Obesity is reported to be an epidemic (Cameron et al. 2003; Contaldo and Pasanisi 2003), particularly in western countries with 31 % of adults aged over 20 years in the US either overweight or obese in 1999-2000 (CDC 2004). A similar situation is reported in Australia with 16.7 % of the adult population (aged 18 or older) obese in 2001 and 34.4 % overweight (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2003). The US Surgeon General (1996) highlighted the link between increasing girth and decreasing activity levels and suggested that moderate intensity activity such as frequent walking could improve the health outcomes for overweight and obese people. Current public health recommendations emphasize the benefits of accumulating 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity, such as walking, daily (Sallis et al. 2004). As walking for health reasons is important, factors that influence people to walk, in particular environmental influences, are the subject of a considerable research effort. A wide range of factors have been associated with walking behaviour by the public health professionals and transport and town planners, due to the recognition that neighbourhood design and land use may affect transport choice, such as automobile, public transit or walking/cycling (Saelens, Sallis and Frank 2003). A range of characteristics that are correlated with higher rates of walking review have been identified from the literature and grouped as the 3Ds (Cervero and Kockelman 1997) or proximity and connectivity (Sallis et al. 2004; Saelens, Sallis & Frank. 2003; Frank and Engelke 2001). Consistently, population density, land use mix, the street network and retail access are linked with definitions of neighbourhoods as either supporting walking behaviour or automobile dominated. This aim of this project is to build an objective walkability index based upon the physical environmental factors identified from the research and apply this to Adelaide, a large urban city in Australia using geographic information systems (GIS). Specifically, this study will build upon the work from the US (Frank et al. 2005) in delimiting cities into walk friendly or unfriendly, adapted to Australian data to provide the basis for an index that can be applied to Australian cities to highlight the variations across cities and between cities. / Thesis (M.A.)--School of Social Sciences, 2005.

No description available.

How can we bridge the gap between the lack of construction land and the sustained rapid urban population growth in China? This is a social problem China need to solve in the near future. ‘Land [Fill] The Gap’ is an investigation of the possibility of utilizing existing landfills in Beijing for urban construction in order to accommodate inhabitants, remove landfills and generate electricity from trash. / text

<p>Transportation engineering has taken upon a new role; to empower the alternative modes of travel: walking, biking, and bus transit. In this new era, engineers are rethinking a network designed predominately for the automobile. The ultimate goal of this research is to create a process that can make a vehicle dominant corridor a desirable, livable thoroughfare by livability design and context sensitive performance measures. Balancing travel modes requires an account of vehicular traffic and the impact of reconfiguring existing conditions. The analysis herein is conducted by field data collection, transportation equations and microsimulation. Simulating traffic behavior will be the means to apply livable alternatives comparable to existing Southeast Florida conditions. The results herein have shown that micro-simulation can be utilized in transportation planning to reveal good livability alternatives. </p>

Aboriginal women's housing issues profoundly affect the safety, health, and wellbeing of entire families. For low-income women who occupy marginal positions within the city, there is a particular urgency to access safe and affordable quality housing. In recent decades, evidence has shown that there are many links between housing and health. There is significant data highlighting deficiencies in the quality and availability of social and affordable housing within urban centres. The personal testimonies of Aboriginal women tenants living in housing developed by two urban Aboriginal housing organizations, one in Regina, Saskatchewan and one in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, constitute the main focus of my inquiry. The research findings suggest that Aboriginal women experience a greater level of comfort when they rent from Aboriginal housing providers. The women indicate that these agencies demonstrate a greater capacity to provide adequate housing and services that respect their values and cultural heritage. As a result, Aboriginal women are more inclined to stay in housing delivered by Aboriginal housing providers. Adequate housing helps to foster a sense of security and is a catalyst for Aboriginal women and their families to become established in their neighbourhoods. As well, housing stability permits Aboriginal women to access a wide-range of services and it generates a momentum towards salubrious living, better employment and educational advancement.

<p> This master&rsquo;s thesis investigates the economic factors that are affecting the financial decision-making of educated, middle to upper class Millennials in Los Angeles, California. This thesis explores how economic factors, preferences, and self-efficacy interact to determine housing pathways. This thesis also asks whether Millennials in Los Angeles will be able to afford homes and how the cultural narrative of the American Dream affects preferences. In order to answer these questions, twenty in person interviews are conducted with residents of Los Angeles in which they are asked about their values and preferences regarding housing, and the economic factors they are currently facing. This thesis finds that participants are struggling to navigate through economic factors such as student loans, a changing labor market, urbanization, high cost of living, stagnating wages, and high housing prices. This thesis finds that participants are experiencing low self-efficacy when it comes to finances, which seems to be a proportional reaction to the current economic climate. This thesis also finds that most participants want to own homes, however, in reality very few will be able to afford to buy homes in Los Angeles and will have to rent indefinitely. Lastly, this thesis finds that participants are rejecting the old American dream and that their preferences and values are different from baby boomers', however the housing market has not yet evolved to meet the demand of those changing preferences.</p><p>

