How the Car Won the Road: The Surrender of Atlanta\u27s City Streets, 1920-1929

In 1899, Atlantans saw their city streets as multi-purpose open spaces, freely available to all persons and transit modes. By 1929, that understanding had changed. Streets became automobile conduits to rapidly and efficiently move motor vehicles around town. Other modes of transportation had disappeared or been marginalized. New government regulations tightly controlled or banished other street users and uses. Vast amounts of municipal space became the domain of automobiles, losing the democratic values which public roads formerly represented. This study will demonstrate that during the 1920s, Atlanta’s powerful elites brought about this transformation of society’s comprehension of the meaning and function of a city street. Seeing the automobile as the essential tool for city expansion, this pro-growth coalition directly intervened in state and municipal government to enact laws favoring motor vehicles. They sought and won the allocation of public funds to build the physical infrastructure and legislative superstructure to facilitate the presence of cars on city streets. The print media marketed the changed definition of street space, and promoted the automobile as a status symbol and a way to escape the always-contentious, multi-racial streetcars. Realtors and investors urged better roads for automobile access to their burgeoning suburban developments. While the transformative process took root and sprouted between 1900 and 1919, the twenties witnessed the bulk of the efforts of the growth alliance to remake Atlanta’s city streets. No longer a luxury vehicle for the very rich, by 1920, the car had emerged as a necessity for all but the poorest citizens. Utilizing modern marketing methods and innovative business strategies, automakers helped emplace a national culture of consumption. Advertisements urged Atlantans to go into debt to purchase the latest models, while the local government struggled to cope with traffic gridlock and outrageous numbers of auto-related fatalities. Blaming streetcars for the congestion, business and civic leaders also increasingly faulted pedestrians and children for their own injuries and deaths—they should not have strayed onto streets which no longer belonged to everyone. By 1929, Atlanta’s leadership had surrendered the city streets to the automobile; the car had “won” the road

Urban Landscape Change in New Orleans, LA: The Case of the Lost Neighborhood of Louis Armstrong

While Jane Jacobs\u27 frontal assault on modern planning is now over forty years old, communities around the United States are still struggling to deal with the legacy of modernist interventions that dramatically altered the historic urban form and culture of their downtowns. In the worst cases, whole zones were transformed into nearly unusable space. Reintegrating these lost spaces into the urban fabric is one of the most significant challenges of urban planners and designers today. Despite the ubiquity of lost spaces in American cities, comparatively little research has been done on the specific historic urban forms that were altered. This dissertation seeks to explore the processes of landscape change through a case study of Louis Armstrong\u27s downtown neighborhood in New Orleans. It employs an urban morphological framework to uncover the specific landscape changes that occurred in the neighborhood over time. This micro-level view is broadened through an examination of the political economic forces that helped to transform the once vibrant neighborhood into the lost space of today. This study concludes that while it is tempting to identify the twentieth century modern interventions as the cause of lost space in New Orleans, such a reading unnecessarily isolates the modern development era from the historical continuum of land use that helped define the city. When the scope of inquiry into the causes of lost space is widened to include the historic formation of landscape remnants, long-standing patterns of lost space development begin to appear that stretch back to the founding of the city. Modern development, seen in this light, exacerbated existing negative landscape features more than created them

Urban Landscape Change in New Orleans, LA: The Case of the Lost Neighborhood of Louis Armstrong

While Jane Jacobs\u27 frontal assault on modern planning is now over forty years old, communities around the United States are still struggling to deal with the legacy of modernist interventions that dramatically altered the historic urban form and culture of their downtowns. In the worst cases, whole zones were transformed into nearly unusable space. Reintegrating these lost spaces into the urban fabric is one of the most significant challenges of urban planners and designers today. Despite the ubiquity of lost spaces in American cities, comparatively little research has been done on the specific historic urban forms that were altered. This dissertation seeks to explore the processes of landscape change through a case study of Louis Armstrong\u27s downtown neighborhood in New Orleans. It employs an urban morphological framework to uncover the specific landscape changes that occurred in the neighborhood over time. This micro-level view is broadened through an examination of the political economic forces that helped to transform the once vibrant neighborhood into the lost space of today. This study concludes that while it is tempting to identify the twentieth century modern interventions as the cause of lost space in New Orleans, such a reading unnecessarily isolates the modern development era from the historical continuum of land use that helped define the city. When the scope of inquiry into the causes of lost space is widened to include the historic formation of landscape remnants, long-standing patterns of lost space development begin to appear that stretch back to the founding of the city. Modern development, seen in this light, exacerbated existing negative landscape features more than created them

