Master of Arts / Department of History / Sue Zschoche / This thesis explores the development of Derby, Kansas, from the arrival of its first settlers in 1869 through the early 1970s. During its first seventy-five years, Derby never grew beyond its origins as a tiny trade center for local farmers, its economic growth constantly stymied and overshadowed by the often explosive growth of Wichita, twelve miles to the north. Derby might have met the fate of so many other Kansas farming communities that did not survive developments in industrialized agricultural and transportation in post-World War II America. With the beginning of the Cold War, however, the federal government began pouring money into the Midwest and West, building up existing, and constructing new, military installations. In addition, federal spending spurred massive new defense industries, creating growth around the cites of what some historians have called “Gunbelt America.” Wichita was one such city. Derby’s proximity to Wichita finally worked to its advantage, and the small town experienced its own boom as it became a residential community inhabited by affluent commuters to the job opportunities nearby. In addition, Derby’s racial homogeneity, its relative affluence, and the deliberate attempts of its boosters to portray it as a “family friendly,” that is, as a white, middle-class, community, further spurred its growth as Wichita went through the turmoil of school desegregation in the 1960s and early 1970s. Derby, Kansas, illustrates a distinct category in the development of the new Gunbelt West, a community that flourished both because of its proximity to a larger city as well as its distance from the perceived turmoil of that urban center.

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment: University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Development Planning / There is a consensus amidst the planning community that we are currently experiencing a sweeping paradigm shift; which has over the last forty-years gained rapid momentum. Postmodernism is proposed to have prompted a return to ‘the small is beautiful’ and the revaluation of people as the critical and central receptors of the spaces that past and present planners produce. An emphasis on the everyday and lived experience of the urban population is just another symptom in the argument for postmodernism. As perhaps is common with all paradigm shifts, along with the transformation has come a flurry of some new terminologies and a redefining of others. Suburban neighbourhoods have experienced an interrogation of terminology; and epistemological and phenomenological value. The identification of inner-circle suburbs is just one of the many terms to describe a uniquely urban space within the once blanketing term ‘suburbs’. Inner-circle suburbs are often the oldest suburbs in an urban area and are located closest to the Central Business District. A revitalised inquisition in suburban spaces has prompted new and creative ways of exploring the suburbs; with our own locally grown urbanists showing interest and producing knowledge on the dynamics of South African suburban neighbourhoods. Needless to say, this is still a relatively young topic that favours an investigation into spatial form and structure over the significance of the lived practice. This research report is an attempt to coalesce the spatial form and practiced living into a single coherent snap-shot of the lives of northern inner-circle suburban dwellers.

Homeownership may be the American Dream, but renting is the American reality for nearly half of Portland, Oregon’s residents. In Oregon, where I conducted fieldwork from 2014 to 2017, a statewide ban on rent control, the prevalent use of no-cause evictions, and the lack of renters’ protections pushed Portland residents, especially renters, into a Housing State of Emergency. Many renters in this housing crisis are forced to rent and face the threat of being repeatedly displaced as their apartment units change hands from investor-to-investor. These investor landlords used no-cause evictions to remove tenants from their homes and to quickly empty entire apartment buildings, flip the buildings, and increase their rate of return. As gentrification increased the rent in Portland, it also push low-income people and communities of color as they moved to the suburbs in search of scarce low-income rental housing. Employing ethnographic methods of participant observation and in-depth interviewing, this dissertation explores the inequalities built into the rental housing system for different groups of vulnerable tenants in Portland. A qualitative analysis revealed that families of color and low-income residents not only experience serial displacement as renters, but also serial segregation. / 2020-09-06

