Scotland's tourist industry partly depends upon the quality of the Scottish landscape. However, despite demands for improved management of landscape resources, there is no standard method for the assessing landscape quality. This research takes a user-based approach to this problem and explores the use of Kelly's Personal Construct Theory (PCT) in eliciting underpinning attributes and dimensions of perception in a range of uses and across a range of Scottish landscapes. A novel aspect of the research is that it involves experimentation in mapping the resultant constructs through use of a Geographic Information System (GIS). Sixteen key constructs were gained from one to one. interviews and used in the preliminary mapping experiments. These showed that it was possible to express the constructs spatially. To evaluate between user group/landscape type responses a questionnaire was designed, piloted and applied. A total of 1286 responses were analyzed. Differences were found between landscape type but were stronger between user groups. The research has demonstrated that the application of PCT coupled to GIS is a valuable way of exploring landscape perception/landscape quality and their spatial expression.

<p> Older adults are particularly vulnerable to poorly designed environments. The built environment and its perceptions can potentially support or discourage this growing cohort to engage in outdoor activities. Municipalities can uniquely promote physical activity for this targeted population through their planning and design processes. This research explored neighborhood perceptions of older adults and how differing perceptions influence their decision to walk. The results confirm that neighborhood perceptions vary across participants. Older adults from rural, suburban, and urban communities report significantly different perceptions. Perceptions also vary by socio-demographic characteristics. While walking activity does not significantly differ across neighborhood types, some environmental perceptions are associated with specific walking behaviors. These relationships also vary by neighborhood type and socio-demographic variables. Interviews with older women confirm the presence of physical, personal, social, and temporal barriers and motivators to walking. The focus on environmental perceptions in this research offers policy makers, urban planners, engineers, public works officials, and public health providers with findings and recommendations that specifically address walking in older adults, a growing population uniquely affected by the environment.</p>

<p> This research is a case study analysis of Downtown Project, a corporate-led redevelopment endeavor currently taking place in downtown Las Vegas. Through private money and public partnerships, Internet retailer Zappos has relocated its headquarters to a neighborhood previously characterized by economic instability, and is actively constructing a concentrated "creative class" community of tech startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. By examining Downtown Project, this research seeks to analyze the ways in which corporate-led redevelopment plays a powerful role in the local growth machine, asking who benefits, at what potential costs, and whose interests are served in downtown redevelopment projects. This research situates Downtown Project within the current economic context of Las Vegas, one of the cities hit the hardest by the recession and foreclosure crisis, in addition to placing this endeavor within the historical context of Las Vegas development and the city's "tradition of invention." This research also provides analysis of how this particular development is both similar to and different from other notable U.S. examples of corporate-led redevelopment. This case study draws from physical observations, maps, media coverage, census tract information, financial records, and a series of interviews in order to critically examine the key players and prominent narratives of this ambitious attempt at community building, and ask questions about the social justice and equitable development aspects of such a project.</p>

Combining the different modes of communication into a singular and universal manner has truly created a new revolution. It is literally a revolution in the literal meaning of the vwrd-a radical change in the constitution of an entity. Being able to provide the spontaneous circulation of all information with disregard to format, graphical limitations, and separated sources, has "overthrown out traditional perception of the world," radically changing the importance of format into no importance at all. The history of computer evolution is relatively short in comparison to other major events of history, and now is the initial time for the role of architecture to put its foot in the door. Designers need provide an environmental conducive to the technology yet encourage and foster the basic human need of physical interaction. Since computers are usually enhoused within some type of construct, can a thoughtful, sympathetic, and reflective architecture act as a constant reminder not to loose the humanistic component of managing data, information, and decision making process.This creative project found how this role of environment as not being merely an office setting, but a global microcosm of electronic and physical interaction. The focus and the time frame of my thesis deals with the user of contemporary electronic hardware and need to control also their physical environment. The project found not to make my own interpretation of tomorrow s future of electronic communication, but to be concerned of today's user's freedom of decision personal environment and need of varying degrees of social interaction. / Department of Architecture

This thesis has identified the incentives for the growth of the commercial strip along State Road 109 in Anderson, Indiana. The thesis through a case study of the historical development of the commercial strip established the following findings. First, the commercial strip occurred as a result of increasing urban evolution. Second, the commercial strip occurred as a result of land speculation. Third, the commercial strip is a result of the commercial zoning and rezoning patterns. Fourth, the commercial strip occurred as a result of increased regional accessibility. Fifth, the commercial strip is a result of increased land values. Finally, the commercial strip is a result of commercial linkages. / Department of Urban Planning

This project is a test of the recurring dilemma of preparing a small town plan within a larger planning jurisdiction. The other specific issue raised in this paper is who establishes the desires or preferences of a small community. My theory was that education about planning could increase the community residents' understanding of the relationship between their various interest groups as well as the community and the county. The product of this project consists of a land use plan for Harrodsburg in Monroe County Indiana. When the project was finished little additional understanding of the basic principles was achieved. Additionally, the various interest groups in the community had difficulty relating to each others concerns when establishing the desires or preferences of a small community. / Department of Urban Planning