<p> The Rue R&eacute;aumur, cleared and constructed between 1896 and 1900, was the first major urbanism project initiated in central Paris after the dismissal of Haussmann. Realized under the Third Republic and under the guidance of a democratically elected Paris Municipal Council, the street provoked an unprecedented public debate about urbanist priorities, the management of municipal debt, and architectural aesthetics. Disappointed with the visual homogeneity of the Haussmannian boulevard, Councilors liberalized building code and declared a Concours des Fa&ccedil;ades in the Rue R&eacute;aumur in order to visually revitalize their city.</p><p> That variation of the streetscape would turn on a monumentalization of the urban party-wall building through enlarged <i>saillies</i> and <i> avant-propos</i>, corbelled fa&ccedil;ade elements hitherto banned in the streets of Paris. Conceived as a central business district, the Rue R&eacute;aumur was also a unique concentration of commercial architecture, which encouraged an expanded use of iron structure to open building interiors and fa&ccedil;ades into naturally illuminated, floor-through spaces of manufacture. Construction in the Rue R&eacute;aumur was, then, guided by contradictory impulses. Charged with psychically countering the uniformity of the rationalized city, the exuberant elevations of the new street simultaneously masked a reordering of the architectural object by similar pressures towards economic and technological efficiency. </p><p> This dissertation treats the architecture of the Rue R&eacute;aumur and the public debate that shaped it as mutually determining engagements of architectural modernity. It situates the street's evolution as a response to the political, economic, spatial, and psychic challenges posed by the emerging capitalist metropolis. Reconstruction of the architectural and social discourses that informed design practice in the Rue R&eacute;aumur positions late-century eclecticism as an indispensable step in the development of interwar Parisian modernism. That architecture served as the primary object of rejection within modernist historiography and avant-garde theory due to its reliance on historical vocabularies. This study demonstrates that the perceptual immediacy desired of the late-century Parisian fa&ccedil;ade was of equal importance to the development of architectural modernism as theories of structural rationalism. It considers eclecticist architecture like that of the Rue R&eacute;aumur as a moment of dynamic invention within nineteenth-century theory and design practice, the terms of which would integrally condition Le Corbusier's reconception of architecture and architectural aesthetics a generation later.</p><p>

<p> This project examines the dynamics of discipleship and missional community. The concept and perceptions around both topics are relational. As all relationships are, by definition Discipleship is multilayered and multifaceted. Christian Discipleship is revealed through Christ&rsquo;s example, as evident in His teachings and His ministry within the community. This project begins with a specific definition of Christian Discipleship followed by a demonstration of how that definition can be executed within a particular church. The paper will not limit Discipleship solely within the church but will articulate discipleship through community outreach and conclude with an evaluation of the project and its methodologies. </p><p> The goal of the project is to define and effectively utilize Christian Discipleship principles as revealed through the life of Christ. This paper seeks to explore the making of Christian Discipleship within a church in transition, as we seek to be engaged with the larger neighborhood context. This project will address two major social challenges in East New York: Mental illness and homelessness. It will examine discipleship as a model for effective ministry among and within those realities.</p><p>

abstract: The Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area has sustained one of the United States' fastest growth rates for nearly a century. Supported by a mild climate and cheap, available land, the magnitude of regional land development contrasts with heady concerns over energy use, environmental sensitivity, and land fragmentation. This dissertation uses four empirical research studies to investigate the historic, geographic microfoundations of the region's oft-maligned urban morphology and the drivers of land development behind it. First, urban land use patterns are linked to historical development processes by adapting a variety of spatial measures commonly used in land cover studies. The timing of development - particularly the global financial crisis of the late 2000s, and the impact of varying market forces is examined using econometric analyses of land development drivers. This pluralistic approach emphasizes the importance of local geographic knowledge and history to empirical study of urban social science while stressing the importance of temporal effects. Evidence is found that while recent asset market changes impact local land development outcomes, preferences for place may be changing too. Even still, present-day neighborhoods are heavily conditioned by the market and institutional conditions of the historical period during which they developed, while the hegemony of low-cost housing on the urban fringe remains. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geography 2015

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / Green infrastructure is defined as a planned and managed natural system which can provide several categories of benefits. Man-made, gray solutions are no longer considered to be a viable solution when designing with resiliency in cities. Gray solutions have replaced naturally occurring vegetation with impervious surfaces. During severe rainfall events, these impervious surfaces have led cities to become more susceptible to flooding as infiltration and retention capacities have been significantly reduced. This study will analyze an area located within a highly urbanized city center and will begin to interpret the performance and impacts that may come after implementing green infrastructure practices. Based on the simulated outcome provided by the National Storm water Calculator, the results will determine if added green infrastructure features can reduce urban flooding.