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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Urban political'
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1
Camacho, David E. "Chicano Urban Politics: The Role of the Political Entrepreneur." University of Arizona, Mexican American Studies and Research Center, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/218632.
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2
Nathan, Noah. "Electoral Politics Amid Africa's Urban Transition: A Study of Urban Ghana." Thesis, Harvard University, 2016. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493394.
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Africa is rapidly urbanizing. With so many African voters now living in cities, understanding African electoral politics now requires understanding the politics of urban areas. How does urbanization affect the accountability relationships between voters and politicians? Answering this question means answering a series of more specific empirical questions: what do urban voters want from the government? Which types of urban voters participate in politics and which do not? How do urban voters choose which candidates to support? How do politicians campaign in cities? Which types of urban voters do politicians seek to favor with state resources? %These are the core empirical questions examined in the dissertation.
Electoral politics in African cities received significant attention in the independence era, but little political science research has examined these cities in the contemporary democratic period. The small literature that has is largely supportive of modernization approaches. Modernization theories expect a series of socio-economic transformations created by urbanization to reduce the political importance of ethnicity and the prevalence of clientelism and other forms of patronage-based politics. But I argue that urbanization also simultaneously creates conditions that reinforce incentives for patronage distribution, clientelism, and ethnic voting. Scarcity in the provision of basic services in contexts of low state capacity encourages politicians to continue employing patronage-based appeals. This solidifies many voters' incentives to support ethnically-aligned parties and drives the new urban middle class away from active political participation, lowering pressure on urban politicians to engage in programmatic, policy-based competition.
I explore these incentives through a detailed study of Greater Accra, the largest metropolitan area in Ghana. I combine original survey data and survey experiments, fine-grained geo-coded census data, and extensive qualitative evidence to explore voters' policy preferences, vote choices, and patterns of political participation, as well as politicians' strategies in a cross-section of urban neighborhoods. The findings suggest that rather than pulling political competition in one direction, as modernization theories expect, urbanization in Africa instead moves political outcomes in multiple directions at once: reinforcing ethnic competition and clientelism in some neighborhoods, while undermining these forms of political competition in other neighborhoods within the same city at the same time. Studies of the effects of urbanization must recognize that these dual realities co-exist within African cities.
In addition to building our understanding of urban politics in Africa, the dissertation contributes to broader political science debates about the emergence of programmatic competition, determinants of political participation, patterns of distributive politics, the importance of neighborhood context, and the causes of ethnic political competition in new democracies.Government
3
Chan, Siu-mui. "Political economy of urban redevelopment in Hong Kong /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1995. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B14803963.
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4
Chan, Siu-mui, and 陳少梅. "Political economy of urban redevelopment in Hong Kong." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1995. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31258797.
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5
Locret-Collet, Martin Michel Georges. "Commoning our futures? : an anarchist urban political ecology." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2017. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7839/.
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One response to the increasing pressure of urban living is in the re-appropriation of public spaces and urban green to help sustain and enhance the environmental, social and cultural life of cities. But a major paradox arises here: while they are increasingly leaning on voluntarist discourses of sustainability, the pressure of privatization, the implementation of risk-based policies and the general principles of consumer-based urban economies only scarcely fit with the notion of common, public spaces, and hardly accommodate with the freedom of their users or their alternative or even subversive occupation. Using an explicitly anarchist analytical lens and based on extensive fieldwork in Birmingham and Belfast (UK) and Amsterdam (NL), this thesis uses an ethno-geographic approach, consisting mainly of documents and policy analysis, semi-structured interviews and field notes to replace urban green commons in their broader spatial, social and political networks. It demonstrates how sustainability is a consensual but ultimately undetermined political object. Emerging co-operative processes of environmental governance and stewardship are identified and traced to the development of a new category of actors and networks. The potential of urban green commons to foster more resilient, socially inclusive cities is assessed alongside the need for radically re-politicized urban environments.
6
Ostrove, Geoffrey Benjamin. "Towards a Political Economy of Urban Communication Technologies." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10142280.
Full textAbstract:
By the year 2050, about three quarters of the world’s population will live in cities. Most cities are developed by state or federal governments; however, some cities are developed for the purpose of private interests that plan the city. While the concept of private companies planning and sometimes even owning cities is not a new development, there seems to currently be a rise in this trend, with communication corporations such as IBM, Google, Intel, and Cisco now taking advantage of this growing market.
Known as “smart” or “wired” cities, this new privatized way of planning communities allows major communication corporations to play an important role in shaping the future of our communities. Google, IBM, and Intel are all playing a role in planning the future of Portland, Oregon. By analyzing documents such as planning ordinances, financial reports, and government transcripts, as well as conducting interviews with city planners and corporate employees, this study found that many of the “smart” city efforts being undertaken by these communication corporations are intimately tied to their efforts to bring the Internet of Things (IoT) to fruition. Ultimately, the main goal of these efforts is to utilize urban communication technologies (UCTs) to gather data about community members by tracking their activities. In this emerging personal data economy, identities are the main commodity being fetishized.
7
Neely, Runa. "Political Tolerance Amongst Swedish Rural and Urban Youth." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-374101.
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8
Lévêque, Christophe. "Four essays in urban economics and political economy." Thesis, Toulouse 1, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017TOU10007.
