Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Jason Brody / The design of a transit-oriented development (TOD) is a major concern with regards to its functionality and prospects for success. The Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City, Missouri, home of two professional sports venues, has a unique location on a proposed transit corridor, the Rock Island. This corridor is planned to run between downtown Kansas City and suburban Lee's Summit. Therefore, the Truman Sports Complex site is a natural choice for a TOD. Building a TOD at the Truman Sports Complex will create a focal point on the Rock Island Corridor that connects Arrowhead and Kauffman Stadiums to downtown Kansas City and Lee's Summit via a regional transit system; bring together a diverse population through the creation of a walkable, mixed-use center located adjacent to the regionally known cultural institutions; and encourage new development around the junction of Interstates 70 and 435, a major transportation node in Kansas City, Missouri. This study, focusing on the design of such a project on this specific site, employs an extensive site analysis informing conceptual and specific planning ideas. It draws from a large body of literature and precedents, incorporating well established elements and principles into a new development that is both unprecedented in the Kansas City region and unique among TODs and sports-related districts. The main findings reveal the desirability of a strategy to develop on the existing parking surface of the Truman Sports Complex and reroute the Rock Island Corridor through the middle of the site so that it passes between the two stadiums. The final plan incorporates a mixed-use program, with retail, entertainment, offices, and apartments, into a variety of building types, including garden apartment buildings, low- to mid-rise mixed-use buildings, and high-rise towers, placed throughout the site in a compact, walkable grid pattern of streets. The significance of this project is that it can inform the Mid-America Regional Council, the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority, and other relevant stakeholders about the potential for developing on this site, and it demonstrates that a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly, large-scale transit-oriented development with a wide variety of program is both viable and desirable at the Truman Sports Complex.

The proponents of New Urbanism claim the neighborhoods they design, called Traditional Neighborhood Developments (TNDs), promote community, sense of place, physical health, and environmental sustainability. Critics assert that community is stressed at the expense of individuality, that design unity has become rigid uniformity, and that the neighborhoods are orchestrated and do not reflect real life. This thesis, a post occupancy evaluation (POE), examines how one TND works for its residents and whether it accomplishes the goals of the architect/planner. An additional, essential purpose of this POE is to serve the "feed-forward" role of informing future neighborhood planning projects. The Village of River Ranch in Lafayette, Louisiana is the site of my research. Utilization of multiple research methods (survey, interviews, naturalistic observations) offered opportunities for triangulation and the ability to produce a more comprehensive analysis.

Beginning with the development of Seaside (Walton County, FL), Kentlands (Gaithersburg, MD), and Laguna West (Elk Grove, CA), New Urbanist developments have set aside parcels for civic structures, many of which now house congregations. Using interviews with developers, planners, and church officials, this thesis examines the rationale behind including congregations within New Urbanist developments in four southeastern states (Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina). The expectations of New Urbanist developers largely mirror those found within key New Urbanist texts: congregational structures help create a legible landscape through typological architecture and conspicuous siting while providing space for public gathering. The thesis ultimately argues that New Urbanism requires a more robust sociological model, one which captures the influence of institutions on forms of social interaction. Moreover, such a model might provide insight into the ways in which developers and congregations might collaborate to fulfill the social goals of New Urbanism.

The present dissertation deals with the establishment of Campus Sundsvall, MidSweden University, and discusses how the architecture visualizes visions and ideas of the participants involved, the city of Sundsvall, the university and the proprietor, Akademiska Hus. The purpose is to investigate the process where the symbolic values are formulated and materialized – the interaction between architecture, language and visual material. The first chapter discusses the American tradition of campus planning and how the idea has been transformed in Sweden to represent an area, often located in the city, gathering one or more buildings used by a university. The second chapter deals with the architectural competition of Campus Sundsvall and analyzes the program, the solutions presented by the participants and eventually how Campus Sundsvall turned out in the late 1990s. The third chapter investigates the sources of the concepts of the architecture and the planning model and discusses why the city of Sundsvall was attracted by these ideas. The planning history of Sundsvall and especially Stenstaden, the city centre of Sundsvall, are central in interpreting the question of identity as a symbolic value. In the last chapter, discussing the campus as a creative space, the present increase of IT supported distance courses questions the importance of the university campus.

