| The thesis undertakes a comparison of New Urbanist and Disaster Resistant Community paradigms and assesses the potential merging of these paradigms to create better communities. New Urbanism seeks to create smaller, more compact pedestrian oriented developments that emphasise a sense of place, while Disaster Resistant Communities seek to reduce costs associated with responding to and recovering from natural disasters. Examining the relationship between the two paradigms is especially important considering the number of New Urbanist developments in hazard prone areas. New Urbanist community design meets most of the criteria and principles associated with the development of Disaster Resistant Communities through an emphasis on environmental and ecological preservation and the equal distribution of open space, an inter-connected multi-modal transportation system, the placement of civic institutions, and a focus on the development of a sense of place. Moreover, combining urban design features of New Urbanism and emergency response related Disaster Resistant Community principles establishes a new paradigm, specifically, Disaster Resistant New Urbanist Communities. This new paradigm, when applied, ensures the creation of better, more disaster resistant communities when compared to typical insular suburban developments. |