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Cette thèse contribue à l’étude des interactions entre individus au sein des villes. Plus concrètement, mes recherches se concentrent sur trois thèmes principaux – (1) la ségrégation résidentielle, (2) la politique locale, (3) et le comportement des agents immobiliers – qui sont étudiés au travers de quatre études empiriques. La littérature sur la ségrégation résidentielle analyse dans quelle mesure plusieurs groupes de population sont capables d’interagir au sein d’un espace. Malgré les nombreuses études sur ce sujet, les conséquences de l’industrialisation sur la diversité ou l’isolation intergroupes (religieux ou ethniques), restent peu connus. Le premier chapitre de cette thèse est co-écrit avec le professeur Saleh. Nous documentons les conséquences de deux vagues d’industrialisation sur la ségrégation résidentielle entre Musulmans et non-Musulmans dans la ville du Caire au XIXème siècle. L’ouverture et la fermeture de grandes manufactures d’Etat nous permet d’observer l'évolution de l’isolation intergroupe dans les quartiers les plus impactés par ces vagues d’industrialisation. Nous mettons ainsi en parallèle l’arrivée de travailleurs non-qualifiés (majoritairement Musulmans) dans ces quartiers avec l’évolution de l’isolation intergroupe mesurée au niveau local. Dans ce premier projet, nous montrons que des politiques instaurées au niveau des villes impactent la capacité qu’ont les individus d’interagir. A l’inverse, les relations entre individus peuvent impacter la politique et les prises de décisions au niveau local. Dans le second chapitre de cette thèse, je montre que les réseaux familiaux jouent également un rôle important dans ces élections dans les villes de plus de 3500 habitants. Plus de 40% des listes lors des élections municipales comptent plusieurs individus de la même famille. Par ailleurs, les électeurs semblent réagir à ces “réseaux familiaux”. En effet, les listes composées de plusieurs individus de la même famille obtiennent moins de voix que les listes dont aucun individu ne semble concourir avec un autre membre de sa famille. Je discute ensuite quelques mécanismes qui pourraient expliquer ce résultat et je montre qu’il ne se réduit pas au fait que seules les têtes de listes inefficaces utilisent leurs réseaux familiaux. Il est possible que les électeurs sanctionnent le risque de népotisme. Dans un autre chapitre (chapitre 3), j’étudie les émissions de permis de construire au sein des villes et montre que les individus qui ont soutenus la majorité municipale durant les élections de 2008 obtiennent plus de permis de construire pour de nouveaux logements que ceux ayant soutenus d’autres listes. Je discute des mécanismes pouvant générer ce résultat. Les incitations des politiciens locaux semblent cruciales, notamment celles liées à la compétition politique. La différence d’obtention de permis de construire est par exemple plus importante dans les villes avec une faible compétition politique. Le dernier chapitre de cette thèse étudie le comportement des agents immobiliers. Des études précédentes (Levitt et Syverson (2008) notamment), illustrent le problème d’agence entre agents immobiliers et vendeurs. Les premiers souhaitent vendre plus rapidement (et donc peut-être moins cher) que les derniers. En conséquent, les agents pourraient souhaiter biaiser leurs estimations de la valeur des biens afin de convaincre les vendeurs de diminuer leurs prix. Dans un travail mené conjointement avec le professeur Cherbonnier, nous montrons qu’une augmentation de la concurrence peut partiellement résoudre ce problème. Les agents estiment les biens immobiliers à des valeurs supérieurs lorsqu’ils sont en concurrence, ce qui se traduit par des prix de mises en vente et des prix de vente plus élevés. A l’inverse, plus de coordination entre agents immobiliers impacte négativement les prixThe aim of this thesis is to contribute to the study of interactions among individuals within cities. It contains four empirical case studies which reflect a focus on three main themes. Namely, (1) residential segregation, (2) local politics and (3) the behavior of real estate agents. The literature on residential segregation investigates the extent to which different population groups living in the same area are able to interact with each other. Within this branch of studies, the impact of industrialization and labor market shocks on the diversity of neighborhoods and inter-group segregation remains an open question. It is the key question of the first chapter of this thesis, which is co-authored with professor Saleh. We document the consequences of two early industrialization waves on the residential segregation between Muslims and non-Muslims in nineteenth century Cairo. These early industrialization waves led to the opening and closure of large state firms. We relate changes in inter-group isolation to the massive arrival of unskilled workers who were predominantly Muslims in the proximity of these state firms. Through this first project, we show that policies enacted within cities affect the ability of individuals to interact. Conversely, relationships among individuals have an impact on local politics. For instance, Vignon (2014) recalls that in small villages, rivalries between persons and families play an important role during French municipal elections. In the second chapter, I show that family networks play an important role during these elections, even in large cities. It appears that more than 40% of lists competing during municipal elections in cities with more than 3,500 inhabitants are composed by several individuals from the same family. Moreover, voters seem to react when several members of the same family are registered on the same lists: these lists obtain fewer votes than lists which do not rely on family networks. I discuss several mechanisms which can explain this finding and I show that it does not reduce to a selection issue whereby only inefficient list leaders rely on family networks. On the contrary, it is possible that voters sanction risks of nepotism. In another chapter (chapter 3), I study whether the emission of building permits is biased in favor of individuals who supported the mayor during the municipal elections of 2008. I find that political supporters of municipal majorities (and their families) obtain more building permits than political supporters of other lists. I discuss whether this result is related to sorting of individuals among lists of candidates and how it is related to incentives of local politicians. I find that the difference in the obtaining of building permits is exacerbated in cities with a low level of political competition. Finally, the last chapter of this thesis focuses on the behavior of real estate agents. Previous investigations (such as, for instance, Levitt and Syverson, 2008) detect an agency problem between real-estate agents and sellers. The former group prefers to sell housings faster (and cheaper) than the latter one. As a consequence, agents might be tempted to minimize housing values when they give advices to sellers. In a joint work with professor Cherbonnier, we show that competition may partly solve this agency problem and that, on the contrary, ability to coordinate leads real-estate agents to minimize housing values, which translate into lower listing and selling prices
9
Ostrove, Geoffrey. "Towards a Political Economy of Urban Communication Technologies." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/20514.
Full textAbstract:
By the year 2050, about three quarters of the world’s population will live in cities. Most cities are developed by state or federal governments; however, some cities are developed for the purpose of private interests that plan the city. While the concept of private companies planning and sometimes even owning cities is not a new development, there seems to currently be a rise in this trend, with communication corporations such as IBM, Google, Intel, and Cisco now taking advantage of this growing market.