<p> Given the exponentially complex set of urban governance processes that are implicated when issues such as economic redevelopment, transportation, and jobs are concerned, it is misleading to believe that local actors immediately recognize and are able to articulate their interests with respect to these processes. My "actors" are "hybrid" progressive-issue social movement organizations (SMOs) that consciously attempt to bridge both cognitive and material divides among diverse coalition members from union, community, faith-based and service-based organizations. This study focuses on how ideas reduce uncertainty, act as coalition-building resources, empower agents to contest existing institutions, act as resources of new institutions and finally coordinate agents' expectations, thereby reproducing institutional stability. I examine how these SMOs are reshaping ideas, interests and institutions on the urban scale in efforts to reclaim and recast the responsibility and role of local institutions in mitigating the effects of global capital. The re-emergence of interest in organizations in urban sociology is being driven in no small part by the rise in sophistication of non-profit actors (e.g., think tanks, community-based organizations, advocacy organizations) and of the strategies and tactics used to influence political and policy issues, as well as the proliferation of institutional "access points" as Allard correctly points out on the state and local levels. </p><p> The hybrid progressive organizations that I examine are products of the structuration process that has been ongoing for decades, whereby conservative-oriented policy and advocacy organizations have been dominant on the state level, consistently producing a policy climate not only conducive to investment and business outcomes, but also aggressively pursuing an anti-union, slashing social-services strategy as part of a particular vision of what it means to create a "business friendly" regulatory environment in a state. Therefore, I have also identified three other factors that appear in tandem with progressive, hybrid organizations based on the state or regional level: 1) networked leadership development, 2) resource coordination and 3) deliberate state/regional-level strategies around coalition building, legislative advocacy and leadership development. </p>

<p> The research literature describes a positive relationship between seeing plants and human well-being. More rapid recovery from surgery, reduced incidence of neighborhood crime, increased baby birth weight and increased trust of neighborhood merchants are among the benefits attributed to exposure to trees and shrubs. This thesis attempts to find a common explanation for these outcomes. It examines the connection between urban trees and community stress. Each of the above outcomes can be attributed, in part, to stress reduction. The literature indicates that stress reduction is one of the consequences of exposure to plants. Stress levels were measured at the block level in Wilmington Delaware by means of a survey mailed to 1982 residents. Physical conditions were catalogued using an on-site inventory. The survey and inventory demonstrated that the total number of trees on a block has a strong negative relationship with community stress and a positive relationship with self-reported health. The results suggest that moderation of stress is one of the factors that underlies the beneficial consequences of exposure to green vegetation on inner city blocks. This research should prove useful to city planners and urban residents alike. </p>

Natural resources are part of the social capital. It is useful to classify them in relation to their use by man. Renewable resources can be used and yet perpetuated at a given Isvel of quantity and quality. They include the attributes of soil and landscape, the btotic and water resources. Minerals and fossil fuels, on the other hand are depleted through use. They are non-renewable resources. Renewable resources, together with man, comprise a dynamic bio-system. Any usage of resources affects the system and, in turn, society and vice versa. The resource uses considered here are agriculture, horticulture, forestry, grazing, and watershed protection. These uses embrace an area's rural sector. This includes that part of the output of goods and services and of employment in the economy which depends on the use of land conceived as a natural resource. A conjoint consideration of all the above uses is required to adapt an area's resource-use pattern to society's needs. For this, case studies are needed. This Investigation pertains to Kashmir valley in north India. The role of renewable resources in development is analysed in chapter II. This provides a conceptual background. In a poor region like Kashmir, renewable resources have an important place in catalysing development. This involves the transformation of the available renewable resource capital, such as forests, into more productive forms. Additionally, the effects of the increasing man/land ratio can be offset through an intensification of land-use. A conservationist policy, which impedes the above process, is unhelpful to economic development. The policy should be to economizeon scares man-made capital and skills. They may be combined with larger doses of underutilized renewable resources and unskilled labour. The question in development is not of locking up the social capital for posterity or of canalising society's limited resources into one or the other sector. It is of allocating resources to most productive opportunities. The planning method evolved here consists of synthesising biotechnical, economic and institutional analyses. The analytical stages do not rigidly follow this order; for, in practice, one analysis has feed-back effects on another.[See text for remainder of abstract].

<p> Pristine landscapes are decreasing throughout the world, and many of Earth's species can no longer survive exclusively in the remaining small and isolated reserves. At the same time, urban landscapes are increasing, and can serve as potential habitat for many wildlife species. Amphibians are facing striking global declines and are particularly impacted by urban development as they often reside in areas attractive for human settlements such as flat, productive lowland areas with abundant fresh water. My dissertation aims to increase understanding of amphibian use of these landscapes and how management and planning can adapt to benefit their persistence. I conducted observational studies of amphibians and associated habitat features in two very difference landscapes and constructed experimental ponds to examine relationships between a native frog, a common pollutant, and common urban wetland plants. One observational study was in Portland, Oregon where formerly abundant wetlands have been destroyed and altered while many have also been restored or created. The other was throughout the relatively understudied urban and agricultural centers of Vietnam where biodiversity and human population growth are high. In both Portland and Vietnam I found that most regionally occurring native amphibians were breeding within city landscapes and in human-constructed water bodies. A common pollutant, nitrate, was strongly negatively associated with amphibians in Portland. In a mesocosm experiment I found that correlated contaminants are likely driving the pattern. In both Portland and Vietnam, presence of aquatic vegetation and amount of surrounding upland habitat were highly influential for native amphibians. Aquatic vegetation can take many forms, and in urban areas is often dominated by introduced species. I conducted experimental ponds studies to examine the relationship between a native frog and common native and introduced aquatic plant species. I found that the frog preferred and performed better in introduced reed canary grass than any other plants offered. This demonstrates that introduced plants are not universally detrimental to native wildlife species, and that management of these plants should consider the potential negative effects of control actions, especially in urban areas where restoration to a former pristine state is unlikely. Urban areas do not have to be devoid of diverse native amphibian communities, and instead should be viewed as potential habitat for conservation and environmental education. Amphibian use of human-constructed ponds, potted ornamental plants, and introduced reed canary grass demonstrates the adaptability of many species and the need for an integrated view of conservation that includes non-pristine areas. Using the information from this dissertation, city planners and managers can maintain and improve human-dominated landscapes to benefit native amphibians and promote their continued coexistence with humans in these areas.</p>