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1
Pratt, Jennifer D. (Jennifer Dana). "Housing the urban poor--a case for space-sharing in Ahmedabad, India." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/69273.
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Lucenet, Frederic Pascal. "Land for housing the poor through urban agriculture : the case of Lusaka, Zambia." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/76003.
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Raouf, Sina. "Shelter for the urban poor : is local government the answer? the case of Lusaka, Zambia." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/76868.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1987.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.
Vita.
Bibliography: leaves 84-88.
by Sina Raouf.
M.C.P.
4
Tañada, Cristina R. "The sustainability of credit assistance to the urban poor : a Philippine case study." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26340.
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Urban poverty in the Philippines is strikingly manifested with the problem of street children. The labour of children is significant because of marginal household incomes. This thesis is an assessment of the credit program of one community based Non-Government Organization in Manila. The Family and Children for Empowerment (FCED), attempts to augment household incomes through the provision of low interest loans to women for informal micro-enterprises. The study is exploratory. The results reveal that most beneficiaries have achieved an income high enough to prevent their children from working and give families the opportunity to improve their standards of living. However, limitations exist in the informal sector which hinder the expansion and stability of the enterprises. Also, the cooperative credit program itself is at a critical stage. The study finds an urgent need for the cooperative to implement measures for capital build-up if it wants to continue to subsidize and provide its low interest credit loans to urban poor petty traders and products.
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Tubbeh, Taghrid Khuri. "The Determinants of Women's Work: A Case Study from Three Urban Low-income Communities in Amman, Jordan." PDXScholar, 1994. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1208.
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This study addresses the determinants of women's economic activity in three low income communities in Amman, the capital of Jordan. These communities represent what is typically referred to as "pockets of urban poverty." Besides addressing the demographic and socio-economic variables, the study identifies and includes cultural variables in a model of female labor force participation. Modern economic systems developed definitions and measurements of productivity that render the majority of women's work as non-productive. Activities within the domestic sphere that do not earn monetary returns are not measured as productive economic activities, and hence are dropped from the calculations of gross national and domestic products of most if not all developing nations. In the Arab Middle East, where women's work outside the home is relatively a recent phenomenon, labor statistics are measuring only female labor force in the "formal sector" of the labor market. The scope and magnitude of women's economic activity within the domestic sphere, or in what is termed the informal sector, is neglected, or at best, underestimated, by labor force statistics. In such cultural contexts where women's economic activity outside the home is still considered secondary to the array of their reproductive and home-related activities, the underlying thesis is that cultural factors play an important role in shaping the outcomes of women's decisions regarding labor force participation. A field survey covered the sample of adult women, aged 15 years and over. To achieve a 95% level of significance, 435 women were interviewed. Three field surveyors were trained to thoroughly probe and depict all types of economic activity for the purpose of raising cash, be it in the formal or the informal sectors of the labor market. A nested logit model assesses the effects of demographic and socio-economic variables on women's employment status. Employment status is defined as a dichotomous dependent variable indicating whether a woman does or does not work. The second step of the logit model incorporates cultural variables in addition to the demographic and socio-economic variables. Each logit run segregates women by marital status, and one run addresses the pooled sample of women, with marital status included as a predictor variable. The results indicate that age and marital status (in the pooled sample) are important variables in determining the employment status of women. The presence of a resource person to help the ever-married woman in child-care also had a significant effect on women's employment decisions. Household income, which represents the need for the woman's income, is also a significant variable. In the second step of the nested logit model, education significantly influences women's work outside the home. Segregation (a cultural variable that represented a constraint to women's work in a mixed environment) is also a significant variable in influencing women's work inside the home. This study shows that when addressing the determinants of female labor force participation, it is important to include cultural variables and assess their effect on influencing the outcome of women's decisions to undertake economic activity. Policies that seek to increase female employment need to be aware of the cultural and demographic (fertility related) considerations. Consequently, employment creation and enhancement programs need to be formulated and designed with this consideration in focus. For example, child-care facilities could be established within communities. This will free sometime of mothers with children to work outside the home, and will create child-care jobs within the community. Realizing that, due to cultural barriers, some women will still desire to only work at home, agencies providing marketing channels for such activities need to be established.
6
Flores, Romero Karla Renata. "Changing the ability of the poor to generate income : Mexico's Conditional Cash Transfer program Oportunidades." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62067.
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. 92-97).
Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs have been adopted in many developing countries, particularly in Latin America, as the core strategy for poverty reduction. These programs provide immediate economic support to poor populations conditional on specific actions such as sending children to school or receiving healthcare. The main rationale behind this approach is that, once human capital accumulates, the poor will take full advantage of labor market opportunities and overcome poverty. Some scholars argue that, despite the remarkable positive impacts of these programs on human capital formation, the low growth rate of employment prevailing in most Latin American countries pose difficult challenges for achieving their ultimate goal of poverty reduction. Nevertheless, the generation of employment opportunities could be a direct consequence of these programs. I analyze this circumstance by evaluating the likelihood of households to invest cash transfers in business creation. Using longitudinal data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS), I assess the impact of the Mexican CCT program, Oportunidades, on the creation of businesses. For this purpose, I implement the difference-in-difference (DD) method and, to account for the non-experimental nature of the study, I use Rosenbaum and Rubin's propensity score matching method. Finally, I identify some of the characteristics of beneficiary households that are more likely to invest using a difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) estimator. The results indicate that beneficiary households in rural and urban areas are more likely to create businesses than non-beneficiary households. This may be a relevant finding for the design of this type of policy instruments, especially if the promotion of income-generating activities can be achieved as an alternate goal. Cash-transfer investments, coupled with additional mechanisms of support such as entrepreneurial development programs, could contribute not only to short-term poverty alleviation, but also to a long-term, sustainable solution to poverty.
by Karla Renata Flores Romero.