Known as “smart” or “wired” cities, this new privatized way of planning communities allows major communication corporations to play an important role in shaping the future of our communities. Google, IBM, and Intel are all playing a role in planning the future of Portland, Oregon. By analyzing documents such as planning ordinances, financial reports, and government transcripts, as well as conducting interviews with city planners and corporate employees, this study found that many of the “smart” city efforts being undertaken by these communication corporations are intimately tied to their efforts to bring the Internet of Things (IoT) to fruition. Ultimately, the main goal of these efforts is to utilize urban communication technologies (UCTs) to gather data about community members by tracking their activities. In this emerging personal data economy, identities are the main commodity being fetishized.
10
O'Toole, Barbara Maria. "Differentiation and coherence in urban policy : the impact of locality on Urban Development Corporations." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.241556.
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11
Beck, Matthias P. (Matthias Peter). "The political economy of dismissals." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/11043.
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12
Staley, Samuel R. "Urban planning and economic development : a transaction-cost approach." Connect to resource, 1997. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1261247325.
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13
Kalle, Filippa. "Urbana utmaningar : Svensk urban marginalisering i ett komparativt perspektiv." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-323008.
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Events of social unrest and violent crime increasingly draws attention to the urban periphery of Swedish cities. Media and politicians depict a homogenized image of the suburbs as problem estates and ‘no-go zones’. This aggravates the urban integration process as well as creates a stigma for the individual resident. This could lead to misconceptions among the decision makers and policies based on skew presumptions. Urban marginalization is part of the consequences of political priorities. Despite this fact, there is a lack of research on urban marginalization in Sweden. Studying also the negative consequences of policies is one of the most important missions of political science. Accepting this challenge, this study uses Loïc Wacquant’s analytical concepts ghetto and anti-ghetto, to chart the structure and function of marginalized suburbs in Sweden. This analysis, which is more systematic than Wacquant’s original study, shows that Swedish suburbs can be classified as anti-ghetto, which gives reason to question the homogenized media image and gives important insights for future urban policy. Applying Wacquants theory on the Swedish case also means testing his claim that all Western European cities can be classified as anti-ghetto. The study finds that anti-ghetto is a fruitful concept for the understanding of Swedish marginalization. Consequently Wacquants assertion is strengthened, thus this study constitutes another proof European cities are not converging the American ghetto. Thereby this study makes a substantial contribution to Wacquant’s project of creating a comparative sociology of urban marginality.
14
Ho, Bo-shan, and 何寶山. "State policy and urban politics in Hong Kong: a mode of production analysis." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1990. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31976256.
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Ho, Bo-shan. "State policy and urban politics in Hong Kong : a mode of production analysis /." [Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong], 1990. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B13008912.
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16
McCray-McCall, Denise. "Embodying Politics and Administration: The World of Political Appointee in Municipal Government." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1199384965.
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17
Elder, Dennis Samuel. "Media Influence in Urban Government." W&M ScholarWorks, 1987. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625399.
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18
McKeown, K. "A critique of Marxist urban studies." Thesis, University of Manchester, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.374802.
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19
Yilmaz, Begum. "Political And Legal Documents For Ensuring Sustainable Urban Transportation." Master's thesis, METU, 2011. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12613773/index.pdf.
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Principle of sustainability, as in all areas, is becoming a major issue in urban transportation planning all around the world. Urban transportation political and legal documents are statutory basis of urban transportation plans and projects and developed countries have established urban transportation political and legal documents to ensure that local governments implement plans and projects in line with the sustainability principle. In this thesis, it is intended to analyze the sufficiency of central government&rsquos political and legal documents on urban transportation in Turkey in realizing the sustainability of urban transportation plans and projects. For this aim, political and main legal documents of sustainable urban transportation in United States of America (USA) and United Kingdom (UK), which is accepted as one of the leaders in the world about sustainable transportation, are analyzed. Based on this analysis a checklist has been produced, highlighting headings for sustainable urban transportation that should be present in a country&rsquo
s political and legal documents in order to guide and perhaps enforce local governments. Then this checklist has been applied to Turkey to determine strengths and weaknesses of political documents and legislations in Turkey with regards to sustainable urban transportation. A comparative analysis has also been carried out with Turkey, USA and UK under three main headings which are policy documents
guidance papers for local governments, acts and laws
and nation-wide studies. As a result, strengths and weaknesses about political and legal basis of sustainable urban transportation in Turkey have been illustrated and recommendations were made for Turkey to adopt guidance papers and legislations.
20
Minson, Stuart James. "Political culture and urban space in early Tudor London." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:772f1413-c1e7-4871-8277-3b44913e129c.
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This thesis examines political culture in London, 1500–1550, by looking at different forms of political communication between the civic government and the city’s inhabitants, and at how these acts were situated within the urban environment. Based on the records of the civic government, the body of the work is divided into two halves addressing those acts conducted by the authorities – proclamations, processions, public punishments – and those directed towards the civic government by others, such as petitions, libels, and seditious talk. The study of these acts reveals two important things: first, that they were not only pragmatic attempts to communicate information, but also performances designed either to construct or contest particular images of authority; secondly, that these performances were spatially structured and that the urban environment was an integral aspect of the city’s political culture. It is then demonstrated that, just as political communication was inherently performative and spatial, so the urban environment was itself a medium of political communication. These observations highlight the importance of political communication to an understanding of the city’s political culture as depicted in the historiography of early modern London. At the same time, recent scholarship on the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has identified an increasingly distinctive culture in towns typified by attitudes to political authority as communal and contingent, and to social identity as performative and self-fashioned. In London in particular, historians have pointed to a radical transformation in the city’s political culture in reaction to dramatic urban growth after 1550. The spatial aspect of this, however, has been neglected. It is argued here that the inherently political nature of urban space and its communicative potential, already in existence, was integral to changing urban values and part of what made rapid change in London after 1550 a politically traumatic and transformative process.
21
Martin, Justin D. Johnston Anne. "News consumption & political socialization among young, urban Jordanians." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,2556.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009.Title from electronic title page (viewed Oct. 5, 2009). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication." Discipline: Journalism and Mass Communication; Department/School: Journalism and Mass Communication, School of.
