Date of Submission

Spring 5-3-2019

Degree Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Architecture

Department

Architecture

Committee Chair/First Advisor

Mine Hashas-Degertekin PhD.

Secondary Advisor

Liz Martin-Malikian

Abstract

Recent studies in England found out that people who know their family history are more resistant to stress and anxiety. (Bradley, 2016) This connection between family history and place history is important in understanding the connection individuals have to the places they grew up and know. However, gentrification poses a threat to inner-city neighborhoods and disrupts the cyclical relationships between history and culture that forms the character of their social community. Ruth Glass coined the term gentrification in 1964 to describe the influx of middle-class people displacing lower-class worker residents in urban neighborhoods. Gentrification is a matter of oppression; displacement of marginalized populations, specifically women and children. As it happens, most low-income families are headed by single or divorced women. Atlanta has handled urban redevelopment in marginalized neighborhoods that has not only resulted in gentrification but also has disregarded the urban environments as places to sustain communities, especially women. However, adding and enforcing policies and design interventions into these neighborhoods can help mitigate the impact gentrification has on these vulnerable populations. My thesis focuses on how redevelopment of neighborhoods should help sustain low-income residents via women empowerment while welcoming new ones. As urban redevelopment continues, is it possible to restructure it around the women’s need to support the community? Gentrification is threatening to erode the West End community and displacement of women becomes a precondition for the transformation of the whole neighborhood. My proposal aims to form a road-map plan that the neighborhood can implement in their community. The intent is to reframe redevelopment to be a system that preserves, sustains and responds to the identity and needs of the community.

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