Mixed-use development is one of the canonical elements of modern urban planning theory and practice. The principles of this approach to development are applied throughout the world and have seen a resurgence in the last several decades as part of the rise of populist movements such as smart growth and new urbanism. At the same time, cities across the industrialized world have been reshaped within the broader context of fundamental restructuring in the labour market over the past several decades. The urban core of the post-industrial city has increasingly become the site of residential development amongst various complementary land uses, marketed to an upwardly mobile professional class. Who benefits from this kind of mixed-use development in the housing market? Despite its popularity, mixed-use development is not often examined with regard to the affordability of housing. This study explores the affordability of housing in areas zoned as mixed-use in the old City of Toronto in relation to shifts in the occupational structure of the city’s workforce between 1991 and 2006. Using census data and spatial analysis methods, the cartographic and analytical outputs of this study demonstrate two major findings: first, that housing in mixed-use areas was more expensive than the rest of the city over the study period; and second, that socioeconomic polarization between classes of occupations is not only evident in mixed-use areas, but in some ways more pronounced than in the rest of the city. Based on these findings, the study concludes with a realistic assessment of why and how academics, practitioners and policymakers active in urban planning should step up efforts to couple the revitalization of Toronto’s urban core with gains to the affordability of housing.

South Africa is faced with a situation where-by the general public has a negative perception of public transport. It is a fact that generally the lower income employees use public transport to get to work and back, whether it is buses, taxis, or trains. In the past, the combination of users and misinformed planning philosophies led to interchanges/ranks that were un-user friendly, and uninviting. However, the South African government has embarked upon a campaign to make public transport the heartbeat of the South African economy, and to improve the general public perception. Along with the hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the country finds itself under pressure to implement a safe, efficient, and user-friendly public transport system. This dissertation investigates means and principles of designing functional interchanges that incorporate civic activity and participation. Beyond Function seeks to recapture the social dimension of transport interchanges since; these are the converging or meeting spaces and gateways into the cities, there exists a need to be celebrated. The philosophical orientation is towards commuter convenient facilities, thus heightening the spirit of travel. / Dissertation (MArch (Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Architecture / unrestricted

A mixed-use development focusing on dance activities with supporting educational and retail facilities. The creation of a new urban citizenship drives the process of urban regeneration in the inner city. The development is situated in the Newtown cultural precinct. The performance arts is used as a tool for urban regeneration. The process of regeneration begins at community citizen level. The city gives citizens hope for a better future. This dynamic force shapes the city. / Dissertation (MArch (Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Architecture / unrestricted

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Availability of good housing may no longer be an important issue for most U.S. citizens. Nowadays most are well housed and the problems confronting those who are not- except in the case of the homeless- are not highly visible. During the last decade, old warehouses in downtown Richmond, Virginia have been converted to new uses as restaurants, apartments, and offices. This reuse of old buildings has brought more people to the downtown area, making streets safer for pedestrians and residents than when the areas were abandoned. However, these well-designed and newly renovated apartments are not for everyone, especially low and moderate-income households because of the high rental costs.This thesis design provides a model for enhancing the character and diversity of low-income-family housing by transforming an abandoned urban structure in downtown Richmond into a holistic living environment.

ABSTRACT OUT OF THE GREYZONE: EXPLORING GREYFIELD DESIGN AND REDEVELOPMENT Konstantinos Pavlou Advisor: University of Guelph, 2013 Professor Cecelia Paine Community shopping centres in many North American suburban areas have been in decline for two decades. Failed community shopping centres, termed ‘greyfields’, have resulted in large parcels of unused lands in core urban areas, forcing residents to travel longer distances to regional malls. The decline of community shopping centres may have a number of causes, but for this study it was hypothesized that successful community shopping centres share a number of design qualities that unsuccessful shopping centres do not have. A design framework was developed based on retail design and planning literature. The framework was applied to assess an existing redevelopment, the Shops at Don Mills in Toronto. The assessment findings derived from site observations and key informant interviews resulted in a revised design framework. The final framework provides a guide to those interested in transforming commercial greyfields into vibrant components of our urban communities.

