Academic literature on the topic 'Industrial districts – Indiana – Muncie'

This study has examined opportunities for reclaiming industrial brownfield sites for the communities that surround them, recreating derelict sites as community-oriented spaces that increase understanding of and restore pride in industrial and cultural heritage.The study consisted of two primary components. The first phase consists primarily of an exploration of the linkages between landscape/urban design and industrial heritage. This phase also examines and evaluates various design projects that have attempted to celebrate industrial heritage through the adaptive re-use of former industrial sites. The second phase of the study consists of the development of a master plan for the transformation of a derelict industrial site to a community space that interprets and celebrates industrial heritage. This phase includes researching the industrial heritage of Muncie, selecting an appropriate project site within the city, and developing a master plan for the reclamation of an industrial site by the community.A layered design strategy was developed for the selected site, with the end result being a master plan for a new public park. The three elements of the design strategy included industrial heritage, adaptive reuse, and improvements in the surrounding community.
Department of Landscape Architecture

The decline in patronage, decrease in building density, and loss in property values suffered by Downtown Muncie, Indiana is a result of competition from shopping malls. This deterioration will continue unless there is a concerted effort by citizens, property owners, and the city to promote commercial revitalization of this area.The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Street Center suggest that communities can achieve commercial revitalization through a four part program which combines organization, design, promotion, and economic restructuring. Mary Jo Ruccio of the National Development Council, suggests that commercial revitalization cannot be successful unless the approach includes a comprehensive plan that addresses a downtown's unique problems.In order to create a functional commercial revitalization strategy for Muncie's downtown, the commercial district's history was reviewed, the existing buildings were surveyed, published historic preservation plans and commercial revitalization plans ware reviewed, and a variety of funding sources were studied. These efforts led to the development of a commercial revitalization strategy that is patterned after the Main Street Center's program. A major component of this strategy is the Downtown Commercial Revitalization Network that is recommended to act as a steering committee for a Downtown Development Director whose sole purpose is to direct downtown revitalization. The strategy recommends residential adaptive-use of the second stories in downtown buildings to promote economic development, and to preserve the historic structures. Low-interest loans with design standards are recommended to provide funds to create this housing stock without damaging the historic fabric. This will supply downtown with regular customers, thus strengthening existing establishments, creating the need for new businesses downtown, and diversifying the economic base.This strategy can be applied to the current downtown revitalization efforts by the City of Muncie. The ideas and general theories can also be applied by small Indiana towns which suffer from economic problems. A comprehensive plan that is tailored specifically for a downtown which account for the organization, design, economic, and promotion needs of downtown will set the course for successful commercial revitalization.
Department of Architecture

A significant problem for small cities is a lack of a sense of community. In some multicultural cities, land use in such categories as residential, commercial, industrial and educational forms separate uses or locations. Such segregation leads ultimately to a city stagnation which eliminates the essential life of vibrant and healthy cities. People commute from zone to zone only when necessary. Each territory is connected by automobile. Therefore, there is no interrelation which can cause discontinuity and fragmentation. The business zones are vacant at night because nobody lives there. People in the residential zones have few public facilities and places for diverse activities outside their houses within an intimate distance. Nevertheless, to eliminate segregation is not an answer. Each function improves when segregated at a certain level, but it also requires a close interaction with the other functions in order to maintain its vibrancy.
Department of Architecture

There were two starting points for this Creative Project. First, the idea of integrating photography in the design process, not only as a means of later documentation, but as a creative tool. This is a relatively new and unexplored field, thus few resources about the topic could be found. However, I was sure that this unique approach to design was worth exploration and decided to pursue it.The other idea came from research on revitalization of downtown areas which was triggered by my initial confusion and reorientation in a different culture where so ma-iv of the characteristics of urbanity were missing that I was so used to. The changes that have occurred in America's historic centers today are usually considered unavoidable and have resulted in a lifeless downtown area that seems to be the normal status. I believe that this is not just the decay of an important district of the town but, more importantly, the total loss of communication on a human level where the spatial demands of the automobile have become more important than human interaction.With those two ideas in mind I was searching for a site that would fit both. I have been living in Muncie. Indiana, long enough to understand the daily routine of the town, and the search for ideas that would lead to a change here was constantly on my grind. After some research on the entire downtown area I found an appropriate site and developed a proposal that integrates both my ideas and creates a vision of what could be.
Department of Architecture

The industrial era in East Central Indiana began largely due to the discovery of gas, which in turn brought in many of the industries that would sustain the area during the gas boom and those years following the end of gas supplies. This thesis documents several surviving industrial buildings from the gas boom, including their history, the industrial processes that occurred in these buildings, the general factory layout, and finally the current status of the factories. Studying the industrial buildings from this period in Indiana history helps to shed light on the important role that these industries play in the development of the cities and towns in the gas belt. In addition to this, the thesis gives a documentation of one of Indiana’s rapidly disappearing resources.
Department of Architecture

This study examines the effects of homeownership, tenancy, and vacancy on the preservation of historic housing stock. Using six blocks within the Emily Kimbrough Historic District as my study area, I utilized city directories and deed transfers to determine the number of housing units each year as well as the percentages of ownership, tenancy, and vacancy for each home. I developed a rating system to assess the current condition of each home and completed statistical analysis of the association between ownership rates and current condition. The results of the study are a repeatable methodology for critically examining homeownership. The findings defy popular assumptions of the benefits of homeownership, showing no association between homeownership and present housing condition. The methodology of this study is useful in determining whether city governments should establish homeownership programs as a viable preservation strategy.
Department of Architecture

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
A foreign concept to most twenty-first century individuals, a saddletree provides support and acts as the framework to saddles, giving saddlers a base on which to add cushioning, stretch leather, and create beautiful or functional saddles. Saddletree factories were an integral part of Madison, Indiana’s late nineteenth-century economy. As one of the Ohio River town’s leading industries, saddletree shops employed approximately 125 men during 1879, Madison’s peak saddletree production year, and made Madison a national center of saddletree production. However, the industry faded into oblivion as the beginning of the twentieth century, leaving the men drawn to these shops in the 1870s and 1880s to find new opportunities. While past historians contributed to the fields of industrial and economic history by studying large industries engaged in mass production in major urban areas, Madison’s saddletree workers represent a view of nineteenth-century specialized production. This thesis examines the saddletree industry’s place in Madison during the late nineteenth century and the lives of saddletree workers during and after the industry’s peak. My findings, based off extensive digital research and tools utilized in earlier social mobility studies, create a nuanced view of Madison’s relationship to the saddletree industry, saddletree makers, and what the industry’s collapse meant to saddletree factory employees.

This chapter discusses the relationship between South Asian immigration and labor in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It analyzes experiences of two Indian Americans in Muncie, Indiana, one of whom is a doctor and other of whom is the spouse of a doctor. It situates their stories within the larger context of the deindustrialization of Muncie and the rise of a post-industrial society. It uses discourse analysis to describe how racial prejudice, social marginalization, and religious difference have affected the lives of immigrant working professionals and are embedded in the stories of daily life that the individuals share.