| Unprecedented rates of public school construction across the United States have spawned a new vision for public school facilities. More frequently, they are being used as tools to support community development outcomes in urban neighborhoods. This dissertation argues that using new schools as a place-based community development strategy significantly changes the way school facilities are planned and poses new questions for the community development field. The argument is sustained by investigating school districts, which have traditionally operated autonomously from local governments and control their own capital planning, as land use planning institutions. This research asks: are new school facilities being planned and sited to support community development goals? How is this occurring? What planning strategies are school districts using to do so? And, what themes emerge relative to strategies, obstacles, and successes? To answer these questions, a mixed-method approach was employed, including a survey questionnaire of California school districts and two case studies of new urban school facilities in the state. The survey revealed land use planning strategies and the types of schools being built in California. One case study focused on the San Diego, where the school district and the city joined to form the San Diego Model School Development Agency for a redevelopment project that includes a new elementary school, housing, and community services. The other study investigated Emeryville, where the city and the school district are collaborating to build the Emeryville Center of Community Life, a redevelopment project to include K--12 school facilities, community and recreational services, commercial uses, and housing. The findings reveal how school districts are forging new partnerships and processes to plan and site new schools---ones that are more open, participatory, and often characterized by nontraditional school designs such as joint-use recreation and community service facilities, adaptive reuse of non-school buildings, and schools built on urban infill sites. The result is a change from the silo planning tradition that has defined school facilities planning, led by entities within what I call the community-centered schools movement. |
