Publication Date

Fall 2001

Degree Type

Master's Project

Degree Name

Master of Urban Planning (MUP)

Department

Urban and Regional Planning

Abstract

Streets play a significant role in shaping the quality of built environment. The arrangement of street space and buildings is important in defining the visual character of a neighborhood and determining the behavior of traffic moving through a neighborhood. Some streets create a sense of place by visually tying the buildings and street space together whereas others appear to be just traffic thoroughfares and disconnected with the buildings fronting on them. Some streets encourage traffic to speed up while others make it slow down.

In technical terms, street may be defined just as a route, a passage for traveling from one place to another. However, when we describe our experience on a street, our description of a street does not just include its asphalt or concrete surface, but also its visual context as viewed from the street. This context includes buildings, trees, shrubs, planters, light posts, traffic, and other observed elements. Based upon our experience, we describe a certain street as visually interesting or monotonous. Thus, a street can be described as a framework of several elements. These elements create a street scene equivalent of living room in a house, where the street surface is floor, the buildings are walls, the trees and shrubs are the scenery, and the sky or tree canopy is the ceiling. The street environment is most commonly defined by the term ‘streetscape’.

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