22
Marks, Daniel. "An Urban Political Ecology of the 2011 Bangkok Floods." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/15749.
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This thesis challenges the dominant approach to examining flooding through a case study of the 2011 Bangkok floods. The alternative approach developed here views floods not only as outcomes of biophysical processes but also as products of political decisions, economic interests, and power relations. This approach illustrates how vulnerability to floods, which is a combination of exposure to floods and capacity to cope with them, and the extent to which floods are a disaster, are uneven at multiple scales across geographical and social landscapes. Using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, the thesis investigates how state actors and socioeconomic processes affect the production of vulnerability to flooding. The study addresses theoretical and empirical gaps in earlier studies through its multi-temporal and multi-scalar approach to a major disaster. Little research in Southeast Asia, and thus in Thailand, analyses disasters from an in-depth urban political ecology (UPE) perspective before, during, and after the event. This thesis argues that floods in Bangkok are the result of human-nature interactions over time, particularly over the last half-century. While the Chao Phraya River Basin received heavy rainfall in 2011, a number of human activities interacted with that rainfall to create the floods. Bangkok’s dense urbanisation heightened resident's collective exposure while the pattern of urbanisation caused vulnerability to floods to become more imbalanced both spatially and socioeconomically. The historical development of the water system of the basin reflected primarily the interests of elites, which further heightened the collective vulnerability to flooding of those living in Bangkok. During the floods, both politicians and bureaucrats made decisions on how dams and water gates were managed to protect the interests of farmers. These varied decisions caused more water to flow downstream. Fragmentation and conflicting interests among state actors, patronage incentives, and technical weaknesses enervated the state’s response. Once the water reached Bangkok, state actors undertook various actions, such as closing water gates, erecting temporary dykes, and diverting water, which created new inequalities in terms of those who were exposed. Reflecting Bangkok’s socioeconomic and political inequalities, communities in the peri-urban fringes, particularly slum communities, were heavily inundated. These communities experienced the highest flood levels and for the longest duration, whereas the inner city of Bangkok was protected and remained dry. During the floods, many local leaders and residents collectively challenged these injustices by various forms of protest, somewhat reshaping the spatiality of the floods and reducing their vulnerability. Subsequent to the floods, for the most part, state agencies have not addressed underlying drivers of vulnerability to floods. Due to unchanging power geometries, state responses merely reproduced the proposed solutions and associated economic and environmental injustices of the past, while also creating new patterns of uneven exposure. Overall, placing the role of the state as central in it analysis, the UPE analysis made in this thesis provides a nuanced understanding of how state actors together with unequal socioeconomic processes have mostly reinforced each other and have created uneven and unjust vulnerabilities to flooding across several spatial and temporal scales.
23
Choueiri, Joanne. "On Holes: Finding Political Holes in the Urban Fabric." Thesis, Griffith University, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/418257.
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Urbicide, as redefined by Coward (2008), is destructive violence aimed at architecture and the urban fabric. While the reasons behind urbicide can be attributed to war, gentrification or militarisation of the city, this research proposes the notion of ‘political holes’ as another form of violence. Within this proposal, the political hole is to be understood as a physical and psychological hole created through a building’s demolition as a result of an intentional, unethical and political decision exercised by specific actors away from wartime. The results affect people’s experience of the city and their understanding of it. By investigating how unethical political holes are created and the reasons behind them, this research contributes to unfolding how political holes alter the understanding of the urban fabric through their experience as physical holes and through their memory. Drawing on Van Gennep (1960) and Turner’s (1969) ‘liminality’, Casati and Varzi’s (1994) definition of the hole and Coward’s framing of urbicide, this contribution proposes to identify and frame ‘unethical political holes’ in the urban fabric by focusing on two case studies: Beirut (Lebanon) and Brisbane (Australia). Through archival research, mapping strategies – namely physical and digital mapping, walking practices and interviews, the ambiguous, material and ephemeral political holes are seen, mapped and given presence in the city. They are then uncovered not as mere empty lots but as traces of a history of urbicide with a particular lifespan: a temporality that manifests through their changing physicality and instances of functionality. Their accumulation, collection, analysis and classification into a final archive result in a new reading of the city that seeks to question the architectural archive processes and the built contents of these archives while unveiling the hidden stigma of spatial violence.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Eng & Built Env
Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology
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Wan, Pengfei, and 萬鵬飛. "An institutional analysis of Chinese urban local governance: case studies of Urban ResidentialCommittees." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2000. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31241116.
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Chidambaram, Soundarya. "Welfare, Patronage, and the Rise Of Hindu Nationalism in India's Urban Slums." The Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1325189441.
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26
Faber, Jacob William. "Technology-enabled political empowerment." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34410.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-101).
Political participation and community involvement in the United States have declined steadily and significantly over the past four decades, and some attribute the fall to new media, such as television and the Internet. This thesis is a study of new technologies and their impact on political and community involvement. I-Neighbors.org is a technology allowing individuals register a free website and email list for their neighborhood. Through a particular feature of I-Neighbors called GovLink users can contact their elected officials for free. This thesis is based on a study of the behavior of I-Neighbors and GovLink users, looking for evidence that these technologies affect community involvement and political participation. Data gathered through surveys, the United States Census, and a short case study shows that new media can have a profound impact on community dialogue and political involvement.
by Jacob William Faber.
S.M.
27
Hughes, Frank R. "Economic and spatial transformations in Atlanta : a political economy approach." Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/20858.
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28
Lou, Diqing. "Political participation and transformation in urban China, 1993 and 2002." Diss., Texas A&M University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/85960.
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My dissertation examines political participation in non-democratic countries.
Specifically, it looks into China's urban political participation in the past decade and
examines how Chinese urban citizens are mobilized to participate in politics when an
authoritarian regime has been experiencing dramatic economic change. The theoretic
question of this dissertation is the evolvement of state-society relations during the
economic development and how the change of the state-society relationship is reflected
in individual behavior. I found that while the social context such as the workplace served
as fundamental grassroots institution to mobilize citizens' political participation in the
early 1990s, China's urban political participation has shifted to lean more and more on
individual resources.