The Model Holistic : The Application of the Adaptive Cycle to Rust-Belt Cities

For too long, the relationship between the natural and built environment have been ignored, resulting in a disconnect between humanity, nature, and architecture. Can enforcing this relationship change the way we think about urban design and resiliency? Like ecology, cities act much like an ecosystem, going through four phases; exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization. Over a slow period, these resources are conserved and protected rather than used for innovation. In the case of a disturbance, the vulnerability of the system at this point leads to eventual collapse and release of resources. Finally, as a result of this release, the system can reorient itself along a pathway toward a new phase of exploitation and regrowth. Together, these phases are known as the adaptive cycle, an ecological resilience model developed by two ecologists at the University of British Columbia, C.S Holling and C.J. Walters. This work seeks to prove the adaptive cycle can be a holistic model for cities to establish architectural and urban strategies that increase city resiliency. A new method for analyzing city systems through the adaptive cycle can be a holistic way to prolong resiliency by, increasing density, diversifying industry, encouraging organizational autonomy, embracing all cultures, and generating new ideas. This thesis focuses on a second-tier Rust-Belt city, Utica, New York located about an hour North-West of the capital, Albany. This thesis seeks to apply the adaptive cycle model to Utica by targeting specific nodes within the urban context to place Utica on a positive trajectory of resiliency

The history of Logansport, Indiana : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

This brief history of Logansport is designed to give eighth grade students a better understanding of the creation development of Logansport, Indiana. In addition to reading the background of their city, the students are provided with section review questions and activities to further their knowledge and understanding of the material.Thesis (B.?.)Honors Colleg

Five Year Strategic Plan for Economic Development: Prepared for the Town of Winthrop

In the spring of 2014, the Town of Winthrop hired the Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston to help develop a Strategic Plan for Economic Development. The Center’s project team began its work by carefully analyzing data in order to understand Winthrop’s current business environment, and to learn how it has changed over time. Multiple sources of information were used, including the Census Bureau’s Decennial Census, American Community Survey, and County Business Patterns, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Claritas retail leakage data. In addition, the project team distributed and analyzed a survey of local businesses, and interviewed a series of residents and business persons. The data analysis produced 26 significant findings, which can be found in the Winthrop Economic Trends Report, together with tables and graphics explaining each finding (see Appendix A for a list of the findings). In the Trends Report, Winthrop is frequently compared to six other waterfront communities in Massachusetts and to the Commonwealth itself. The comparison communities include: Beverly, Chelsea, Hull, Revere, Salem, and Swampscott. While some of the same data is incorporated into this Strategic Plan, the Trends Report contains significantly more information than can be repeated here. Over the course of several meetings, the trends data was presented to a Steering Committee convened for the project, consisting of residents and business persons appointed by the Town. Steering Committee Members then used this information, along their personal knowledge of the community, to develop a proposed vision, strategies, goals, and actions to help grow the Winthrop economy. (See Appendix B for a list of Steering Committee participants.) On June 19, a community forum was held to gather input into the proposed plan elements. The meeting began with a presentation of the key findings of the Trends Report. Attendees then reviewed and discussed multiple goal areas, meeting with Steering Committee Members and conversing with other residents and business persons during the course of the evening. All had an opportunity to put down their thoughts and insights onto poster paper during the meeting. Following the community meeting, the project team posted an online survey seeking feedback on each proposed strategy, goal, and action. The ideas and feedback gathered from participants at the community forum and the online survey have been incorporated into the final version of this Strategic Plan