Following World War II, across the board, veterans and their families took advantage of the provisions of the GI Bill and moved to newly constructed, “modern” suburbs. These developments were often built out overnight and contained a few repeated floor plans throughout entire neighborhoods of mass-produced housing. Suburban populations were demographically singular, home to exclusively the white middle class. As a result of this mass migration away from urban cores, the postwar suburban lifestyle pervaded common consciousness and became synonymous with the “American Dream.” However, over a half-century later, economic, demographic and cultural circumstances today require a critical look at suburbia’s place in the future. Today, suburbia is no longer home to exclusively white middle class nuclear families. Rather, many suburban pioneers remain in their homes and the population is concentrated with single elderly people. In addition, minority and immigrant populations are on the rise. Lastly, poverty rates in suburbs are currently higher than their urban counterparts. However, despite this demographic diversity, housing options remain uniform. Coupled with the economic realities of the mortgage and foreclosure crises, postwar suburban housing types are not only disconnected from demographic trends, but also unaffordable. While suburbs cannot adequately serve current needs, they do account for over half of the nations housing stock. In light of long waiting lists for affordable housing, we are forced to address how what we already have can be modified rather than destroyed. First-ring suburbs along transit lines have been targeted by policy research as promising regions for redevelopment. As a result of their existing infrastructure and close proximity to metropolitan centers, first ring suburbs have the potential to prosper once again. This study explores the implications of policy both in terms of current conditions as well as the potentials of legislation to drive future redevelopment efforts. Park Forest, Illinois is located outside Chicago in Cook County along existing Metra train lines. Often cited as the first “GI suburb,” the town was a model for post-war developers. Today, it suffers from high foreclosure rates and a degree of sprawl. The proposed architectural thesis utilizes a prototypical suburban block to test multiple options for diversifying housing stock. These interventions implicitly critique current practices and intend to spark a new paradigm in future development. / acase@tulane.edu

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Suburbs in Melbourne present to us a unique context with which a new approach towards urban form can be devised using the existing conditions and opportunities found with infrastructural developments. This thesis contains the investigations on the various 'pathologies' of the urban fabric specifically on the potential use of 'Spaces Left-Over After Planning' as by-product to infrastructural development in relation to the reinvigoration of Melbourne suburbs under the influence of current and future metropolitan growth pressures. The contents of the research aims to demonstrate the potentials for urban diversification followed by densification using the already inherent characteristics of the selected suburbs (Oakleigh, Waverley and Broadmeadows) to facilitate the metropolitan expansion of Melbourne with the intention of encouraging ways in which suburban fabric can reach its maturity along with new infrastructural developments to foster community engagement.

Melbourne was the obvious choice as a prototype of a nineteenth century colonial city in the following study in urban history. It succeeded early to a pre-eminent position within Victoria, indeed of the entire Australian continent and its position of supremacy went unchallenged until the twentieth century. It was never seriously threatened by the claims of rival cities such as Ballarat, Sandhurst or Geelong. In this respect, Melbourne was a classic primate city with a whole-state hinterland and was justly described as "the commercial metropolis of the South". Its favourable geographic location, centrally placed between eastern and western halves of the colony, together with its position at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay provided the logical point of convergance for a railway network spanning the reaches of the interior. This gave a nodal quality to the city which made it the sole effective input-output point for all commerce with the mainland interior.(For complete abstract open document)

Melbourne was the obvious choice as a prototype of a nineteenth century colonial city in the following study in urban history. It succeeded early to a pre-eminent position within Victoria, indeed of the entire Australian continent and its position of supremacy went unchallenged until the twentieth century. It was never seriously threatened by the claims of rival cities such as Ballarat, Sandhurst or Geelong. In this respect, Melbourne was a classic primate city with a whole-state hinterland and was justly described as "the commercial metropolis of the South". Its favourable geographic location, centrally placed between eastern and western halves of the colony, together with its position at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay provided the logical point of convergance for a railway network spanning the reaches of the interior. This gave a nodal quality to the city which made it the sole effective input-output point for all commerce with the mainland interior.(For complete abstract open document)

This research describes a methodology for measuring built form patterns using spatial data and GIS that is amenable to the study of large geographical areas. This methodology was used to investigate the capability of municipal planning to influence residential development. In the early 1990s, the Town of Markham, Ontario, Canada adopted a residential development philosophy inspired by New Urbanism. An adjacent municipality, the City of Vaughan, has employed a conventional development approach. By calculating several built form measures derived from the design prescriptions associated with New Urbanism, this study seeks to discern if Markham's adoption of an unconventional development philosophy has resulted in a residential built form distinct from that in Vaughan. <br /><br /> Built form measures are calculated for both municipalities for two eras. Development from 1981 to 1995 represents the "before" or baseline configuration, while development from 1996 to 2003 is used to characterize built form created when Markham's New Urbanist-inspired approach was in force. Period over period comparisons are carried out for each municipality, as are within-period comparisons between municipalities. <br /><br /> Findings indicate that development patterns are distinct in the two study periods. From the early period to the more recent, street networks take on a more grid-like organization while building lots and blocks become smaller. These changes are accompanied by an overall decline in accessibility to amenities. However, development patterns were found to be quite similar in both municipalities in the recent study period, exhibiting differences in degree, not in kind. The findings appear to indicate that planning's influence over residential built form is limited to moderately accelerating positive trends, and moderately retarding negative trends.