It is a planner's role to not only address the problems of a city, but to try to understand the city and its many components. Addressing these problems requires an in-depth awareness of the neighborhoods, communities and other cultural elements, which make up the city. Therefore, in its general sense, the purpose of this thesis is to understand a community setting in a deeper, more holistic fashion. This was completed though comparing the Villages of Mariemont and Fairfax in Ohio.There were several reasons as to why the Villages of Mariemont and Fairfax were chosen for this study, the overall theme being the differences present between the two communities, even though they reside in the same region. Thus, another purpose behind the study is to determine and analyze the nuances of the differences and thoroughly investigate the relationships present within the communities.
To gain a deeper understanding of the two communities, Henri Lefebvre's Triad of space is used to examine the mental (conceived), physical (perceived) and social (lived) facets that exist within a community space. Also, a framework for discovering both the perceived and lived layers were developed through synthesizing methods of observation and analysis as described by Kevin Lynch, Grady Clay, and Allen Jacobs. Through analyzing the relationships present in the conceived, perceived and lives layers of space, as well as the manner in which the layers of space interrelate, community themes and profiles are discovered and explored within each of the communities studied.