| This dissertation is an examination of the concept of personalization and its place within the recently developed theory of New Urbanism. Personalization began as a sociological concept that slowly began to be of interest to architecture and design professionals in an effort to make the built environment more receptive to the desires of the ultimate inhabitants. New Urbanism is a relatively new theory of urban design which began to be developed and published in the 1990's. Its chief construct is essentially a manual of urban design and development aimed at remedying the deleterious effects of unbridled suburban development.; Beginning with a thorough description of the concept of personalization in all its varied aspects, this study then examines the aspects of New Urbanism that pertain to the ability to personalize the built environment. The dissertation compares New Urbanist restrictions to personalization with those of late Twentieth Century housing developments in an effort to determine whether New Urbanism is more restrictive than those restrictive developments that New Urbanism purports to supercede and what are the reasons for, and ramifications of, those restrictions.; The process of this examination is a comparative consideration of the CC&R's (covenants, codes and restrictions) imposed upon both New Urbanist and Non-New Urbanist developments by their developers. In this manner, a direct comparison of those aspects of the developments that pertain to personalization shows that New Urbanist developments are neither more restrictive nor less restrictive than other, non-New Urbanist developments. |