Political participation in non-democratic regimes is a unique and rapidly
developing field in the studies of political behavior. Scholars studying citizens' political
participation in USSR and China have long noted that political participation in an
authoritarian regime is mobilized and controlled by the state and citizens are organized by the state to participate in politics to provide for regime legitimacy. In the dissertation
I tested this paradigm within the context of China's economic development.
The data I employ are the 1993 China's Social Mobility and Social Change
Survey and the 2002 Asian Barometer Survey. Both data sets contain highly congruent
batteries of questions on citizens' political behavior and political attitudes that provide
the basis of comparison across time. The data sets were collected across China in 1993
and 2002 respectively representing the population of adult residents (excluding Tibet).
The comparison of urban political participation in the past decade exhibited a
general and measurable decline of citizens' participation in the economic reform. I found
Chinese citizens' political participation has shifted largely from the pattern of
"grassroots-state-mobilization" to "individual-voluntary-mobilization" during the
economic reform. I argue that this is largely resulted from the change of state-society
relations as individual citizens are granted with more autonomy in political liberalization
and become less dependent on the state for economic sources.
29
Hong, Jihak. "Walling political conflicts : an urban archetype for the Demilitarized Zone." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91403.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2014.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 127-131).
Polarity in political ideologies within the Korea Peninsula has left a heavily militarized infrastructure, called the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The no man's land is a thickly belted corridor on the Korean peninsula that demarcates North Korea from South Korea, incorporating territory on both sides of the cease-fire line and being created by retreating 2km along each side of the line. For these political reasons, it has remained almost untouched for some six decades since the cessation of warfare in 1953, which has made it one of the most pristine undeveloped areas in Asia. While recent efforts to develop the DMZ into an ecology park are on the rise, this thesis is intended to seek a strategy for initiating a buffer city between the two Koreas. As is well known in the case of the Kaesong Industrial Park near the DMZ, operated as a collaborative economic development between South and North Korea, this territory has oscillated between shutdowns and reopenings because of political fluctuations. This thesis asks, what if a city in the DMZ confronts a political situation where it is impossible to secure permanent settlements? The thesis aims to propose a new urban archetype in which political ideologies are able to coexist along with their inevitable conflicts. The strategy of the proposition is two-fold. First, the DMZ city needs to accommodate two different political systems, communism and capitalism.This implies that the city should not be made of one consistent system. The second is that because of its extremely unstable military situation, the DMZ city needs to have a different city structure according to the change of political risks, repeatedly alternating between abandonment and reoccupation. Through the exploration of the DMZ, entangled with political issues under the pressure of uncertainty, this study has tried to explore a new archetype for the political city, the wall and enclave, where different ideologies are co-existing through revealing their conflicts.
by Jihak Hong.
S.M.
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Roy, Anurupa. "The Political Economy of the New Urban Development in India." The Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1398793897.
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Penpecioglu, Mehmet. "The Political Construction Of Urban Development Projects: The Case Of Izmir." Phd thesis, METU, 2012. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614522/index.pdf.
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Urban Development Projects (UDPs) have become hegemonic projects of redefining urban political priorities. The political construction of UDPs could not only be investigated through analyzing capital accumulation processes. To reveal how UDPs are politically constructed, this thesis investigates how governmental and non-governmental agents form a hegemonic block to mobilize hegemonic discursive practices and coercive-legislative mechanisms in the formation of UDPs. A Lefebvrian-inspired neo-Gramscian theoretical perspective is formulated to overcome eco nomic determinist and voluntarist agent-oriented approaches. Critical realist methodology is adopted with combining deductive and inductive strategies and qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first stage of research, the thesis critically and comparatively reviews the politics of different UDPs from different countries and then deduces initial arguments from this review. In the second stage, these arguments are reconsidered in the light of the empirical evidence of the case study. New City Center and Inciralti Tourism Center Development Projects from Izmir are investigated in the case study through critical discourse analysis, questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The case study reveals how governmental and non-governmental agents collaborate to mobilize public support and consent for UDPs. The concept of &ldquocapacity to produce consent&rdquo
is proposed to theorize hegemonically constructed discourses, activities and relations of governmental and non-governmental a gents. However this hegemonically constructed capacity is no t the only base of political power. Legislative interventions operate as coercive mechanisms and play key roles in the implementation of UDPs. UDPs are politically constructed by the complementary relation and differential articulation of hegemonically constructed capacities and coercive-legislative mechanisms.
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Medeiros, Anthony III. "Land wars : the political economy of Nigeria's displacement crisis." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105061.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2016.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 83-88).
"They were burning our houses in the night. We lost everything. Then the policeman came, and the people thought they were here for our security. Until they started shooting." - Resident of Ilu Birin, Lagos, Nigeria. Evicted to make room for a luxury high-rise. By all accounts, the world has entered a modern displacement crisis. Unprecedented millions have been uprooted from their homes by armed conflict, disaster, and land grabs. The traumatic impact of forced displacement is well documented. Yet the initial displacing event is typically only the beginning. Once displaced persons are forced out, they encounter a maze of institutional arrangements that will determine their fate. National and state borders, decades-old international conventions, land and property regimes, and the varied logics of humanitarian response all circumscribe the experience of displacement. These institutions govern assistance allocations, the prospects for legal redress, and even who lives and dies. With the stakes so high, we are compelled to ask: do these existing mechanisms correctly identify and protect the most vulnerable? In this thesis I examine Nigeria's forced migration epidemic as an illustrative case. Nigeria faces twin displacement crises. The Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast has displaced more than 2.3 million people, both internally and across national borders. Meanwhile, development projects have displaced another estimated 2 million. The conflictinduced migration is well-documented in secondary literature. This study complements it through fieldwork in ten communities displaced by development projects in Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Ogoniland. Victims of land grabs and forced evictions in Nigeria face violence, homelessness, joblessness, family separation, food insecurity, increased disease morbidity, and disruptions to children's education. Through a comparison of the institutional responses to this crisis, I interrogate existing displacement governance regimes, and begin to evaluate possible alternatives.
by Anthony Medeiros, III.
