Designed Desirable: Deteriorating Urban Communities Renewed

Abstract

This thesis studies how designers and planners can create a desirable community in the deteriorating urban communities affected by urban sprawl. By its nature this project is a community planning effort. The results of this research are guided by the idea that society would benefit from transforming deteriorating urban neighborhood districts into desirable communities for a variety of people. Creating desirable urban communities will solve problems such as disparity between groups in the city and suburbs, pollution from fossil fuel, and reduction in the consumption of Greenfield sites. This project takes the principles and ideas of creating a desirable community and applies them to the Payne-Phalen neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota.