Redevelopment and smart growth at Assembly Square

The story of Assembly Square is not yet finished. To tell the complete story of Assembly Square would require much more time to write than I had, and more time to read than the reader would likely care to devote. An earlier work by class of 1984 M.C.P. student Steven Landau covers the development of the mall at Assembly Square, and begins to look at its subsequent demise. My thesis picks up almost where this earlier work leaves off, but focuses on the time where there is the greatest uncertainty surrounding the site's immediate future. This period roughly coincides with Dorothy Kelly Gay's term as Somerville mayor, and ends when a new mall is opened and re-tenanted. During this time, public opinion and political will at the local level moved first against and then towards developers' vision of the site. My thesis follows this shift and attempts to explain why a smart growth advocacy group found itself in the bizarre position of fighting one of the cornerstone's of Governor Mitt Romney's smart growth plan for Massachusetts, and why public opinion was first with then against this group. I conclude that the rhetoric of Smart Growth is inconsistent with its practice.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Savage, Alice (Alice Augusta)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert Fogelson.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37468

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37468