Taubman College Robert Walsh received the HUD grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Walsh will use the funds toward his dissertation research on the Vancouver Urban Model, which, according to Walsh, has “recently emerged as an effective strategy for high density housing resulting in an urban environment that many people find desirable.” He asks, how is this approach to housing different from prior methods of high rise housing? How should it be modified to suit American cities and what factors restrict its full application in American cities?
With this grant, Walsh will travel to Vancouver and San Francisco to carry out “in-depth interviews with key participants including architects, builders, developers, and government officials; for observation of the actual context of structures being studied, and their resulting urban impact; and to confirm or refute claims which various authors have made regarding the quality and character of these different living environments.”
