Tag Archives: Urban Planning

Featured Thesis: Investigating the intersection of urban agriculture and urban planning…in Victoria, Canada

An M.Sc. thesis in the Department of Geography, by Abdolzaher Ghezeljeh

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11736

Abstract:

The world is home to predominantly urbanized populations that continue to grow. In an increasingly urbanized world, cities suffer from various challenges, including urban poverty and food insecurity, which result in unsustainability, health concerns, and crime increase. Many reasons affect urban poverty, including controversial government policies, an imbalance between existing resources and demands, and inefficient urban management and planning. Integrating urban agriculture (UA) into development policies can alleviate urban poverty and food insecurity in cities. Therefore, a line of research seems necessary to gain a better understanding of various ways to boost food production and improve sustainability in cities. To this end, the present study attempts to investigate the role of urban planning and governance in community gardens in Victoria to examine how urban planning and governance can support food production. A qualitative research method with semi-structured interviews and community mapping workshops were used within three groups of governmental, non-governmental, and residential actors in Victoria, Canada. Eighteen participants were interviewed, and eight participants took part in workshops held in the James Bay and Fernwood neighbourhoods. The three proposed research questions in this study were analyzed by thematic analysis using NVivo 10 software. The findings revealed that nine themes should be considered to improve food production in Victoria. The themes include improving UA economic efficiency, increasing awareness, gaining community satisfaction, effective landuse policies, productive partnership, improving the long bureaucratic procedure, offering grants, providing resources and facilities for gardeners, and changes in existing zoning bylaws. In addition, the findings of the workshops show that the City of Victoria plays the most crucial role in UA projects. Study results reveal that the compost education center, residents, and community centres should create an active partnership with the City towards improving community gardens.

To read more, visit UVicSpace https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11736

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: The Mothership – a mixed-use high-density proposal to combat urban sprawl

by Wesley Bowley
https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11205
Today’s featured thesis is submitted as part of a Master’s of Applied Science in Civil Engineering.

Abstract (excerpt):

The built environment is responsible for a large portion of total energy use and emissions. A large portion comes from the buildings themselves, but also the transportation system to move people around. As global populations grow, and more people migrate to cities, it is critically important that new city growth is done in the most sustainable manner possible. The typical North American pattern of urban growth is urban sprawl, characterized by single use type zoning, low density, transportation system dominated by personal vehicles, and poor public transit. Urban sprawl has numerous downsides, including poorer energy efficiency in buildings and infrastructure, more congestion and higher emission from vehicles, as well as many negative health effects. This thesis presents the concept of a Mothership, a large, high-density mixed-use building designed to combat urban sprawl and minimize energy use and emissions of the built environment. A mothership is designed to provide all the amenities and housing of a typical suburb for 10,000 people. The analysis in this thesis employ building simulation tools to model various mothership designs and analyse the operational and embodied energy and carbon emissions for each design, and compare it to base cases of more traditional building use types such as single detached homes, and different types of apartment buildings…
Some of the measures explored are a high carbon tax, net metering, and emissions limits of net zero, and negative emissions with two different electrical grid carbon intensities. Results showed that a highly insulated, timber framed mothership can achieve very high reductions in energy use and emissions. Overall it showed reductions of 71%, 73%, and 74% in operational energy, embodied energy and embodied carbon respectively, over a baseline case of single detached homes. It was estimated that transportation emissions could be reduced by 58% through the mixed-use development reducing the number of trips and electrically powered transportation vehicles and bus rapid transit. This gives a combined total emissions reduction of 61%. …
This illustrates that the integration of renewable energy technologies is not only beneficial for reducing emissions but can also act as an income pathway for energy systems.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team