Browsing by Author "Kim, Kyunghee"

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    Radford Comprehensive Plan Updates: Radford Village Center and Foundry Industrial Area Conceptual Master Plans
    Gilboy, Elizabeth; Browning, Lara; Alsaiari, Hamad; Burg, Gardner; Kim, Kyunghee; Rosenberger, Jack (Virginia Tech. Community Design Assistance Center, 2015-06)
    The City of Radford is in the process of updating their 2009 Comprehensive Plan. As part of this process, several conceptual sketches that convey practical, yet visionary ideas for future development and redevelopment were needed. The city requested the Community Design Assistance Center’s help with this. The areas in need of conceptual sketches included the Radford Village Center and the Foundry Industrial Area, both located in the west end of the city.

    The Radford Village Center is located roughly parallel to the Norfolk and Western Railway, Bisset Park, and the New River. The Village Center area consists of several blocks southwest of the Memorial Bridge and contains the West End Downtown Historic District. Currently the area contains some vacant/underutilized lots. Many of these lots are located between the West Main Street businesses and the rail line.

    The city sees an opportunity to utilize this space to create a more usable open space for pedestrians and shop patrons as well as for limited infill development where appropriate. It is envisioned that the rear facades of these existing businesses will serve as “back porches” to a pedestrian friendly open space. The city requested that CDAC develop a master plan that takes advantage of the topography and river views. CDAC also looked at the potential for updating current parking in the area.

    The Foundry Industrial Area consists of approximately 140 acres situated between Bolling and Denby Streets along the New River. Historically, the area has been used for heavy industrial manufacturing. The site may soon be open for redevelopment and the city is considering the opportunity for a light industrial business park. The Design Center worked with the city to develop a master plan of this area that included conceptual building layout and character, proposed trails, sidewalk/streetscaping elements along Main Street, and a potential pedestrian connection from the site to a trail along the river.

    The following context map shows the locations of the two sites within the City of Radford, in relation to the New River, and Radford Village Center’s location near Bisset Park.
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    The Role of Leadership for Community Building and Community Garden Programs
    Kim, Kyunghee (Virginia Tech, 2020-04-27)
    Community gardens play a valuable role in creating places where people can socialize; share knowledge, experiences, and mutual interests; and improve food security. As previous research has shown, effective leadership is a prerequisite to community building in garden programs. However, relatively little research to date has examined the types of leadership and leadership practices that exist and work in community garden settings, and even less has focused on the role of leadership in facilitating social interactions and relationship building. This study aimed to gain a better understanding of leadership practices related to community building in the context of community gardens by exploring various stakeholders' perspectives on leadership. The primary purpose of this research was to: 1) explore knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding community building in different types of community gardens; 2) obtain a better understanding of stakeholders' views on leadership competencies and roles; 3) examine how informal leadership emerges and develops; and 4) identify how organizational structures and managerial schemes influence leadership practices and performance. Building upon transformational and adaptive leadership theories, this research focuses on the interactive process whereby leaders and various actors mutually influence each other to meet individual as well as organizational goals. This study employed a two-phase research design. The first phase consisted of collecting quantitative data through self-administered surveys from five groups of stakeholders – garden coordinators, executive directors, gardeners, representatives of allied organizations, and non-gardening neighbors – in four Virginia community garden programs located in Blacksburg, Salem, and Roanoke. The second phase entailed conducting semi-structured interviews with 21 participants and using cross-case analysis to interpret the results. The comparative case study included four community gardens characterized by different organizational structures and ties to their adjacent communities. The findings indicated that leadership performs an overarching role not only in fulfilling a garden program's mission, but also in facilitating social interactions and trust-based relationships between garden members and with wider communities. Good leadership practices in the context of community gardens implied engaging in inclusive and transparent communications with different entities on a regular basis and attending to the needs and motivations of each member. This study also shed light on the value of dedicated informal leaders to facilitate a garden's social function and to take on the maintenance and supervision of hands-on tasks on-site. Comparative analysis of the four cases revealed that different characteristics inherent to the community gardens, such as whether they are place-based or interest-based and whether their governance structure is formally or informally driven, are closely related to the leadership approaches that constitute best practices. These findings have implications for practitioners who organize and manage community organizations in a broader context, as well as community garden programs.