. In response to the impact of suburban expansion, public and private sector entities have implemented downtown revitalization programs intended to attract more people and restore diverse socio-economic, historic, and cultural functions to the core. The city of Indianapolis, like many others, has been involved in revitalizing its downtown city core to reverse the decline that took place following the World War II. Using a partnership of a proactive city government, strong neighborhoods, good public services and concerned private corporations they came together with one goal in mind: to restore a critical element of the city that being a regional shopping center in downtown core.This creative project researches the history of the mall and evaluates its present attributes and liabilities. It also offers possible strategies of using the Circle Centre Mall as a part of a balanced downtown urban system specific to its core. Lastly, this study will present some of the possible strategies and solutions, which can be used to stimulate downtown, street-level businesses integrating Circle Centre Mall's positive impacts in the process. It also contains an analysis and discussion of other components of the downtown revitalization programs, including: economic benefits; downtown urban spaces; skyways systems; facilities connectors; and the decision-making process.From this analysis, conclusions will be drawn that present facts and solutions about keeping the positive impacts of the Circle Centre Mall co-existing with growth of other downtown businesses, specially at sidewalk level, thus supporting the overall activities of the downtown core. / Department of Urban Planning

This thesis analyzes best practices of both brownfield redevelopment and transit-oriented development and identifies both conflicts and opportunities for synthesis. Transit can rekindle demand for otherwise undesirable brownfields along rail corridors. While brownfields, when redeveloped with transit in mind, can increase transit ridership and, therefore, increase the viability of transit. Transit-oriented development on brownfields increases the complexity of the development, but the best practices of each have many commonalities. The most effective tools reduce developer time, cost, or uncertainty, and preferably all three. The City of Indianapolis has the opportunity to create transit-oriented development on brownfields along the proposed Northeast commuter rail corridor on existing rail right-of-way. An investment in transit would provide an opportunity to both remove the environmental contamination along the rail line and to make development in many inner-city neighborhoods more desirable. / Brownfield redevelopment : history, barriers and best practices -- Transit-oriented development : history, barriers and best practices -- Synthesis of best practices in transit-oriented development and brownfield development -- Opportunities for transit-oriented development on brownfields in Indianapolis. / Department of Urban Planning

Indiana University--Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The purpose of this thesis is to discuss and explain the commitment to arts and culture in Indianapolis from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1980s by focusing on the origins, activities, and legacy of an extraordinary event in the history of Indianapolis’ arts community: the 1986-1987 Pan American Arts Festival. Early efforts by the City Committee, a local growth coalition comprised of several civic leaders, focused on the physical revitalization of downtown Indianapolis’ cultural landscape. The group’s work in this area, which was part of a larger downtown revitalization project, played an important role in the creation of the Pan American Arts Festival. Ultimately, the planning and administration of this festival had a significant impact on the city’s arts community as it shifted the arts and culture commitment from Indianapolis’ physical structures to the actual livelihood of the organizations housed within them.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The purpose of this study was to identify urban heat island locations within Center Township, Indiana and to develop a model to determine areas of high social vulnerability. In addition, an urban heat island mitigation strategy was developed for socially vulnerable and highest temperature locations. Land surface temperature was estimated using Landsat ETM+ satellite imagery. Social vulnerability was estimated using principal components analysis and spatial analysis methods such as kernel density functions. These methods incorporate various socioeconomic variables, land surface temperature, and tree canopy cover. Tree canopy cover was extracted using Quickbird imagery among other techniques. Areas with high social vulnerability, high temperature and low tree canopy cover were analyzed and plantable spaces were assessed. The findings of this study will be shared with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Inc. so that they can inform their tree planting campaigns that seek to reduce the effects of urban heat islands on socially vulnerable populations.