UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
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Item Urban Sprawl & Critter Crawl: Imagining a More-Than-Human Way of Living(2024) Islam, Ramisa Maisha; Williams, Brittany; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and that number is projected to double by 2050. Cities and urban transects have an important role in addressing climate change. As urban population and development grows, we also see a decline in biodiversity. Humans are not the only species being displaced. Native species lose their natural habitats due to development and seek refuge in urban areas. The complexity of cities allows for urban biodiversity to find a home, but these urban habitats are still human centered, forcing species to fit within a human designed environment. This thesis explores the balance between human living and urban biodiversity to integrate into our cities. Implementing urban biodiversity strategies and more than human design in urban neighborhoods can help to restore biodiversity and strengthen human relationships with the natural environment. Combining these concepts can reimagine the city as a shared ecosystem that serves all species. An ideal shared ecosystem can support urban living, embrace coexistence, and foster a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.Item COMMUNITY CATALYST: REINVENTING THE URBAN SHOPPING MALL(2018) Smith, Elisabeth; Curry, Daniel; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the past decade, shopping malls across the United States have been on the decline, many left abandoned and deserted. However, some urban shopping complexes have not yet been uninhibited, due to their proximity to city centers and established community space. This thesis proposition aims to alter and improve the paradigm of the urban shopping mall by redeveloping the existing single use format. The community space will serve as the foundation for several different programmatic functions that will be inserted into an existing mall, thus serving as a uniting agent at the heart of the building. These strategies will be applied to Stamford Town Center, a shopping mall located in the city of Stamford, Connecticut. This thesis will evaluate the opportunities for refining the existing mall and propose a more sustainable place-making solution, reinforcing this urban icon as a destination for culture and innovation.Item Acts of Livelihood: Bodies and Nature in International Garden City Movement Planning, 1898-1937(2018) Clevenger, Samuel Martin; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Urban planning and reform scholars and policymakers continue to cite the “garden city” community model as a potential blueprint for planning environmentally sustainable, economically equitable, humane built environments. Articulated by the British social reformer Sir Ebenezer Howard and his 1898 book To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, the model represented a method for uniting the benefits of town and country through a singular, pre-planned, “healthy” community, balancing spaces of “countryside” and “nature” with affordable, well-built housing and plentiful cultural attractions associated with city life. The book catalyzed an early twentieth-century international movement for the promotion and construction of garden cities. Howard’s garden city remains a highly influential context in the history of town planning and urban public health reform, as well as more recent environmentally-friendly urban design movements. To date, while historians have long examined the garden city as an agent of social and spatial reform, little analysis has been devoted to the role of prescribed embodiment and deemed “healthy” physical cultural forms and practices in the promotion and construction of garden cities as planned communities for “healthy living.” Informed by recent scholarship in Physical Cultural Studies (PCS), embodied environmental history, cultural materialism, and theories of modern biopower, this dissertation studies the cultural history of international garden city movement planning in early twentieth century Britain and the United States. Studying archival materials related to some of the prominent planners and resultant communities of the movement, I focus on the biopolitical dimensions of the planners’ contextual designs for “nature,” “health,” and “healthy” physical culture as they devised material garden city community layouts. I argue that the intentional British and American garden cities created during the movement were planned as spatialized strategies for the regeneration of laboring bodies through organized, bourgeois physical cultural practices and access to nostalgic spaces of “naturally healthy environments and outdoor recreation.Item The Ethnic Community: Urban Form, Peace, Conflict, and Violence in Urban India(2017) Adrianvala, Zubin; Baum, Howell S; Urban Studies and Planning; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What causes some cities to have higher levels of ethnic violence than others do? This research explores whether the urban form affects the level of ethnic violence in a city. Here, the term urban form refers to identifiable physical characteristics of a city: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Contemporary understanding of the physical city, as a determinant of outcomes or even as a target