Professions such as landscape architecture have long laid claim to altruistic concepts of working for the betterment of society, as opposed to their own special interests. In recent time within the United States, such altruistic claims have come into question, as a skeptical public has challenged the true motivations of professionals. This dissertation examines commitments to social responsibility in the landscape architecture community, in an effort to understand the range of attitudes and ideas present in a profession that is highly diverse in terms of its work jurisdictions and context. Conclusions were drawn from an analysis of discourse in landscape architecture and related environmental design disciplines, a study of educational standards for accredited professional degree programs, and interviews with landscape architects practicing in the Los Angeles region. Findings suggest that many landscape architects believe in abstract notions such as stewardship, but that the interpretations of these notions vary widely. Respondents in the public sector often demonstrated different conceptions of their role in the planning and design process, and stronger connections to the land and its inhabitants, than was the case for most private sector respondents. Respondents in all work contexts also described conflicts that emerged in their practice as a result of obligations to clients, communities, employers, special interest groups that they may be affiliated with, personal values and well-being. These conflicts often presented challenges in terms of meeting abstract notions of social responsibility, and often appeared to shape their attitudes towards these responsibilities. This study confirms that professionals are presented with many conflicts of interest in daily practice, as a result of being firmly embedded in society. So challenges to cultural authority that question the motivations of professionals may be justified in many cases. The lack of explicit engagement of social responsibility issues in discourse and education makes it difficult to counter such challenges in the case of landscape architecture. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of implications for discourse, education and practice, including the need for a theoretical framework in landscape architecture and potential for discretionary action, drawing upon theories of communicative action.

LULU (Locally Unwanted Land Use) and NIMBY (Never In My Back Yard) are often cited as two major hurdles to overcome for successful siting of a noxious facility. Among various types of waste in Korea, food waste has been posing a serious problem for its high rate of moisture and salt component (MOE 2001). This has necessitated siting of large scale composting facilities around the country. Although there has been an increasing number of studies on NIMBY towards siting of noxious facilities, one can hardly find a study on NIMBY attitudes toward a composting facility from an economic perspective. To analyze NIMBY attitude of residents in Cheju City, Korea toward hosting a composting facility, we base our theoretical analysis on the expected utility theory and subsequently use a MNLM (muitinomial logit model) for empirical analysis. This study consists of four major parts: theoretical analysis, data management, MNLM estimations, and interpretation. A theoretical model is constructed by maximizing expected utility: first, a two-choice model, then extending it to a three-choice model to incorporate residents' uncertain attitudes toward a composting facility, providing a theoretical basis for using MNLM model. Our empirical results show with statistical significance that the higher the income, the stronger the NIMBY attitude towards siting a composting facility. Further, it shows that the negative effect of economic benefits on NIMBY attitude is (marginally) stronger than the positive effect of environmental concern, which contrast with what is usually observed in US where the effect of environmental concern dominates over that of economic benefits. Socio-demographic variables included to have the economic variables controlled for are mostly insignificant. Further, from our empirical results is deduced that the residents gave uncertain responses are tilted towards accepting the composting facility.

abstract: The rapid rate of urbanization coupled with continued population growth and anthropogenic activities has resulted in a myriad of urban climate related impacts across different cities around the world. Hot-arid cities are more vulnerable to induced urban heat effects due to the intense solar radiation during most of the year, leading to increased ambient air temperature and outdoor/indoor discomfort in Phoenix, Arizona. With the fast growth of the capital city of Arizona, the automobile-dependent planning of the city contributed negatively to the outdoor thermal comfort and to the people's daily social lives. One of the biggest challenges for hot-arid cities is to mitigate against the induced urban heat increase and improve the outdoor thermal. The objective of this study is to propose a pragmatic and useful framework that would improve the outdoor thermal comfort, by being able to evaluate and select minimally invasive urban heat mitigation strategies that could be applied to the existing urban settings in the hot-arid area of Phoenix. The study started with an evaluation of existing microclimate conditions by means of multiple field observations cross a North-South oriented urban block of buildings within Arizona State University’s Downtown campus in Phoenix. The collected data was evaluated and analyzed for a better understanding of the different local climates within the study area, then used to evaluate and partially validate a computational fluid dynamics model, ENVI-Met. Furthermore, three mitigation strategies were analyzed to the Urban Canopy Layer (UCL) level, an increase in the fraction of permeable materials in the ground surface, adding different configurations of high/low Leaf Area Density (LAD) trees, and replacing the trees configurations with fabric shading. All the strategies were compared and analyzed to determine the most impactful and effective mitigation strategies. The evaluated strategies have shown a substantial cooling effect from the High LAD trees scenarios. Also, the fabric shading strategies have shown a higher cooling effect than the Low LAD trees. Integrating the trees scenarios with the fabric shading had close cooling effect results in the High LAD trees scenarios. Finally, how to integrate these successful strategies into practical situations was addressed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Architecture 2020

