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- All Subjects: Sustainable urban development
- Creators: Talen, Emily
Description
Sustainable urbanism offers a set of best practice planning and design prescriptions intended to reverse the negative environmental consequences of urban sprawl, which dominates new urban development in the United States. Master planned developments implementing sustainable urbanism are proliferating globally, garnering accolades within the planning community and skepticism among social scientists. Despite attention from supporters and critics alike, little is known about the actual environmental performance of sustainable urbanism. This dissertation addresses the reasons for this paucity of evidence and the capacity of sustainable urbanism to deliver the espoused environmental outcomes through alternative urban design and the conventional master planning framework for development through three manuscripts. The first manuscript considers the reasons why geography, which would appear to be a natural empirical home for research on sustainable urbanism, has yet to accumulate evidence that links design alternatives to environmental outcomes or to explain the social processes that mediate those outcomes. It argues that geography has failed to develop a coherent subfield based on nature-city interactions and suggests interdisciplinary bridging concepts to invigorate greater interaction between the urban and nature-society geographic subfields. The subsequent chapters deploy these bridging concepts to empirically examine case-studies in sustainable urbanism. The second manuscript utilizes fine scale spatial data to quantify differences in ecosystem services delivery across three urban designs in two phases of Civano, a sustainable urbanism planned development in Tucson, Arizona, and an adjacent, typical suburban development comparison community. The third manuscript considers the extent to which conventional master planning processes are fundamentally at odds with urban environmental sustainability through interviews with stakeholders involved in three planned developments: Civano (Tucson, Arizona), Mueller (Austin, Texas), and Prairie Crossing (Grayslake, Illinois). Findings from the three manuscripts reveal deep challenges in conceptualizing an empirical area of inquiry on sustainable urbanism, measuring the outcomes of urban design alternatives, and innovating planning practice within the constraints of existing institutions that facilitate conventional development. Despite these challenges, synthesizing the insights of geography and cognate fields holds promise in building an empirical body of knowledge that complements pioneering efforts of planners to innovate urban planning practice through the sustainable urbanism alternative.
ContributorsTurner, Victoria (Author) / Gober, Patricia (Thesis advisor) / Eakin, Hallie (Committee member) / Kinzig, Ann (Committee member) / Talen, Emily (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The lack of substantive, multi-dimensional perspectives on civic space planning and design has undermined the potential role of these valuable social and ecological amenities in advancing urban sustainability goals. Responding to these deficiencies, this dissertation utilized mixed quantitative and qualitative methods and synthesized multiple social and natural science perspectives to inform the development of progressive civic space planning and design, theory, and public policy aimed at improving the social, economic, and environmental health of cities. Using Phoenix, Arizona as a case study, the analysis was tailored to arid cities, yet the products and findings are flexible enough to be geographically customized to the social, environmental, built, and public policy goals of other urbanized regions. Organized into three articles, the first paper applies geospatial and statistical methods to analyze and classify urban parks in Phoenix based on multiple social, ecological, and built criteria, including landuse-land cover, `greenness,' and site amenities, as well as the socio- economic and built characteristics of park neighborhoods. The second article uses spatial empirical analysis to rezone the City of Phoenix following transect form-based code. The current park system was then assessed within this framework and recommendations are presented to inform the planning and design of civic spaces sensitive to their social and built context. The final paper culminates in the development of a planning tool and site design guidelines for civic space planning and design across the urban-to-natural gradient augmented with multiple ecosystem service considerations and tailored to desert cities.
ContributorsIbes, Dorothy (Author) / Talen, Emily (Thesis advisor) / Boone, Christopher (Committee member) / Crewe, Katherine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Research indicates that projected increases in global urban populations are not adequately addressed by current food production and planning. In the U.S., insufficient access to food, or the inability to access enough food for an active, healthy life affects nearly 15% of the population. In the face of these challenges, how are urban planners and other food system professionals planning for more resilient food systems? The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand the planning and policy resources and food system approaches that might have the ability to strengthen food systems, and ultimately, urban resiliency. It proposes that by understanding food system planning in this context, planning approaches can be developed to strengthen urban food systems. The study uses the conceptual framework of urban planning for food, new community food systems, urban resiliency, and the theory of Panarchy as a model for urban planning and creation of new community food systems. Panarchy theory proposes that entrenched, non-diverse systems can change and adapt, and this study proposes that some U.S. cities are doing just that by planning for new community food systems. It studied 16 U.S. cities considered to be leaders in sustainability practices, and conducted semi-structured interviews with professionals in three of those cities: Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; and Seattle, WA. The study found that these cities are using innovative methods in food system work, with professionals from many different departments and disciplines bringing interdisciplinary approaches to food planning and policy. Supported by strong executive leadership, these cities are creating progressive urban agriculture zoning policies and other food system initiatives, and using innovative educational programs and events to engage citizens at all socio-economic levels. Food system departments are relatively new, plans and policies among the cities are not consistent, and they are faced with limited resources to adequately track food system-related data. However they are still moving forward with programming to increase food access and improve their food systems. Food-system resiliency is recognized as an important goal, but cities are in varying stages of development for resiliency planning.
ContributorsTaylor, Constance M (Author) / Talen, Emily (Thesis advisor) / Crewe, Katherine (Committee member) / Pijawka, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014