The social construction of mixed-use development

This thesis has been pursued in the primary interest of exploring the relationship between planning and architecture specific to the mixed-use planning and development process. More acutely, this research has been conducted to investigate how the relationships and communication socially construct architectural technology. Through a constructivist lens, and reaching back to historic themes of human placemaking, this work reveals, that, history has, but yet again, to repeat itself. As people make choices about the built environment, those choices gain momentum, both socially and materially. Mixed-use development is one typological choice that is making a noticeable re-emergence. Amidst a suburban hegemony, will mixed-use development regain “typological momentum?”