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SCHENECTADY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE
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[This information is from Shovel Ready: Razing Hopes, History, and a Sense of Place: Rethinking Schenectady's Downtown Strategies, a master's thesis in city planning by Christopher Patrick Spencer (MIT, 2001), and is reproduced with his permission. It is in the Schenectady Collection of the Schenectady County Public Library at Schdy R 711 Spe.]
Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in City Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2001
© 2001 Christopher Patrick Spencer. All Rights Reserved.
The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute paper and electronic copies of this document in whole or in part.
| Table of Contents | |
|---|---|
| Abstract | 3 |
| Acknowledgments | 5 |
| Introduction and Thesis Outline | 9 |
| Section I: Background on Downtowns | 15 |
| Chapter 1: Downtown Growth and Decline | 17 |
| Chapter 2: Schenectady's Downtown Story | 29 |
| Chapter 3: Character, Image, and Other Reasons Downtown is Important | 39 |
| Section II: Schenectady's Planning Background | 49 |
| Chapter 4: Urban Renewal and Yesterday's "Town of Tomorrow" | 51 |
| Chapter 5: Assumptions and Directions and an Overall Vision | 63 |
| Chapter 6: Rethinking the 22 Block Urban Renewal Project | 73 |
| Chapter 7: Other Projects to Learn From | 81 |
| Section III: Schenectady's Future | 93 |
| Chapter 8: A Tale of Two Downtowns | 95 |
| Chapter 9: Understanding Downtown's Direction | 103 |
| Chapter 10: New Initiatives for an Old Downtown | 117 |
| Findings and Conclusions | 135 |
| Chapter Endnotes | 145 |
| Bibliography | 155 |
| Illustration Credits | 161 |
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