Downtowns across America have changed as a result of suburbanization. Population shifts and changing land consumption patterns caused by advancements in technology, such as the Interstate and the Internet, along with social and economic factors, alter downtown development. The city, and particularly its downtown, used to represent the nucleus for all commercial, retail, and industrial activities. As population and commerce suburbanized, the 'central' business district became one of several business centers and lost much of its retail function. Currently, cities are re-evaluating their development strategies to determine the best methods to attract people back to the urban core and to regain the vitality that once defined city life.
Efforts to redevelop downtowns typically assume the characteristics of place-based strategies by following either infrastructure strategies or consumer strategies. The former method is more traditional, with attention given to specific land uses, such as residential, retail, or entertainment activities. Essentially, infrastructure strategies rely on the 'build it and they will come' motto. Consumer strategies strive to attract young professionals, single-parent families, and "empty nesters" for urban living by accentuating amenities unique to the city lifestyle.
Roanoke, Virginia serves as a case study for evaluating suburbanization trends and methods of redevelopment for a small- to medium-sized city. By calculating and analyzing household and office employment projections, the Roanoke market shows signs of strength among young, renter households and Central Business District office employment. With a downtown residential market emerging and downtown office employment growing, adaptive reuse of urban space may prove to be Roanoke's method of reinventing its downtown by orchestrating a consumer-based redevelopment effort. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/9949 |
| Date | 01 June 2004 |
| Creators | Byrd, Kevin Ryan |
| Contributors | Urban Affairs and Planning, Koebel, Charles Theodore, Mayer, Heike |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Major paper |
| Format | ETD |
| Rights | I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Virginia Tech or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
| Relation | Byrd-MajorPaper-Final.pdf |
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