Thesis (MSc (Geography and Environmental Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / The morphological form of South African cities is deemed inefficient and fragmented. Much of the current structure has been shaped by i) the political history of the country, with major influences from the colonial and apartheid eras; and ii) suburban sprawl influenced by the use of private vehicles. This presents obstacles to the sustainable and equitable development of our cities. Since the 1990s, efforts have been made to change the development of the country in order to accommodate previously disenfranchised communities through processes of reconstruction and development. Among these efforts are policies and frameworks aimed at guiding the development and growth of cities. Among the many approaches that have been identified are land use strategies, with the central focus of promoting densification and intensification of urban development. Emphasis on densification in certain public transport corridors and decentralised nodes are in general regarded as urban restructuring elements necessary to transform South African cities into efficient and sustainable areas. However, analytical tools that can explore the possibilities and limits of public transport-orientated development are scarce at present. The University of Utrecht in the Netherlands has developed an analytical model referred to as the node-place model, which can be used to profile nodes and to determine their (re)development potential. This study makes a contribution towards efforts to support the densification concept in general and nodal intensification in particular by applying the node-place model to a selection of railway stations in the Cape Town metropolitan area in order to identify appropriate land use developments to enhance their potential. The model was found to be a useful mechanism for comparing nodes within a transport system for purposes of informing decisions regarding how the nodes should be developed. However, the model requires more accurate and disaggregated data than is generally available for the Cape Town area.

This project attempts to break down categorization and systems of thought based on opposing qualities. Instead, disparate elements are considered to work together to increase their individual properties by creating a new property - a condition comprised of the individual elments yet also surpassing them. The word "hybrid" is appropriated to describe the nature of this investigation - the renovation of a turn-of-the-century warehouse building into a multi-use building. The project attempts to describe how a building that contains a range of disparate programmatic elements can go beyond each element's exclusivity to produce a condition in which the resultant is greater than the sum of the individual parts. The project looks at breaking down specific delimitors of adjacent programmatic elements and promotes cross-fertilization between them with the intended result of blurring the seams that separate one from the other. The intent is to investigate, through a series of minimal moves dictated by the conditions of the site and program, whether a condition of richer and more varied experience can be achieved and, as a result, provide a start for defining a condition of architectural hybridity. Due to the size of the building that is investigated, this project focuses on two areas of the building, the insertion of a courtyard and the insertion of a fissure, or crack. The point of these investigations is to provide a tactical solution for the specificities of this particular site while at the same time implying a larger, global strategy that not only infers the remainder of this building but includes similar building types in other locations.

This project attempts to break down categorization and systems of thought based on opposing qualities. Instead, disparate elements are considered to work together to increase their individual properties by creating a new property - a condition comprised of the individual elments yet also surpassing them. The word "hybrid" is appropriated to describe the nature of this investigation - the renovation of a turn-of-the-century warehouse building into a multi-use building. The project attempts to describe how a building that contains a range of disparate programmatic elements can go beyond each element's exclusivity to produce a condition in which the resultant is greater than the sum of the individual parts. The project looks at breaking down specific delimitors of adjacent programmatic elements and promotes cross-fertilization between them with the intended result of blurring the seams that separate one from the other. The intent is to investigate, through a series of minimal moves dictated by the conditions of the site and program, whether a condition of richer and more varied experience can be achieved and, as a result, provide a start for defining a condition of architectural hybridity. Due to the size of the building that is investigated, this project focuses on two areas of the building, the insertion of a courtyard and the insertion of a fissure, or crack. The point of these investigations is to provide a tactical solution for the specificities of this particular site while at the same time implying a larger, global strategy that not only infers the remainder of this building but includes similar building types in other locations. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

