We have too much parking. The automobile-oriented utopia promised by optimistic modern architects like Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright did not come to pass. Personal motor vehicles have indeed become ubiquitous, but the effect in urban environments, at least has been more tyranny than democracy. Cars have taken over the city. Huge areas of urban land are dedicated almost exclusively to cars, and narrow-minded engineer-driven planning continues to widen streets, raise speed limits, and increase parking space, to the detriment of alternate (and by most metrics superior) methods of transportation, or any other potential use of urban space. Additionally, with technological advances allowing car-sharing and the projected explosion of self-driving cars, parking garages are likely soon to become obsolete. We don't have enough housing. As more people move to cities, vulnerable established communities are displaced, property taxes soar, and city footprints balloon. Increased residential density, through both n construction and infill, can assuage these problems while decreasing the necessity of automobile travel. I will begin my research by analyzing the typology of the American parking garage and its relationship to the urban fabric. This analysis will yield a taxonomy of the formal and material components of parking structures. Many components will be challenges to human habitation; a few will be benefits; all will present opportunities for a symbolically and actively revolutionary form of urban housing. From this taxonomy, I will develop a catalog of strategies for responding to these challenges at least to address them and ideally to reframe them as assets. I will test these strategies by applying them to a local parking garage, adapting it as a multifamily housing complex and alternate transportation hub. These strategies could later be enacted city- and nation-wide to transform a mainstay of stubborn car culture into an urban asset. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / This Capstone looks into the aspects of planned communities that are successful in reducing the need for automobile usage among residents. / The goal of this study is to assess automobile use in sustainably developed communities and note the ways in which these communities successfully reduce the need for personal automobiles. In response to research about the environmental and health effects of urban sprawl, developers have pushed for sustainably developed communities. These master plan communities follow particular guidelines and set goals to alleviate their effect on the environment and help reduce the negative effects of sprawling development. Because auto-dependency is a sign of sprawl, it is important that these communities develop in such a way that reduce citizens’ reliance on personal automobiles. This study will examine three separate master planned communities in the Tucson region and assess how each one addresses the issue of automobile usage, examining common factors between the different communities and what factors make these communities successful. This study found that several factors are important in reducing automobile use. These examples of successful development will potentially help future communities be successful in reducing automobile usage.

This thesis demonstrates that New Urbanism is both an advisable and feasible method for reducing carbon emissions to mitigate global climate change. New Urban areas commonly generate lower carbon emissions compared to conventional suburban development due to lower car use and higher levels of walking and use of other forms of transportation. Economic and political feasibility of New Urban development is determined by analyzing case studies, housing price premia, financing, and fiscal impact. The many contexts and perspectives involved in the planning process are analyzed to determine if New Urbanism is advisable in the larger setting in which developers, advocates, and governments operate. In order to enable the planning strategy to achieve a more positive effect and become more widespread, key policy changes and strategic enactment measures are delineated. This thesis finds that New Urbanism has very strong potential to have a significant positive impact on urban sustainability.