M.C.P.
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Loveluck, Juan Carlos. "The redevelopment of Columbia Point : financing a political imperative." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/68226.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1986.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH
Bibliography: leaves 74-76.
by Juan Carlos Loveluck.
M.C.P.
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Mack, Jennifer Shannon 1973. "Dockings : transitional housing for political refugees, Stockholm, Sweden." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/68390.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture; and, (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-161).
Inside its cocoon, a caterpillar changes slowly, transforming from one state of being to another over time, but always maintaining its fundamental essence and its origins. Similarly, a move from one place to another- whether by force or by choice, whether between nation-states or between cities-is a process of metamorphosis that happens individually for people with distinct and continuous identities. When they migrate, newcomers must learn the rules, both spoken and unspoken, that define and delineate the unfamiliar society; for refugees, any period of assimilation is also likely to include the need for recovery from involuntary losses and psychological traumas that may have been both the motivation for leaving and part of the journey. This is a process that takes emotion, energy, and, of course, time. This thesis understands this moment in the life of a migrant as one of extreme tension, and the cocoon's analogue- the physical space in which the transformation takes place- as the vessel in which it occurs. Through an examination of the government-distributed, transitional housing (genomgångsbostäder) for refugees living in Stockholm, Sweden, the thesis will clarify the psychological and social roles of this housing in the process of integration and illustrate the importance of its physical form to its successes and failures. The proposed strategy engages these questions and offers an alternative approach to their solution. The centerpoint of the proposal is the kitchen, where food, a vehicle for reproducing cultural memories, is prepared and initial social contacts are made. The project also seeks to activate its users- from the initial moment of moving in to the memories left behind when moving out-empowering them instead of creating dependencies. Finally, it attempts to establish ties between residents and outsiders by creating points of both concentrated and random interaction in semi-public and public spaces. As a transitional space, a rite of passage, and a place where regrounding can occur, the housing provides a temporary shelter and point of recovery from the vertigo of forced migration.
Jennifer Shannon Mack.
M.C.P.
M.Arch.
35
Anthony, Robert Michael. "PRIMACY AND POLITY: THE ROLE OF URBAN POPULATION IN POLITICAL CHANGE." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1250217691.
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Withington, Philip John. "Urban political culture in later-seventeenth-century England : York, 1649-1688." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/251471.
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Pan, Xi. "THE LABOR MARKET, POLITICAL CAPITAL, AND OWNERSHIP SECTOR IN URBAN CHINA." UKnowledge, 2010. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/788.
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Over the past three decades, economic reforms have brought about dramatic changes in China. The wave of structural and economic reforms regarding the State-owned Sector (SOS), and the surge of the Non-State-owned Sector (NSOS), have influenced returns in the labor market, such as the returns concerning human capital and political capital in urban China. Presumably, the NSOS would be more marketed-oriented compared to the SOS, and it would have different returns concerning political capital, as represented by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) membership. This is likely because the NSOS would not value Party membership as much as the SOS does. The question of how Party membership is rewarded in the two sectors might also change with the development of the two ownership sectors, as more time passes since the establishment of the economic reforms.
I examine whether CCP members display any earnings advantage in these two sectors, and I also explore how such an advantage might have changed over time. Unlike most of the previous studies that have focused on earnings in urban China, I treat Party membership affiliation and ownership sector selection as being endogeneous. I apply the Mlogit -OLS two-stage selection correction estimation proposed by Lee (1983) and discover evidence which suggests that Party membership serves as a proxy for both political and productive skills. A flat Party premium in the SOS and a decreasing Party premium in the NSOS suggest that the Party card served a similar function in the payment scheme present in the SOS during this three year span, whereas the NSOS valued political capital by a decreasing amount over time.
The evidence presented in my dissertation indicates that economic reforms tend to mitigate the earning advantage of Party members that occurs as a result of unequal treatment based on Party membership. This evidence suggests that CCP membership is losing its earning power, at least in the NSOS. In addition, the CCP members sacrifice the benefits previously possessed in the adaptation to the transformed economic environment in urban China. However, the rewards to other forms of human capital have increased over time.
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Ma, Fook-tong Stephen, and 馬福棠. "Urban neighbourhood mobilizations in the changing political scenes of Hong Kong." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1986. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31974843.
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Yeung, Chi Wai. "Urban redevelopment in late colonial Hong Kong : a socio-political analysis." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.319958.
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The importance of land to the economy of Hong Kong lies in the fact that land sales are a major source of revenue to the colonial state. A continuous supply of land for private property development is essential for the survival of the colony's capitalist economy. If, for whatever reason, the supply of land is blocked, the developers, the state and the economy of Hong Kong as a whole will suffer. The failure of the market to release land in the old urban areas for redevelopment has forced the Hong Kong State to step in. The attempts, however, have been largely unsuccessful due mainly to the difficulties in land acquisition and the strong resistance from the affected residents. In 1987 the state established the Land Development Corporation [LDC] to intervene in the urban redevelopment process. The author argues that the LDC is basically a socio-political strategy serving the function of political legitimation for state intervention. The LDC can be regarded as a piece of state apparatus for providing the necessary means of intervention in the urban redevelopment process in order to ensure the release of land to private developers for profit making redevelopment projects (capital accumulation). At the same time it serves as a buffer to distance the state from being in direct conflict with the affected communities in the urban redevelopment process. However, if the conflict is a structural one inherent in the capitalist logic of development, the conflict will eventually be directed back to the state. The LDC will simply add one more layer to the administrative procedure in the redevelopment process. By conducting empirical studies on four of the LDC's redevelopment schemes during the period 1988-1992, with particular focus on the interactions between the affected communities and the LDC/the state, the author examines the role of the LDC so as to demystify the social reality of urban redevelopment in Hong Kong.
