The intent of this study is to develop a new eco-cultural design model of development for the Salt River watershed and surrounding areas with renewed respect for the land in modern society. It includes both conceptual and practical community guides to facilitate and catalyze a new community-driven typology of planning prepared for rapid community change and climate challenges. This study includes the review of prominent existing projects, both regionally and globally, with expertise in the areas of urban development, culture and place keeping/making, ecology and water management. This study aims to exhibit the diverse components of urbanism and its effects on the Salt River corridor, surrounding urban ecosystems and climate. This thesis argues for simultaneous and codependent cultural and ecological growth and healing, and its necessity for sustainable urban development. Lastly, an urban revitalization framework is manifested in a community-oriented handbook based on key findings to produce a unified vision executed by watershed community co-design of the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Much of modern urban planning in the United States is concerned with making cities more walkable. However, this is occurring as the urban landscape of the U.S. is altered radically by changes in crime patterns after the summer of 2020. This paper seeks to find out what the relationship is between walkability and crime in major U.S. cities after 2020. Using multiple linear regressions at the city and neighborhood scale, walkability is found to be a significant, positive predictor of 2019 violent crime rate, 2020 violent crime rate, 2020 property crime rate, and 2020 total crime rate at the city level. It was found to be a positive, but not significant predictor at the neighborhood level. Walkability has no protective influence against crime/rising crime, and it appears that as crime gets worse it tends to get worse in the cities that are more walkable, but other variables such as African American population are better determinants of crime. Urban planners should seek to increase walkability while also finding a way to mitigate potential exposure to crime.

This research explores the use of transformative urban scenarios and timelines as a planning tool for addressing future sustainability challenges in urban environments. The analysis comes from a set of scenarios that were explored through workshops conducted in 2019 in which Phoenix stakeholders developed timelines toward their visions of Phoenix 60 years into the future. To evaluate the pathways created in these timelines, we employed process tracing methodology to understand which causal mechanisms lead to certain phenomena. Or in other words, it helps us understand how changes happen. We converted the timelines into process tracing diagrams that categorized the relationship between actions, actors, and observable manifestations (OM’s) of change over time. To understand the relationship between these components, we then used a combination of inductive and deductive coding to categorize types of activities, actors, OM’s and sustainability topics and organized them into themes. This helped us to understand how city decision-makers and community leaders think sustainability and resilience transformation can and should occur. This thesis takes a closer look at one particular scenario, Some Like it Hot, which explores resilience to extreme heat. Through coding and analysis, we found trends, correlations, and missing pieces in the participants’ timeline. There are numerous overarching causal mechanisms throughout the scenario timeline. These trends offer insight into which activities and stakeholders are seen as significant drivers of sustainable transformation according to the workshop participants. The file attached is a pdf version of an ArcGIS Story Map completed for this honors thesis. To view the full, interactive thesis deliverable, visit https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/14d1e52a9448498e87f20e7566651a13