(Cont.) Through the exploration of these five features as they exist in each city, I examine the strengths and weaknesses of design review in Dallas and Fort Worth. Once I have clarified the differences, I consider a number of rival explanations in attempt to describe why the disparity in design review occurs, and I work to narrow down the number of reasonable ones. Then, I offer short term and long term proposals for potential improvement to design review in both cities. These forecasts remain grounded in the political realities of Dallas and Fort Worth but also attempt to assume an optimistic outlook for the future of design review in North Texas.
Based on worldwide public health data, this report lays out the premise for building healthy places and illuminates the role of the real estate and development community in addressing public health issues. This is an essential resource for public officials, real estate developers, engineers, consultants, and students of urban planning.
New Urbanism movement has been shaping the cities and suburbs in increasing numbers in the US for more than three decades. The Congress for New Urbanism is promoting compact, mixed-use, interconnected, and walkable models for sustainable development. In recent years, the environmental implications of New Urbanism have not been sufficiently addressed in the literature (Spirn, 2000; Waldheim, 2010). However, the Charter of New Urbanism (Talen, 2013) highlights the importance and relevance of environmental factors. Overall, the literature lacks sufficient evidence about the environmental performance of the New Urbanist landscapes, specifically in the DallasFort Worth (DFW) region. The purpose of this research is to examine end users' perceptions of environmental performance factors in three New Urbanist Communities in the DFW region. The study assesses the value given to environmental factors in landscapes of communities that are planned, designed and built primarily with New Urbanist principles in North Texas. The research also aims to understand the gap between the theoretical underpinnings of New Urbanism, and findings from its built projects. This research primarily uses qualitative methods to assess environmental performance of New Urbanist communities in the DFW region (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). The environmental performance factors studied in this research are extracted from the systematic literature review of various sources (LAF, 2017; LEED-ND, 2017; Modi et.al, 2014; SITES, 2017). Residents' perceptions are assessed through in depth interviews in three New Urbanist developments in the DFW region, including Austin Ranch, Hometown, and Addison Circle. The study also utilized archival and secondary data as well as passive observations (Francis, 1999). Data collected through multiple techniques are analyzed to generate themes and extract findings (Sommer & Sommer, 1991) regarding the environmental performance of landscape in New Urbanist communities. This research revealed that there are varying levels of attention given to environmental factors (i.e., vegetation, habitat creation, air quality, or stormwater management) in each New Urbanist community assessed. Although a majority of the residents highlighted some key environmental benefits for the landscapes of New Urbanist communities, there seems to be consensus on promoting greater environmental sensibility from conception to implementation of New Urbanist communities studied in DFW region. Thus, results suggest that there is a need for stronger consideration of environmental factors in the assessed New Urbanist projects, through its ideology, its designs and development in order to provide a better environment for residents.
In 1980, David Dillon launched his career as an architectural critic with a provocative article that asked “Why Is Dallas Architecture So Bad?” Over the next quarter century, he offered readers of the Dallas Morning News a vision of how good architecture and planning could improve quality of life, combatting the negative effects of urban sprawl, civic fragmentation, and rapacious real estate development typical in Texas cities. The Open-Ended City gathers more than sixty key articles that helped establish Dillon’s national reputation as a witty and acerbic critic, showing readers why architecture matters and how it can enrich their lives. Kathryn E. Holliday discusses how Dillon connected culture, commerce, history, and public life in ways that few columnists and reporters ever get the opportunity to do. The articles she includes touch on major themes that animated Dillon’s writing: downtown redevelopment, suburban sprawl, arts and culture, historic preservation, and the necessity of aesthetic quality in architecture as a baseline for thriving communities. While the specifics of these articles will resonate with those who care about Dallas, Fort Worth, and other Texas cities, they are also deeply relevant to all architects, urbanists, and citizens who engage in the public life and planning of cities. As a collection, The Open-Ended City persuasively demonstrates how a discerning critic helped to shape a landmark city by shaping the conversation about its architecture.
The land development process is essentially a three step progression consisting of input from developers who envision and fund a project, designers who translate the developer's vision into a buildable project, and the regulators who ensure that the project upholds, to the extent allowable by law, the health, safety, and welfare of mankind including the environment. As an outgrowth of this development model, the modern American city has evolved overtime into a sprawling metropolis, which has had a direct, deleterious impact on watersheds. To address these detrimental impacts, storm water regulations have been authored on federal, state, and local levels, which include the use of low impact development techniques, integrated storm water management techniques, and structural (or built) storm water best management practices to reduce water quantity and improve water quality. However, a majority of these storm water management techniques are used for strictly utilitarian purposes. The metropolitan area collectively referred to as North Central Texas represents this model. The objective of this research is to identify the selection preferences of integrated storm water management techniques for developing or re-developing areas by the representatives of the development process. Although the technology is available, integrated storm water management techniques for aesthetic, environmental, or educational purposes are seldom implemented in developments and redevelopments in North Central Texas. The evidence, obtained through qualitative analysis of responses from the aforementioned representatives, suggests that selection preferences are based on cost/expense, appropriateness, and existing experience or ignorance towards another equitable solution.
