A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Architecture, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg for the degree of Master of Urban Design. JOHANNESBURG 1992 / This dissertation studies the residential environment o f suburbia. As urbanisation continues to increase, renewed questions on the costs ot sprawl, its environmental impact and the livability of suburbia are being asked. The major aim or purpose is therefore to suggest new ideas which w ill be capable of transforming neighbourhoods into places exh biting the many qualities of urbanism that have been eroded away as standardised planning techniques and automobile domination, slowly but surely break down the fabric of urban areas. The research method traces the historical beginning of suburbia up to the present day in order to clearly understand the factors fundamental in determining its structure and form. The results show a need to compact and integrate res'dential areas so that densities may be increased and sprawl curtailed. Livability is, however, an essential prerequisite as without it a return to the slum conditions of the pre-war years is possible, due to the ever increasing population growth and rural depopulation.

abstract: Tempe experienced rapid growth in population and area from 1949 to 1975, stretching its resources thin and changing the character of the city. City boosters encouraged growth through the 1950s to safeguard Tempe’s borders against its larger neighbor, Phoenix. New residents moved to Tempe as it grew, expecting suburban amenities that the former agricultural supply town struggled to pay for and provide. After initially balking at taking responsibility for development of a park system, Tempe established a Parks and Recreation Department in 1958 and used parks as a main component in an evolving strategy for responding to rapid suburban growth. Through the 1960s and 1970s, Tempe pursued an ambitious goal of siting one park in each square mile of the city, planning for neighborhood parks to be paired with elementary schools and placed at the center of each Tempe neighborhood. The highly-publicized plan created a framework, based on the familiarity of public park spaces, that helped both long-time residents and recent transplants understand the new city form and participate in a changing community identity. As growth accelerated and subdivisions surged southward into the productive agricultural area that had driven Tempe’s economy for decades, the School-Park Policy faltered as a planning and community-building tool. Residents and city leaders struggled to reconcile the loss of agricultural land with the carefully maintained cultural narrative that connected Tempe to its frontier past, ultimately broadening the role of parks to address the needs of a changing city. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis History 2019

The focus of this study is the formation of 'community' in contemporary greenfield master planned estates.The project is cast against the historical backdrop of modern utopian place-making, and the idea that a particular permutation of urban design, infrastructure and social programs can produce an ideal of community: of connectivity, social support and social identity. A further ambition of contemporay urban design is the marketable idea of securing a physical and social space. The thesis comprises four parts. Part I presents the theoretical framework of the thesis, a task which incorporates a review of theoretical concepts and of the relevant literature. Part II discusses methodological issues, the research design and research process, before providing background information needed to support the following empirical chapters. Part III comprises these empirical chapters and sets about detailing and analysing data captured through the comparative case study of Harrington Park and Garden Gates. The final section of the thesis provides an interpretation of the empirical and research data. It draws conclusions as to the character of the Master Planned Community (MPC)and the dynamics which contribute to its contemporary character. It concludes by attempting a tentative theory of the MPC. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-39).

Suburban growth in the U.S. urban regions has been defined by large subdivisions of single-family detached units. This growth is made possible by the mobility supported by automobiles and an extensive highway network. These dispersed and highly automobile-dependent developments have generated a large body of work examining the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of suburban growth on cities. The particular debate that this study addresses is whether suburban residents are more energy intensive in their travel behavior than central city residents. If indeed suburban residents have needs that are not satisfied by the amenities around them, they may be traveling farther to access such services. However, if suburbs are becoming like cities with a wide range of services and amenities, travel might be contained and no different from the travel behavior of residents in central areas. This paper will compare the effects of long term suburban growth on travel behavior, energy consumption, and GHG emissions through a case study of neighborhoods in central Phoenix and the city of Gilbert, both in the Phoenix metropolitan region. Motorized travel patterns in these study areas will be generated using 2001 and 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data by developing a four-step transportation demand model in TransCAD. Energy consumption and GHG emissions, including both Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) and Nitrous Oxide (N₂O) for each study area will be estimated based on the corresponding trip distribution results. The final normalized outcomes will not only be compared spatially between Phoenix and Gilbert within the same year, but also temporally between years 2001 and 2009 to determine how the differential land use changes in those places influenced travel. The results from this study reveal that suburban growth does have an impact on people's travel behaviors. As suburbs grew and diversified, the difference in travel behavior between people living in suburban and urban areas became smaller. In the case of shopping trips the average length of trips for suburban residents in 2009 was slightly shorter than that for central city residents. This convergence was substantially due to the faster growth in trip lengths for central city compared to suburban residents in the 8-year period. However, suburban residents continue to be more energy intensive in their travel behavior, as the effect of reduction in trip length is likely to be offset by the more intensive growth in trip frequency. Additionally, overall energy consumption has grown significantly in both study areas over the period of study.