As distance from a house to retail sites decreases the price of a house should increase, ceteris paribus, because of increased shopping convenience. On the other hand, as distance decreases price should also decrease because the house is exposed to increased spillover of disamenities – noise, light, traffic, etc. – from the retail use. The study uses Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal data and a parcel level Geographic Information system map from King County (Seattle) Washington. An hedonic process is used to estimate the price effects of both the expected positive and negative price effects. Travel distance is a proxy for convenience and Euclidian distance is a proxy for negative spillovers. Standard hedonic housing price variables are used for control along with distance to other classes of non-residential uses and indexes of neighborhood street layout and connectivity. In traditional gridiron neighborhood, both convenience and negative spillovers have the expected effect on housing price. The net effect is a price effect curve with a net decrease in price at very short distances between houses and retail sites. But, beyond a short distance to the extent of convenient walking distance (about ¼ mile) the net effect is positive. In a non-traditional edge city type neighborhood, there is no effect, either positive or negative. This is due to the much greater distances between residential uses and retail uses in this type neighborhood that result from zoning that segregates land uses and long travel distance resulting from curvilinear street layout.

Existing literature suggests that mixed land-use developments have the potential to reduce traffic by “capturing” some trips internally and providing a pedestrian-friendly environment to facilitate walking for some trips. However, these elements which are meant to provide the traffic-reducing benefits also reduce the overall cost of travel, thereby increasing the total amount of travel. This “induced” travel has implications for the site planning process, which assumes that all internal trips are replacing trips on the external street network. In this investigation, travel survey data were analyzed to determine the nature and extent of induced travel at mixed-use developments. The study site was a 75-acre suburban infill mixed-use development in Plano, Texas. Features of the study site included a diverse land-use mix, a grid-style street layout, and pedestrian-oriented streetscapes. The travel survey was administered as an interview of persons exiting buildings at the site and gathered information about two trips made by the respondent, including whether the trip made at the time of the interview was induced. A trip was considered induced if the respondent would not have made the trip if it had required travel outside of Legacy Town Center. Analysis found that in the morning, four percent of all trips at the study site were induced; in the afternoon, about one-quarter of all trips were induced. Induced trips accounted for one-eighth of internal trips in the morning and forty percent of internal trips in the afternoon. Most internal trips made in an automobile were replacements for off-site travel while most trips made on foot were induced. Based on this study, it is evident that some internal trips at mixeduse developments are not “captured” from external streets, but represent additional trips, induced by travel cost savings in the mixed-use environment. However, it is demonstrated that, even with this additional travel, mixed-use developments still contribute to a reduction in overall vehicle-miles of travel. Stakeholders are encouraged to consider these findings when evaluating new land-use policies or the traffic impacts of proposed mixed-use developments.

In literature on residential areas, the settlement pattern is analyzed starting from their first apperance. In the pre-industrial city was no specialization of land use, the urban layout was relatively irregular, the street markets, shops, workshops and homes being mixed together. However, after industrialization for cities there was a need for housing supply and these were mostly supplied by blocks around working areas. All of these settlements were not healthy and efficient. So with regulations and policies for better settlements more healty and secure places were planned for workers with the idea of modernism. Also modernism brought the pure geometry for building design. The colour and facade of the buildings were determined related to functions or structural rationalist ideas. This standart and simple blocks were critised by some. Like, Sitte&rsquo / s (1889) eulogied historic spaces for their random and artistic city aesthetic. The sprawl of housing areas increased the need for accesibility and social integration to each other and main center. On the other hand, the residential quarters in their inner dynmics, the public realm, circulation, self character etc. must be defined for good working settlement and its environment. This resulted in traditional neighborhood properties for better residential settlements that new urbanist way of thought encouraged more ecology and pedestrian-oriented settlements. In D&uuml / zce after earthquake in 1999, important scale of housing necessity appeared and this need was supplied with mass housing projects in short time. In fact, 20% of the urban settlement is provided by these mass housing projects and the projects will go on. In fact, 40 % of the settlement is expected to be provided with mass housing projects. Master thesis attempts to clarify the design problems in mass housing areas in D&uuml / zce. The problems related to mass housing environment will be discussed, with reference to design concept, to explain whether or not these mass housing areas provide neighborhood standarts.