Under de senaste decennierna har det pågått en urbanisering i världens storstäder. Allt fler människor väljer att bosätta sig i urbana miljöer och trenden är uppenbar. En tät, attraktiv och blandad stad med närhet till samhällsservice, arbetsplatser och övriga funktioner samt tillgång till hållbara transportsätt eftersträvas i många städers planering för en hållbar stadsutveckling i dagsläget. Ett sätt att uppnå hållbar stadsutveckling som förespråkas på många olika samhällsnivåer är genom förtätning som stadsbyggnadsstrategi. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om förtätning kan vara en tänkbar stadsbyggnadsstrategi för att uppnå hållbar stadsutveckling. För att undersöka relationen mellan förtätning samt hållbar stadsutveckling har även begreppen undersökts samt förklarats genom en kvalitativ forskningsmetod. Studien utgörs av en fallstudiemetod av ett pågående stadsutvecklingsprojekt, Fokus Skärholmen, i Skärholmens stadsdelsområde i Stockholms kommun. Fallstudiemetoden undersöker alltså hur relationen mellan förtätning samt hållbar stadsutveckling ser ut i empirin med material från stadens plan-, mål- och strategidokument samt semistrukturerade intervjuer med kommunala tjänstepersoner involverade i projektet Fokus Skärholmen. Skärholmens stadsdelsområde har inte exploaterats i lika stor omfattning som projektet Fokus Skärholmen nu planerar för sedan färdigställandet av miljonprogrammet. Det har endast skett mindre kompletteringar av byggnader i stadsdelsområdet. Stadsbyggande kan ses som ett verktyg för att uppnå en hållbar stadsutveckling och projektet Fokus Skärholmen planerar för en förtätning som stadsbyggnadsstrategi för en hållbar stadsutveckling utifrån stadsdelsområdets lokala behov samt förutsättningar. Projektet Fokus Skärholmen betraktas därför som ett omfattande och intressant fall att undersöka för denna studie. Studiens resultat visar vid jämförelse av teoretiska samt empiriska studier att förtätning som stadsbyggnadsstrategi kan, enligt vissa forskare, innebära en hållbar stadsutveckling förutsatt att förtätningen sker på rätt sätt. Förtätning kan även på vissa platser betraktas som en olämplig stadsbyggnadsstrategi som istället kan motverka den hållbara stadsutvecklingen som samhället strävar efter. Både ”förtätning” samt ”hållbar stadsutveckling” är således kontextberoende begrepp och varierar beroende på platsens förutsättningar samt behov. Diskussionen om hur en förtätning bör ske är således mer komplex än vad vi tror och bör analyseras mer djupgående för att stadsbyggnadsstrategin ska bli framgångsrik och innebära positiva effekter för alla människor i samhället. Projektet Fokus Skärholmen har satts i denna kontext vid empiriska studier, slutsatsen beträffande projektet Fokus Skärholmen är att det kan bli ett framgångsrikt stadsutvecklingsprojekt förutsatt att allt som skrivs i plan-, mål- samt strategidokumenten uppfylls. Fokus Skärholmen är alltjämt långt ifrån ett färdigställt projekt och har en rad utmaningar framför sig att överkomma, det är således svårt att konstatera så tidigt i processen om förtätningen kan innebära en hållbar stadsutveckling i praktiken. / Urbanization has taken place in the world’s major cities in recent decades. The numbers of people that are settling in urban environments are increasing, therefore the trend is obvious. A compact, attractive and mixed city with proximity to community service, workplaces and further functions as well as access to sustainable transport (e.g. public transport, walking and cycling) is desirable and sought in many cities. The idea behind the compact and mixed city is occurring with increasing frequency in many cities’ planning for a sustainable urban development. A strategy to achieve sustainable urban development is through densification. The purpose of this study is to look into whether densification is could be an urban development strategy for achieving sustainable urban development. The relationship between densification and sustainable urban development has therefore been studied through qualitative research. This study consists of a case study method of an ongoing urban development project called “Fokus Skärholmen”, in Skärholmen administrative city district in Stockholm municipality. The case study method examines how the relationship between densification and sustainable urban development looks empirically. Skärholmen administrative city district’s land use has not been developed to the same extent as the project “Fokus Skärholmen” is now planning for since the completion of the Million Programme. Urban development strategy could be seen as a tool for achieving sustainable urban development and the project “Fokus Skärholmen” is planning for a densification as an urban development strategy for sustainable urban development based on the local district area’s needs and conditions. Since Skärhomen’s land use has not been developed to the same extent, the “Fokus Skärholmen” project is considered as extensive and interesting case to study. The results of this study show, when comparing theoretical and empirical studies, that densification as an urban development strategy could, according to some researchers, contribute to a sustainable urban development, given that the densification is done correctly. Densification could also in some places be regarded as an inappropriate urban development strategy and could instead counteract the sustainable urban development that the society strives for. Both “densification” and “sustainable urban development” are thus context-dependent concepts and vary depending on the area’s conditions and needs. The discussion on how densification should be done is therefore more complex than we think and should be further analyzed so the densification could contribute to positive effects and benefit all people. The project “Fokus Skärholmen” has been put into this context in empirical studies. The conclusion regarding “Fokus Skärholmen” is that it could become a successful urban development project, given that everything that is written in the plan and strategy documents is implemented. Fokus Skärholmen is still far from to be considered as a completed project and has a number of challenges ahead to overcome, thus it is difficult to state so early in the process if the densification could contribute to sustainable urban development in practice.