Urban areas are becoming more ethnically, racially, and culturally diverse. Plus, more people are living in cities than ever before. This increases the need for multicultural planning: culturally responsive practices in the field that meet the needs of minorities on the ground and through policy. If energy is put towards making everyone feel as if they have a place in the community that will only lend positive effects to the community as a whole. This research asks: How does public participation amongst different racial groups inform planners about the needs in multicultural communities? I predict that inclusive outreach to minorities without direct action and contact on behalf of the city will not ensure the goals of true multicultural planning. Through the use of an online survey seeking residents' input, the City of Des Moines in South King County serves as a case study for this project. The survey was published on the City’s website in addition to promotion and collection of survey responses at community gathering places. After coding survey responses by race of respondent and themes related to the city’s comprehensive plan update, the needs and priorities of different racial groups in the city will be demonstrated. The implications of my results will hopefully serve as a way of understanding possible methods to ultimately better implement multicultural planning across cities as well as the importance of planning for the future with ethno-racial and cultural diversity in mind.

NewHolly is a mixed income housing reconfiguration in southeast Seattle developed through the controversial Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere program (HOPE VI). Within this development, middle class (MC) actors are cast as normative, falsely universalizing and applying this class identity across the neighborhood. The construction of MC normativity fosters governance through the creation of a non-normative subject, which must be assembled and assimilated. The mixed-income neighborhood frames and allows the aspirational familial identity (white, MC, homeowner, etc.) to be extended to those who have been deemed non-normative. Amidst NewHolly’s discursive and material reinforcement of MC normativity, the neighborhood’s deliberate social mixing disrupts dominant spatial imaginaries of poor places by prompting the social interactions of a diverse range of neighborhood actors. NewHolly’s residents must negotiate ‘zones of encounter’ (sites where individuals interact across difference) within unique and intimate confines. Acknowledging the loaded allegory of NewHolly’s HOPE VI planning, this research project explores the assumed benefits and outcomes of HOPE VI planning in juxtaposition to the neighborhood’s present condition, by examining the sociopolitical subjects that emerge from the mixed-income development. In addition, I analyzed where, when, and how cross-class alliances emerge in NewHolly. Examples of coalition building across in NewHolly may offer strategies for transformative spaces that deconstruct dominant narratives of privilege and difference, even when these spaces must exist within situations so closely linked to dominant approaches to class difference. To explore the emergence and formation of cross class alliances in NewHolly, my research draws on evidence gathered through public policy literature, neighborhood literature (community websites and newspapers), participant observation at neighborhood meetings and events, as well as semi-structured interviews.

In a busy city like Seattle, parks are a great amenity. Parks allow people to escape from the commotion, relax, and bond with other community members. Seattle has a diverse range of parks that serve different functions and are tailored to a variety of demographics. But do the parks succeed at meeting the needs of the demographic they are designed for? This project aims to answer the question with a specific focus on children's needs and playground design. This project examined three different parks in Seattle: Ravenna Park, University Playground, and Greenlake. I conducted interviews at the parks to determine if they successfully addressed the needs of the children. I engaged in a dialog with the adults at the play areas. I also asked the children to draw what their ideal park would look like. After completing the interviews, I analyzed and compared the findings to related literature. Based off of the analysis, I identified key design elements that are necessary when building a play area for children. The recommendations from this project will act as an aid when designing future playgrounds.

Bus stops are active public spaces that experience large pedestrian flows every day. However, bus stops are underutilized spaces in the sense that they can serve purposes beyond transportation use. In the first part of my study, I seek to look through the lens of environmental psychology, urban studies and sociology to discover bus stops’ potential of becoming public places for community interactions instead of being public “spaces” that only contain simple geographic meanings. I aim to point out that bus stops are neglected public "places" where physical landscape, social activities, and a set of personal and shared meanings intertwine and thus help foster better communities. In the second part of my research, I analyze Henri Lefebvre's "the right to the city" concept and its connection with participatory design on a theoretical level while I also discuss the gap and challenges between the concept and its real-world implementation through the experience of conducting participatory design in the process of redesigning one bus stop on University Way NE and 43rd Street NE in Seattle. The first part of the final product of this research is a design proposal for the bus stop on University Way NE and 43rd Street NE, created by using the concept of "the right to the city" and participatory design. The second portion of the final product is a compiled theoretical analysis with regard to the barriers and possible solutions of implementing "the right to the city" in real life. Through all the above mentioned elements, I hope this research can 1) help people recognize bus stops' potential of becoming vigorous public "places" and 2) assist planners and landscape architects to more efficiently conduct participatory design.