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Siddiqi, Faizan Jawed. "Governing urban land : the political economy of the ULCRA in Mumbai." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81153.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-112).
In this thesis, I look at the political economy of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act (ULCRA) in Mumbai, India. Enacted in 1976, the stated aim of this legislation was to prevent speculation in the urban land market, and to make land available for affordable housing. The legislation imposed a "ceiling" on the amount of vacant land individuals could hold in urban areas. During the years it was in effect (1976-2007), almost all excess vacant land in the Mumbai agglomeration was exempted under the Act. Current literature posits that ULCRA failed to achieve its objective because politicians and bureaucrats were self-motivated rent-seekers, who were not interested in socially just redistribution of urban land. In 2007, using a conditional intergovernmental transfer scheme, the Central Government forced the State Government of Maharashtra to repeal ULCRA. I argue that current literature offers at best broad generalizations of the reasons ULCRA failed to achieve its objective in Mumbai. Through an in-depth analysis of the working of ULCRA in Mumbai, I show that it was never implemented as originally intended. Also, I show that ULCRA was frustrated by a number of deficiencies in institutions such as the lack of political will to take proactive action, capacity and cohesiveness in the bureaucracy, and amendments in other enabling statutes, to name a few. Seen from this perspective, it is incorrect to assume, as the current national urban development policy does, that a turn to market-led development in urban land markets will yield better results in delivering affording housing for the urban poor. Further, by analyzing the political economy of ULCRA's repeal, I show that under certain conditions, Central Government intervention may be a necessary step to protect interests of the poor. However, Central Government intervention needs to be designed keeping in mind the "why" and the "how", to ensure that the intervention's does not become dead letter, or redundant. I conclude with the dilemmas development planners are likely to face when designing laws and regulations in developing countries that feature a thinly institutionalized state, and a weak democracy.
by Faizan Jawed Siddiqi.
M.C.P.
41
McCaffery, Peter. "The evolution of an urban political machine : Republican Philadelphia, 1867-1933." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1989. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1091/.
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The persistence of the classic duel between reform and bossism as the dominant theme in the literature on American urban politics has been subject to increasing criticism in recent years. This conflict, it is now argued, provides an inadequate framework in helping us to understand the complexity of American municipal development. While accepting that initiatives suggesting alternative ways of viewing urban politics are long overdue, such efforts, in my view, can only achieve their purpose if they are based on an accurate understanding of the role that the political machine has played in the American city. Unfortunately the consensus that prevails in the abundant literature on this political institution fails to provide just such an understanding. In particular the existing literature fails to furnish satisfactory answers to such key questions as, How do we account for the emergence of the political machine. What functions did it fulfill in the American city. To what extent did so-called "bosses" control party organisations and city governments. Which sections of the urban population supported the machine and why. The aim of this thesis is to address these questions using the Republican political machine (or "Organisation") in Philadelphia as the model for inquiry. The thesis is divided into two parts, the first of which shows that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, an over-riding cleavage between well-organised machine and reform forces did not dominate party politics in Philadelphia in the period prior to 1887. The second half argues that, contrary to received wisdom, a fully fledged political machine did not emerge as the dominant force in the government and politics of the city until the turn of the century. This development is attributed not to the influx of poor immigrants to the city, but to changes in the organisation and structure of Philadelphia's political and economic system, and the ability of the new (internally) consolidated political machine to overwhelm its (external) electoral opponents including its principal opposition the nonpartisan reform movement. It is also argued that the machine, rather than being the natural functional substitute for government that its apologists have traditionally maintained, did in fact function as a blight on the system of government in Philadelphia.
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Murray, De lopez Jenna. "Becoming (m)other : political economy and maternal transition in urban Chiapas." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2016. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/becoming-mother-political-economy-and-maternal-transition-in-urban-chiapas(c023a170-3294-4e15-b783-ef3a0ec0a4cf).html.
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Based upon fieldwork in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, South East Mexico, this thesis is about how mestiza women in a low-income barrio become mothers. As such, it is an engagement with theories of embodiment, maternal subjectivity, transformation of self and gendered modernities. The chapters are intended to evoke discussion around the roles that mestiza women, the wider Mexican society and the state play in simultaneously embracing and rejecting constructed notions of the good mother. Competing notions of good motherhood come about through local practices and ideals, and also through discourses of risk and global health. The thesis is structured so that the corporeal processes of maternity (pregnancy, birth and nurturing) provide a common and interlinking theme which also demonstrate maternal transition as a life event akin to others. In doing so, this thesis is ultimately about the way in which gendered beings experience change. I intend this thesis to be both a political and theoretical project which highlights the lives of a community of women in a particular moment in their history. This thesis provides further evidence for the need to formulate new global theories of change that foreground gender in global processes. The women I met during fieldwork, and whose narratives have shaped the direction of this thesis, show that when individuals have recourse to a mixed economy of health care and are not reliant on state intervention, it can result in an outcome that better meets with the woman’s expectations. Women’s combined use of lay and clinical services reveal ways in which they make active attempts to avoid negative pre and postnatal experiences. In doing so, they embody a maternal identity that is deeply rooted in local ways of being-in-the-world. By managing the process of maternity more akin to local ways of thinking about gendered personhood, the women reveal how social change is both assimilated and contested in daily life.
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Schmidt-Sane, Megan M. "Men Managing Uncertainty: The Political Economy of HIV in Urban Uganda." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1586773970545217.
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Ma, Fook-tong Stephen. "Urban neighbourhood mobilizations in the changing political scenes of Hong Kong." [Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong], 1986. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B12324383.
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Lynch, Patrick (Patrick Michael). "Political obstacles to adopting congestion pricing in New York City." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59754.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 48-51).
