Growth and Structure of Cities (Bryn Mawr)

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Browsing Growth and Structure of Cities (Bryn Mawr) by Author "Dietcher, Owen K."

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    Social Capital in Urban Park Planning: Essen and Dresden in German Disunification and Beyond
    (2020) Dietcher, Owen K.; Hurley, Jennifer
    In the wake of the bombings inflicted on Germany during World War II, cities had the challenging task of redesigning landscapes. Parks amongst these destroyed landscapes straddle the objectives of the city government, desires of residents, and availability of space. In this thesis, I explore the ways in which social capital predicts park creation or preservation in urban areas within former East and West German blocs and how these differences in capital manifest today. Considering the drastic differences in governmental styles in Germany between the blocs, the historical interaction between social capital and power holders illuminate certain characteristics of each park and their city's identity in their development. Choosing Dresden and Essen as two cities in each of the former blocs, two notable parks from each city were selected with interviews and field notes contextualizing its social capital and government intervention. In review of the historical data, social capital appeared to be stronger in parks located in former top-down regimes while government intervention in park planning occurred in heavily polluted regions where social capital appeared to be lower. These findings have implication for how local governments approach interaction with social capital around potential or existing public spaces under historical precedents of the area encompassing them.