in ethnic violence is very limited. Although ethnic conflict is a prominent global phenomenon, ethnic violence occurs in some narrow streets and crowded neighborhoods, but not others. In addition, social scientists have focused on the ethnicization of urban spaces, but its effect on levels of ethnic violence is largely unstudied. The central hypothesis is that cities where the urban form is “ethnicized” are more likely to experience violent ethnic conflict than cities where the urban form is largely shared, secular, or multi-ethnic. India is a rapidly urbanizing globalized country with much ethnic diversity, features typical of many post-colonial nations in the global Southeast. The study involved a simultaneous ethnographic, geographic, and spatial comparison of two Indian cities, Surat and Ahmedabad, and the Hindu-Muslim ethnic relations in those cities. Ahmedabad has experienced the most Hindu-Muslim violence of any Indian city (using number of violence-related deaths as a measure). In contrast, Surat has been peaceful. This disparity is especially interesting since Surat and Ahmedabad are part of the same Indian state with similar linguistic, political, and demographic features. These questions are addressed through an analysis of semi-structured interviews and cognitive mapping exercises. The study includes 66 respondents: 36 in Surat and 30 in Ahmedabad. The research concludes that the urban form is an important factor in ethnic conflict. This finding has several research and policy implications which include a shift in the way various practitioners operate in the urban context.Item Breaking through the Margins: Pushing Sociopolitical Boundaries Through Historic Preservation(2016) Hopkins, Portia Dene; Williams- Forson, Psyche; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Breaking through the Margins: Pushing Sociopolitical Boundaries Through Historic Preservation” explores the ways in which contemporary grassroots organizations are adapting historic preservation methods to protect African American heritage in communities that are on the brink of erasure. This project emerges from an eighteen-month longitudinal study of three African American preservation organizations—one in College Park, Maryland and two in Houston, Texas—where gentrification or suburban sprawl has all but decimated the physical landscape of their communities. Grassroots preservationists in Lakeland (College Park, Maryland), St. John Baptist Church (Missouri City, Texas), and Freedmen’s Town (Houston, Texas) are involved in pushing back against preservation practices that do not, or tend not, to take into consideration the narratives of African American communities. I argue, these organizations practice a form of preservation that provides immediate and lasting effects for communities hovering at the margins. This dissertation seeks to outline some of the major methodological approaches taken by Lakeland, St. John, and Freedmen’s Town. The preservation efforts put forth by the grassroots organizations in these communities faithfully work to remind us that history without preservation is lost. In taking on the critical work of pursuing social justice, these grassroots organizations are breaking through the margins of society using historic preservation as their medium.Item The Capital of Diversity: Difference, Development, and Placemaking in Washington, D.C.(2011) Maher, Justin Thomas; Sies, Mary C.; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Diversity has long been a part of the urban landscape, both as a demographic fact and as a valuable commodity used to attract development. Both kinds of diversity move through Columbia Heights, the rapidly (re)developing neighborhood in Washington D.C. that serves as my case study. It is home to residents of varying racial, ethnic, sexuality and class-based identifications as well as the rhetoric that selectively values them. In this dissertation, I argue that a rhetorical commitment to diversity has been an integral part of uneven development in Columbia Heights. It is the cornerstone of neoliberal development, a process in which government subsidized, private development benefits middle and upper-middle class (often white) residents, while low-income residents of color are increasingly denied quality housing, employment, and education. This interdisciplinary project draws on urban, cultural, ethnic, and queer studies scholarship to illustrate how representations of difference affect material development. I argue that they create ideological "maps" of the neighborhood that value some markers of difference while erasing and policing others. In turn, these maps guide who invests in the neighborhood and who belongs where. I chart how representations have changed over time, from the appropriation of civil rights rhetoric in the mid to late 20th century, to more recent multicultural imagery and gay-led gentrification narratives used to sell a "new," upscale Columbia Heights. Using a mixed methodology of textual and ethnographic analysis, I examine different sites of discursive production: city planning documents, real estate marketing, and an online neighborhood listserv. I also interview longtime and incoming Columbia Heights residents with various social locations, illustrating how dominant narratives of difference and development are reinforced and/or challenged among residents. This project