Over the past fifty or so years there has been a well examined decline in socialconnections and many other facets of American communities (Fischer 1982; Putnam2000; Freeman 2001; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Brashears 2006; Dunham-Jones &Williamson 2009). New urbanism has been proposed as a tool to reverse some of thissocial decline in communities. This study seeks to understand the possible socialconnective benefits of new urbanism in a number of ways. First, a new urbanistcommunity is compared to a similar adjacent community that also happens to betraditional suburban community. The study examines differences between the twocommunities in terms of social connections, social interactions, and communitysatisfaction. Second, the study examines individual design elements of new urbanism to understand their relationships with social interactions and social connections. This study also examines community cohesion in terms of diverse social interactions and bridging ties. Previous studies suggest that bridging ties are more likely to be formed between persons who are connected with weaker social bonds (Granovetter, 1973) as well as persons who interact through spontaneous rather than planned forms of social interaction (Molm, Collett, & Schaefer 2007). Lastly, this study seeks to understand if any of the new urbanist design strategies examined are related to bridging ties. The findings of this study suggested that new urbanist communities do have more social interactions, social connections, and community satisfaction than do traditional suburban communities. The findings also suggested that four new urbanist design strategies: porches, community meetings, and mixed-use zoning are positively related to social interactions and social connections. Moreover, findings suggested that persons connected by weaker social bonds are indeed more likely to have bridging ties, however, they did not support the idea that persons who have more spontaneous interactions will also be more likely to have bridging ties. Lastly, the findings indicated that of all the new urbanist design strategies, only the neighborhood business center was positively related to bridging ties. Conversely, a negative relationship was found between resident's who use their porches and bridging ties.

In the last two-three decades, the global society have gone through major structural transformations that have affected the local city in different ways. Advanced technology, improved modes of transportation and a global economy have all contributed to an increasing mobility of people, companies and capital. Consequently, the entrepreneurial view of urban growth has led to an inter-urban competition and placemakeing as instrument in the endeavor to attract people to the city.  During the last years, the public places in the city center of Umeå have changed its structure. The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether there is a substantial difference of opinion between Umeå municipality´s representation of problems in the public space and the public opinion of the rebuilding of Rådhustorget and its function as a public space. Due to the aim, the study consists of two research subjects. One is a critical analysis of a policy document with Carol Bacchi´s “What´s the problem represented to be” – method as a tool. The second research subject is a questionnaire with the goal to investigate the opinion of the rebuilding of Rådhustorget according to 175 respondents. The result shows that there is a substantial difference of opinion between the municipality´s view of the public space of Rådhustorget and the received result from the questionnaire. Most evident is the disagreements whether the former Rådhustorget could be seen as a problematic public place or not.

abstract: This is a study that tests the New Urbanist claims that neighborhood design impacts sense of community and residential habits. Through the framework provided by New Urbanist theories, a social survey is used to examine residential perception and behavior among three fringe neighborhoods in southeast Tucson, each representing a different approach to neighborhood design: New Urbanist, traditional suburban, and a hybrid variety. The primary relationships studied are between neighborhood design and use of public space, neighborhood design and travel habits, and neighborhood design and sense of community. The findings show that the New Urbanist community does support the highest levels of sense of community and use of public space, but conclusions cannot be drawn concerning the relationship between sense of community and travel behavior, especially non-vehicular travel to public space. While these results are inconclusive concerning the direct impact of the neighborhood type on certain behaviors and perceptions, the findings support the notion that a New Urbanist design does indeed enhance social interactions and use of public space. It also offers insight into the importance of residential preferences, not as much towards walkability but towards general environmental concern. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.U.E.P. Urban and Environmental Planning 2012