In April 2007, New York City's Mayor Bloomberg released PlaNYC, a broad ranging set of planning initiatives for the city. A centerpiece of the plan was a congestion-pricing proposal for the downtown core in Manhattan. The proposal had the backing of key political figures, federal funding, and broad popular support, yet in failed to clear the state assembly without even getting a vote. The failure of Bloomberg's proposal is instructive not only to New York and other cities considering congestion pricing, but also to proponents of a broad range of sustainability initiatives. This thesis argues that specific aspects of the mayor's proposal created easily identifiable opponents unified on geographic lines, specifically in the outer boroughs of New York City. Further, the planning process failed to appease enough of these opponents or build a winning coalition to enact the policy. New York City is a challenging institutional environment, and in this setting, coalition building becomes even more important.
by Patrick Lynch.
M.C.P.
46
Acosta, Daniel Anthony. "Beyond community participation--Hispanic political and leadership development in Massachusetts." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62901.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1991.Vita.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-80).
by Daniel Anthony Acosta.
M.C.P.
47
Correia, Tiago Duarte de Carvalho Brojo. "Strategic analysis on urban mobility." Master's thesis, NSBE - UNL, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/9797.
Full textAbstract:
A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and EconomicsAfrican urban cities are growing very rapidly. By 2050, 1.2 billion people, or 60 percent of all Africans, will live in urban areas.1 We are witnessing an unprecedented pace of urbanization in Africa and we have seen similar movements in other continents before. This report presents a strategic and broad analysis on the problem of urban mobility in Luanda, capital of Angola. An integrated urban planning solution will be presented as one of the best alternatives in order to solve the problem. Throughout the analysis, the political importance will always be taken into consideration as a key success factor for the successful implementation of an integrated urban plan.
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Cheng, Chien-Ke. "Sustainable urban design within contemporary urban policy| A comparative study between Chicago and Taipei." Thesis, Illinois Institute of Technology, 2013. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3574932.
Full textAbstract:
This research and methodology develop a set of statistical measurements to evaluate sustainability — in terms of desired high urban density, walkability for community amenity and convenience for everyday life — at the level of urban design for the cities of Chicago, USA and Taipei, Taiwan. The method, based upon GIS (Geographical Information System) technology, is used at this spatial level and for this type of academic study for the first time. The research analyzes and compares the percentage of each city's population living within the "Quarter Mile Radius Sphere of Influence" (QMSI) for three classes of community amenities: parks, public elementary schools, and subway stations. The new and unique statistical data obtained in this thesis show a great disparity between the two cities.
1. Chicago has 31.98% of its population living within the QMSI of public elementary schools. Taipei has 49.64% of its population living within the QMSI of public elementary schools.
2. For subway stations, Chicago has only 8.09% of its population living in the QMSI, while Taipei has 25.99%.
3. For urban parks, Chicago has 44.06% of its population living in the QMSI, while Taipei has 88.80%.
Further, based upon comparison, this research also discovers that the "sweet spot" areas — intersection of the QMSIs of all three community amenities — are mostly distributed along subway lines. With this indication, the research visualizes and supports the objective of improved public transit and walkability as key factors for sustainability in urban design in this case. The research also demonstrates the usefulness of GIS technology's new application in urban design studies for the future. The research shows that this new method has applicability for academic studies in other urban contexts, and for future international urban design and planning.
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Ashcraft, Catherine Marie. "Adaptive governance of contested rivers : a political journey into the uncertain." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/63240.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 439-468).
Governance of international rivers is characterized by complex institutional arrangements aimed at minimizing uncertainty and making it difficult for participants to avoid their responsibilities. However, as new information emerges, new impacts of activities on rivers are identified, new stakeholders emerge and new technologies are developed, international river management agreements and treaties may have to be modified. At the very least, the implementation of the governance arrangements may need to be adjusted. Most river governance agreements are the product of extended negotiations in which the parties work hard to codify and define the details. This makes the task of modifying the agreements, or even of implementing them in new ways, difficult. In some cases the details and format of the institutional arrangements make it hard to respond to the changing nature of the social and ecological problems that emerge over time. In other cases they do not. This raises the question, "Why and how do efforts to formulate international water resource arrangements that bring together countries with common resource management concerns but conflicting interests, limit or support needed adjustments?" This dissertation explores what I call the conventional versus the adaptive approach to international river basin governance. The former makes it hard to adjust over time; the latter, less so. Climate change appears to be increasing the need for flexibility in river basin governance. So, I compare how institutional arrangements that reflect a conventional approach to uncertainty and conflict impede the ability of water governance participants to make necessary adjustments, while institutional arrangements that reflect an adaptive approach are more likely to provide the flexibility that is required. Case studies of the navigation and water protection regimes for the Danube River and the benefit sharing agreement for the Nile River provide the basis for my conclusions.
by Catherine Marie Ashcraft.
Ph.D.
50
Lopez, Sofia Alejandra. "Dynamic alliances : political economy of labor organization in post-revolution Egypt." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81650.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-114).
The last decade in Egypt has witnessed significant innovations in the structure of social organizations spurred by the fraying of central government legitimacy. Within this dense network of new social actors independent labor unions have emerged as some of the more innovative groups, commanding material assurances and institutional change from firms and on occasion central and municipal governments. Understanding how this happens entails a historical view of Egypt's political economy, and the changes engendered by a succession of leaders beginning in 1952. The Nasser leadership in many ways constituted a reaction to the dynamics of colonialism, though much of Egypt's history since has been similarly premised on negotiating relationships with foreign creditors and domestic demands. In the face of these complex relationships there are and have been a set of local actors successfully making claims and influencing the state in spite of the popular reading of an ironclad regime, impervious to social influence. Building on labor action and social movement theory, the limitations to the sites and kinds of institutional change enacted by workers are clear. Nonetheless, in Egypt these groups are acting in new and surprising ways, defying assumptions about group identity, building strategic partnerships with related religious and pro-democratic organizations, and exerting pressure on a variety of state institutions. This thesis seeks to understand the strategic choices these unions are employing in recruitment, negotiation, and direct action and in particular their relationships to other movements.
by Sofia Alejandra Lopez.
M.C.P.