expands existing development, gentrification, and gay enclave scholarship. It challenges singular analyses of difference and examines how multiple markers of difference affect spaces. All middle-class newcomers are not white, nor are all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer residents middle-class. In addition to suggesting policy solutions, I suggest how "contact" between residents of different social locations has the potential to counteract uneven development and the discourse that reinforces it.Item Growing the Destination: Revitalizing Downtown Hershey(2011) Douty, Sean Robert; Hurtt, Steven W; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Hershey, Pennsylvania, home to the famous Hershey's chocolate brand, has grown from a small factory village to a prosperous town of 15,000 residents, which in addition to chocolate making, also relies substantially on tourism and entertainment for its economic success. 3 million guests annually visit both Chocolate World and Hersheypark. Separating these attractions from downtown Hershey is a railroad line and right of way. Directly between the residential fabric of Hershey and the entertainment area is an historic core with a number of significant pre-World War II structures, in addition to contemporary attractions. All contribute to the prospect of a revitalized downtown. This thesis explores how architectural, urban design, and infrastructure interventions, particularly those on a downtown site with historic buildings, can improve the connection between the entertainment area and downtown Hershey, and can anchor a revitalized downtown. If successful, the destination might simply and all-inclusively be called Hershey.Item Rethinking Diplomatic Architecture(2011) Faughnan, Eric Hewlett; Kelly, Brian P; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis challenges the nature of current diplomatic buildings constructed abroad by the United States. The United States embassy and consulate, driven by fear of terrorism and the resulting requisite for security, has regressed from a dignified diplomatic center to an imposing fortress. Serving as a chief symbol of the United States abroad, an embassy should be a modest yet impressive structure, demonstrating diplomatic goals, fostering goodwill, and allowing access. In many capital cities within the Middle East and Europe, these symbols of America are often secluded from the urban core and are not an adequate representation of our nation. The new compound on the outskirts of Istanbul, Turkey demonstrates this contrast as it replaces the downtown, historic Palazzo Corpi with a daunting, hilltop fortress. Many building types have demonstrated successful implementation of security features while remaining in the public view and maintaining admirable design. In current times, embassy design must incorporate security features and still respect culture of the host country, employ innovative construction techniques, and demonstrate the American ideals in a way that are polite yet sincere.Item Connecting Community: Capturing and Patterning Orphan Space in Langley Park(2011) Pagan Aello, Jessica Alexandra; Kim, Julie J; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Alleys and parking lots provide but a few examples of orphan or "in-between" space--of residual land spawned by 1960s urbanism. These unclaimed spaces have latent qualities, often only visible to a community's inhabitants. These spaces, like all spaces, morph to reflect cultural values and needs. Their difference lies in their residual nature. They allow the disenfranchised to learn, sell, and gather flexibly. They lie in between "valued" and "value-less" space. Modern urban theory fails to address these spaces, instead overlooking the micro-patterning of space. By incorporating these spaces into a careful study of pattern at the scale of the city, community, building, and individual, one can connect a once fragmented community. Langley Park provides the case study for addressing these issues of urbanism, orphan space, and connectivity--it provides an example of capturing, patterning, and connecting orphan space at all scales.Item REINFORCING COMMUNITY: THE MEANING OF PLACE ATTACHMENT AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE REDESIGN OF LANGLEY PARK(2011) XING, WEI; Sullivan, Jack; Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA); Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis is a design study of a residential community in Langley Park, Maryland with a diverse international population, a mix of mid-twentieth century housing stock, and a car-oriented commercial center. Langley Park will experience dramatic changes over the next ten years as the proposed transit center and light rail line is realized. The study proposes a new way for landscape architects to approach community design. It suggests that by consulting the scholarship of place attachment, designers can develop design strategies and apply them in design practice. Five strategies are proposed. Following a site analysis which identified assets and problems, the author established design objectives that would enhance the community's character and repair damage caused by a lack of connectivity. This thesis suggests designers can incorporate the concepts found in the literature of place attachment and thereby develop strategies to successfully achieve the design objectives.