This dissertation consists of three studies to systematically evaluate the economic benefits of activity-friendly environmental features in Dallas Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, Dallas, Texas, and to examine if TIF developments deliver more walkable/accessible environments, as compared to non-TIF comparison neighborhoods. Topic 1 employed a quasi-experimental design and the propensity score matching approach to establish a causal inference between TIF development effects and housing value growth and destination accessibility. The findings suggested that the overall TIF development effects accounted for $27,840 (or 95.6%) of the total average SF housing value growth from 2008 to 2014, while the confounding influence of structural attributes and residential locations only accounted for $1,267 (or 4.4%) of the housing value growth, as compared to their counterparts in comparison neighborhoods. In terms of destination accessibility, the overall TIF effects accounted for 8 additional points (of the 100-point scale) on Walk Score, while the other factors only accounted for 2 additional points. The results suggested that TIF developments do stimulate housing value growth, while increasing accessibility to various destinations. Topic 2 followed a socio-ecological framework to examine the effect of personal, neighborhood, and built environmental factors on active commuting to work in TIF and non-TIF comparison neighborhoods, using fractional logit models with margin effects and margin plots. The findings suggested that the built environmental factors only influenced active commuting to work in the neighborhoods that are already fairly walkable. The findings also suggested that travel time and personal factors played a consistently important role in influencing the active commuting behavior in both models, regardless of the variation of physical walking environments. In addition, TIF neighborhoods mitigated the negative impact on active commuting from disadvantaged areas. Topic 3 utilized a 7Ds measurement framework to systematically examine and compare the economic benefits of various activity-friendly environments in TIF and comparison neighborhoods, using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, spatial regression, and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) approaches. The finding suggested (1) destination accessibility and transportation facilities were positively associated with appreciation rates, but other activity-friendly environmental features are not associated with higher appreciation rates, and (2) neighborhoods with better walkable environments are associated with higher appreciation rates (1.36% in TIF vs. 0.95% in comparison neighborhoods). The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible from http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/155691
This research addresses how bioswales are affected by the projections for climate change in the North Texas region. Bioswales are a type of green infrastructure that conveys stormwater before directing it to a storm sewer system or other flood control structure (McLaughlin, 2016). They minimize the volume of stormwater runoff from the ground level and allow for the infiltration and remediation of pollutants while reducing the amount of water that is directed towards storm sewers. The research seeks to provide an understanding of how the efficacy of bioswales is related to the projected climatic conditions in North Texas and their resiliency related to these shifts. The affects of climate change are manifesting themselves in diverse ways across the globe in the form of droughts, rainfall, and more intense storm events (Adger, et al., 2011). This research studies the resiliency of bioswales and their ability to absorb the disturbance of projected climatic conditions while retaining their functionality within the built environment of North Texas. The use of bioswales by landscape architects is slowly becoming a component of normative practice. However, it is unclear what degree of knowledge the average landscape architect and related professionals in North Texas currently possess on the topic. In part, this study seeks to determine whether the use of bioswales is a common practice or primarily relegated to common knowledge that is not implemented. A greater understanding of the relationship between climate change and bioswales will facilitate implementation by better preparing landscape architects and related professionals to design for the impending effects climate change has on bioswales. This research makes use of qualitative methods of data collection and ethnographic interviews with professionals to gain an understanding of the topic. Data for the literature review was collected form scholarly journals, professional papers, and academic texts, as well as government web sources. Qualitative data collection assisted the researcher in identifying themes within the interviews that linked to comprehensive findings from the data collection. The Diffusion of Innovation theory was instrumental in this research to assist the researcher in understanding how information is spread throughout the field of landscape architecture and related professions. The research focuses on understanding the Diffusion of Innovation, or spread of ideas, related to bioswales across the fields of landscape architecture and related professions in North Texas. The data collected indicates that the current technologies and methods of bioswale planning and construction may not be equipped to withstand the shifting climate in North Texas. More information needs to be available in the fields of stormwater management and green infrastructure to help educate professionals and the public on the benefits of these systems throughout the North Texas region and to improve their efficacy.
"This project was made possible through the generous financial support of the Colorado Health Foundation. Additional support for the ULI Building Healthy Places Initiative has been provided by the estate of Melvin Simon."
Sustainable Built Environment is a component of Encyclopedia of Technology, Information, and Systems Management Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Environmental conservation and technological innovation are two principal forces that drive the building industry toward the future. Technological innovation offers many opportunities to make buildings more dynamic and comfortable, and occupants more comfortable and productive. The necessity of environmental conservation, on the other hand, compels all types of developments and human activities to be environmentally responsive. The content of the Theme on Sustainable Built Environment is organized with state-of-the-art presentations covering several topics: Urban Design ; Emerging Issues in Building Design; Environment, Energy and Health in Housing Design; Culture, Management Strategies, and Policy Issues in the Sustainable Built Environment; Using Technology to Improve the Quality of City Life; Urban and Regional Transportation, which are then expanded into multiple subtopics, each as a chapter. These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.