In urban areas, greenspaces with thriving natural ecosystems are essential to the health of humans and other living organisms. These systems provide ecosystem services such as stormwater mitigation, carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitat. They can also offer space for recreation and community gatherings. Despite environmental protection legislation that has been in place since the 1970’s, there is still a myriad of degraded ecosystems in the United States today, largely due to human impact. Community-based ecological restoration is a strategy to mitigate this damage through enhancing and increasing greenspaces, building community, and maximizing ecosystem services that are beneficial to society. The process provides a way for people to contribute to improving their local environments, often at a grassroots level, that is necessary to successfully rehabilitate our natural areas. The benefits of community-based restoration are not exclusively environmental—research has shown that there are many psychological benefits including connection with nature and building social capital. This project seeks to tell a story about the motivations that drive community-based restoration in the Seattle area. Methodology to accomplish this includes a comprehensive literature review and interviews with restoration leaders in the Puget Sound region. The purpose of the interviews is to explore a diversity of approaches to community-based restoration. This project seeks to link these differences that exist among restoration leaders to their specific site and personal experiences. This will culminate in a thoughtful narrative of community-based restoration in Seattle; a story of the Stewards who commit themselves to creating thriving social-ecological landscapes in an urban environment.

Planning and developing refugee camps anywhere in the world is a difficult task. Jordan, Syria’s neighbor to the south and the home of the world’s second largest refugee camp, is experiencing this first hand due to the influx of over 600,000 Syrian refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. Many Syrian refugees are adapting in Jordan’s urban areas, but about 100,000 refugees are making do in refugee camps. There is a delicate balancing act between the needs of the host governments, humanitarian aid agencies, and the refugees themselves when refugee camps are established. Due to the often unpredictable nature of crises, camps are built quickly without much of a chance or process to involve refugees in the planning process. This lack of planning contributes to the increased alienation of refugees and contributes to camps that are not necessarily designed in the best interest of the people they are supposed to serve. The purpose of this research is to address the refugee involvement gap in refugee camps by looking to urban design principles and water infrastructure layout for answers. The project aims to provide more site-specific planning tools for refugee camps in Jordan. This research reviews government documents relating to existing policies about urban planning, land use, and water management in Jordan. Zaatari and Azraq, the two most recent refugee camps in Jordan, are used as case studies to learn more about camp development, and interviews from those who have had direct experience and exposure in these camps are collected. So far in my research, I have found that there is a delicate balance between planning and allowing for flexible spaces when it comes to providing refugees with a sense of independence in adapting to their new lives.

This research is built on my participation in the UW China Village Studio, a field research course in Sichuan, China, led by Prof. Dan Abramson, my mentor. China's rural area is changing rapidly under the Socialist New Countryside Construction policy. In the name of efficiency, implementation of the policy typically ignores existing efficiencies in the landscape and community structure of the Chengdu Plain. Traditional settlement patterns have been suddenly transformed, and farmers are losing their traditional public spaces for exchange of information about cultivation, markets, and maintaining flexible social networks. Ray Oldenburg argues that “third places”, which are social gathering spaces apart from home and workplace, are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place. The Linpan rural agriculture landscape has a unique scattered settlement pattern that has evolved in place for over two thousand years. Its traditional prolific “third places” for local people to relax, enjoy social life, build connections, exchange information, interact with others and build connections are important elements in this landscape. Residents spend much time on these social activities daily, which remain vital in the lives of local people today. New rural construction projects are reducing the number of such places, bringing them closer to government centers, and designing them in more functionally specialized ways, which we fear may reduce residents' choices of where to meet and what to do there, ultimately weakening their social networks and accessibility to information. While my research cannot prove or disprove this hypothesis, I hope to lay a foundation for further research by conducting a literature search on social space, time budgeting and efficiency in Chengdu Plain; analyzing our household and village social and spatial data with GIS to map to the distribution of third places in relation to the houses, the population density, and other service centers. I hope this will be useful in future more comprehensive studies on the social impacts and resilience of these communities.

Chongqing was claimed by some to be the largest city not only in China but in the world over the years, but that was based on a misunderstanding of the word “city”. The Chongqing city, which includes an extensive rural area, was set up in 1997 as a provincial-level city for administrative purpose.  Today, it has about 30 million people, occupying an area as large as that of Austria. Many of the 30 million people in Chongqing City are living in mountainous area as farmers. In order to properly estimate the population in Chongqing “city”, this paper aims to define the Chongqing City based on a metropolitan area concept. Three criteria are used to define the Metropolitan Area: population density, recent population changes, and labor-force in agriculture. Extensive research suggests these variables are valid indicators of the extent of the Metropolitan Area. Because the urban density is much higher than rural density, newly urbanizing areas grow notably faster than rural areas and the percentage of agriculture employment is higher in the rural areas, but minimal in the Metropolitan Area. The Metropolitan Area includes urbanized area and the commuting zone. The urbanized area refers to contiguous sub-districts with population density of 2,000 per km² or greater, plus sub-districts contiguous to the above group with a density of 1,000-1,999 per km² and less than 25% of workers engaged in agriculture. The commuting zone refers to the contiguous sub-districts with a density of 500 per km² or greater, less than 25% of workers engaged in agriculture, and 2000-2010 population growth of 15% or greater. This paper constructs comparison maps using census data of 2000 and 2010 at the sub-district or township level in Chongqing. This delimitation work is the foundation work for creating a general functional geographic area for a variety of purposes in marketing, planning and local policy.