This study investigates the relocation behaviours of out-movers of deprived areas in the region of Stockholm, Sweden. The research is motivated by the concerns raised by deprived and segregated neighbourhoods in relation to a social fragmentation and an unsuccessful socio-economic inclusion of all citizens. Some researches affirm that the out-movers of deprived neighbourhoods tend to be more integrated than the stayers or the individual moving in such neighbourhoods. And if some studies are concerned about their prospective, they have been restricted to their destinations’ socio-economic features and dismissed any spatial approach.This study aims to analyse flows’ direction and features as well as the areas of destination such as to identify processes of selective migration and how socio-spatial disparities are (re)produced. A specific attention is given to counter-urban movements and their possible correlation to “preservation” objectives: The possible migration of lower classes toward peripheries in order to access a better living environment and avoid a forced economic selective migration toward the urban most deprived neighbourhoods.Descriptive and inferential statistics with binary logistic regressions enabled to put into exergue the selective migration among movers, between the counter-urban and the others but also among counter-urban. If most movers remain in the urban core and in an almost deprived area, a substantial proportion seeks to combine to a move “up” the social ladder (a better suited neighbourhood), a “downward” migration on the urban hierarchy (a move toward the peripheries). And the regression confirms that among this population, a segment is statically significantly disadvantaged and remains in rental after the move.Scholars should consider such evidences by including a spatial dimension to their studies on segregation, neighbourhood sorting processes and selective migration. And most importantly, the results of this study invite them to reassess the traditional life-style and life-cycle explanations of counter-urbanisation in favour of an economic driven migration.

Land development patterns have long been a reflection of not only consumer preferences but of public policy. To the extent that such policy has supported scattered, low-density and automobile-dependent development patterns, it has been found to be deficient. It is not only the private land developers who have created sprawl. Government agencies at all levels have also contributed to the problem in the ways they invest in public infrastructure devoid of a coordinated strategy. Schools, public recreational facilities, and branch libraries often are isolated from one another. Two case studies were used to demonstrate the manner in which planned, congregated public facilities came first and succeeded in providing the impetus to sustainable private sector response loosely following a master plan. The first case study examines the urban neighborhood of City Heights in San Diego, California, where a blighted, crime-ridden neighborhood was redeveloped with the construction of several public assets, all within a small, nine-block area. The result was the participation of the private sector in this neighborhood where ten years prior, there was private sector abandonment. The second case study examines the Town Center project located in Suwanee, Georgia. In this example, a city municipality took the helm as master developer, initiated 'place' in the form of an urban-style park, and thereby created the impetus for the subsequent investment by the private sector.

In recent years, a renewed interest has blossomed in rail travel and rail investment. However, federal funding constraints for new transit projects threaten the feasibility of urban rail network construction and expansion. In response, the public sector has begun to consider alternative financial mechanisms including value capture. As new construction expands transit’s reach into the suburbs, another phenomenon is facing these communities – the death of the suburban shopping mall. This report examines these two issues: constraints in transit funding and the proliferation of greyfield shopping malls. Addressing both issues, the argument is made that greyfield shopping malls serve as excellent locations to implement transit value capture strategies by converting the malls into suburban transit-oriented developments (TODs). / text

The substantive la banlieue does not simply describe a geographical territory, but rather names a particular articulation of images and narratives that constitute the ‘banlieue question’. This dissertation tracks the development and contestation of a set of procedures that construct the banlieue as an object of knowledge, expertise, and intervention. Under the heading ‘banlieue stories’ I collect a range of media that engage with la banlieue as a discursive regime, challenging the practices and procedures through which screen media construct the banlieues as the ‘lost territories’ of the Republic. / Romance Languages and Literatures

This thesis considers the potential of the suburban periphery to become an ecologically, socially and culturally productive site which supports local and regional public programs. It explores ways of creating connectivity across the hard boundaries of a suburban development, an expressway and an agricultural area in order to stimulate biological and cultural diversity in this typically neglected, “leftover” environment. The site is the Ninth Line Corridor at the suburban edge of Mississauga, Ontario. The investigation of boundary occurs at the urban, building and experiential scales, and considers how the intersection of landscape, ecology, architecture and program can generate activities and events which foster engagement with the site and within a community.