Reimagining the Role of City Owned Assets as Multifunctional Infrastructure: Serving Community Needs Through Collaboration
Name
smith-aless252-mcp-dusp-2025-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
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16.54 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
1cb23beaa7570be181fb1f00a0171a64
Author(s)
Smith, Alessandra
Advisor(s)
Crockett, Karilyn
Date Issued
May 2025
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis investigates how city governments can reconceptualize infrastructure to reshape value creation for communities, using the City of Atlanta as a case study. By examining various departments and executive offices within Atlanta’s municipal structure, the research highlights the complexities of urban governance, where value is not uniformly defined or understood even within a single city. The central question guiding this work is: How can Atlanta’s city agencies collaborate across departments to identify opportunities to create more value through city-owned assets?
Through stakeholder interviews and a mapping of publicly owned assets, this thesis explores an alternative, strategic approach to infrastructure one that supports not only urban planners but also city practitioners seeking to enhance residents’ quality of life through a value-based lens. The study also acknowledges the often overlooked, expanded value of built assets, which remains difficult to capture through conventional metrics. In doing so, it argues for a broader, more inclusive understanding of infrastructure’s role in urban life.
This research offers a framework to view and explore infrastructure and values in a more comprehensive and holistic way compared to traditional methods. The framework centers strategy around prioritizing infrastructure planning, its relative outcomes, the spatial relationships and function of infrastructure, and the relationships that influence how people interact with infrastructure from a value-based lens.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
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