Recently federal policy aimed at halting decline in urban neighborhoods has included a major focus on housing rehabilitation efforts. In the case of Portland, Oregon, federally funded improvement loans for owner-occupied housing units resulted in the rehabilitation of almost four thousand homes from 1975 until 1978, over twice the number of homes rehabilitated in any other city in the nation. The purpose of the present study was to examine and analyze the city's rehabilitation loan program in two ways. First, the loan process itself was examined to ascertain whether there were any deficiencies in the loan program which should be corrected. The second, and primary, focal point was the specific neighborhoods where rehabilitation loans have been funneled. The impact of the loan programs on the neighborhoods as communicated by their residents determined how successful Portland has been in dealing with urban decline through its loan programs. Prior to gathering primary data on the neighborhoods, several secondary sources of information were used. The Portland Development Commission's in-house evaluations of the loan process demonstrated strong recipient support for the program. A survey of loan recipient files showed loans going to low income families with few assets. Although half of the loans went to married couples, a substantial number of loans went to divorced women and widows. The majority of rehabilitated homes were over fifty years old, and their median assessed value was $16,500. Secondary data was also used to look at outside perceptions of changes taking place in loan neighborhoods. Real estate trends and mortgage and home improvement loan activities suggested that the impact of the government loan programs has not yet been substantial enough to trigger changes in private policies related to the neighborhoods. Primary data for the study came from a random sample survey of four hundred persons in four Portland neighborhoods. Two neighborhoods, one in the north section of the city and one in southeast, where loans have been given, were paired with two control neighborhoods where loans were not available. The survey instrument used contained 72 variables chosen as capable of determining what the impact of the loan program has been on loan recipients, their neighbors, and their neighborhoods. Four outcomes could have stemmed from the loan programs. The first possibility was that people living in the neighborhoods where Housing and Community Development loans have been granted should feel more positive about their neighborhood than those not living in HCD neighborhoods. A second consequence could have been that HCD neighborhoods are upgrading socio-economically. Third, HCD neighborhood residents simply may not have perceived improvements in their neighborhoods, or fourth, even if they perceive improvements, they do not show significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their neighborhoods than holds true for respondents living in the control neighborhoods. The data indicated that although residents in HCD neighborhoods do perceive improvements taking place in their neighborhoods, their levels of satisfaction with their neighborhoods are not significantly higher than satisfaction levels in non-loan neighborhoods. Socio-economic changes may be taking place in the Southeast HCD neighborhood. As for the loan process, the program was rated highly by the recipients of the loans, both in in-house evaluations done for the Portland Development Commission and as reported in the neighborhood survey. The study concludes that the city's efforts provided a solid first step in developing a strong commitment to strengthening inner city neighborhoods, but it is only a first step. A stronger commitment, particularly on the part of private industry, is needed to end urban neighborhood decline.

abstract: Sustainability research and action in communities should be holistic, integrating sociocultural, biogeophysical, and spiritual components and their temporal and spatial dynamics toward the aim of co-creating thriving living systems. Yet scientists and practitioners still struggle with such integration. Regenerative development (RD) offers a way forward. RD focuses on shifting the consciousness and thinking underlying (un)sustainability as well as their manifestation in the physical world, creating increasingly higher levels of health and vitality for all life across scales. However, tools are nascent and relatively insular. Until recently, no empirical scientific research studies had been published on RD processes and outcomes. My dissertation fills this gap in three complementary studies. The first is an integrative review that contextualizes regenerative development within the fields of sustainability, sustainable design and development, and ecology by identifying its conceptual elements and introducing a regenerative landscape development paradigm. The second study integrates complex adaptive systems science, ecology, sustainability, and regenerative development to construct and pilot the first iteration of a holistic sustainable development evaluation tool—the Regenerative Development Evaluation Tool—in two river restoration projects. The third study builds upon the first two, integrating scientific knowledge with existing RD and sustainable community design and development practices and theory to construct and pilot a Regenerative Community Development (RCD) Framework. Results indicate that the RCD Framework and Tools, when used within a regenerative landscape development paradigm, can facilitate: (1) shifts in thinking and development and design outcomes to holistic and regenerative ones; (2) identification of areas where development and design projects can become more regenerative and ways to do so; and (3) identification of factors that potentially facilitate and impede RCD processes. Overall, this research provides a direction and tools for holistic sustainable development as well as foundational studies for further research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2019