M.C.P.
7
Edgecomb, Elizabeth. "Looking Good and Taking Care: Consumer Culture, Identity, and Poor, Minority, Urban Tweens." Scholar Commons, 2010. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3474.
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Looking Good and Taking Care: Consumer Culture, Identity, and Poor, Minority, Urban Tweens is an ethnographic examination of how poor, minority, urban tweens (age 7-14) use consumer culture to create and perform their personal and social identities. Although portrayed in mass media as selfish and hedonistic, this work finds tweens creating profoundly social, giving, and caring identities and relationships through consumption. Their use of consumer culture is also a form of political resistance that subverts their place in the age, class, and race hierarchy. These tweens use “looking good” (attention to grooming, style, and behaving respectably), and not name brand goods, to show they have respect for themselves, that their families care about them, and that, by extension, society in general should care for and about them. Far from seeking status through consuming, the tweens largely seek belonging and care. They also utilize both consumption and denial of their consumer desires to show care for their families. Furthermore, the tweens use consumer culture to enact resistance against the most tangible form of social control in their lives—school—by employing products and consumer knowledge to subvert the rules of uniforms and structured school time.
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FERNANDEZ, JOSE RAUL. "NEIGHBORHOOD VITALITY AND THE URBAN POOR: What Makes the Difference on Meeting Basic Needs? Case Studies in Santiago De Los Caballeros." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/555330.
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Arriaga, Cordero Eugenio. "Explaining Unequal Transportation Outcomes in a Gentrifying City: the Example of Portland, Oregon." PDXScholar, 2017. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3509.
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This dissertation examines unequal outcomes of urban transportation policies in the neoliberal era. It focuses on inequalities in the Portland, Oregon metro area between 1994 and 2011 as measured in three key areas: 1) access to public transit; 2) the journey-to-work; and 3) "household-serving" trips. Growing concern over the harmful impacts from an increasing dependence on cars has led planners in the U.S. to encourage a modal shift from private car to public transit, bicycling, and walking. The required policies to make this modal shift possible, however, might inadvertently be benefiting "choice" riders at the cost of transport disadvantaged groups. Other contributing factors to this unequal benefit appear to be the suburbanization of poverty, an ongoing gentrification of central areas, and market forces that make it difficult for low income groups to afford housing in transit-rich neighborhoods. The Oregon Household Activity and Travel surveys are used to answer the three major research questions in this dissertation: what has been the effect of neoliberalism on access to public transit?, how do gender, race/ethnicity, and income inequality affect the journey-to-work in Portland?, and how do household-serving trips vary by gender in Portland? Six hypothesis are tested in answering these questions. Those related to access to transit draw on Fred Block's theory of the capitalist state and the "urban growth machine" concept, both of which predict spatially unequal outcomes from neoliberal ideology. Hypotheses about the journey to work draw on a rich body of literature around social relations in the household and the job market, as well as residential location. The final question, about household-serving trips, draws on theories of gender socialization. Findings showed that: (i) individuals in the Portland metro area had less access overall to bus public transit in 2011 than in 1994; (ii) impoverished dependent riders have lost access to transit service over time, whereas choice dependent riders increased their access to public transit; (iii) low income groups have been "forced" into greater car-ownership, in part due to the lower access to public transit; (iv) women in Portland have shorter journey-to-work trips than men; (v) Blacks have longer journey-to-work trips than Whites and Latinos; (vi) low-income individuals have shorter journey-to-work trips than higher income individuals; and (vii) women with children make more household-serving trips than men in similar family structures.
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Millward, Alison J. "Affordable downtown housing : innovative U.S. municipal initiatives and a case study of Seattle." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/29996.
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The past decade has witnessed both steep reductions in federal housing assistance and an intensification of local housing problems including homelessness. In light of these trends, this study explores alternative means available to municipalities of meeting the housing needs of low-income households.
The methods chosen to accomplish this were two-fold: a literature review and a case study. The literature review revealed that in response to the Reagan administration's 1981 cutbacks to housing programs a new low-income housing delivery system, based largely on public-private partnerships, has emerged from the grass roots level in communities across the United States. In the new production system efforts have focused on preservation rather than new construction, and large for-profit developers have been replaced by nonprofit community-based development corporations and local public agencies. With the assurance of federal subsidies gone, local governments and nonprofit developers have sought to increase the effectiveness of current resources, direct more general revenue to housing activities and have raised new resources. Today, financing packages for low-income projects are usually built upon customized and creative financial packages that are difficult to replicate, and as a result, no definitive solutions have yet been found.
Despite the hard work and creativity that has gone into developing low-income housing in the U.S. over the past decade local programs have been able to meet only a fraction of the country's housing needs.
The case study method was chosen to focus on the City of Seattle, Washington's specific housing initiatives. The City's response has closely followed the national experience. A new delivery system has emerged which depends largely on the efforts of the City's municipal government, through its Department of Community Development, and the community's growing nonprofit sector. As a
matter of policy Seattle has chosen to spend most of its low-income housing dollars on preserving the downtown's remaining 7,311 low-income units. The City does not. build housing itself, but instead, acts as a "bank" loaning money generated, for the most part, by off-budget strategies to nonprofit housing developers to rehabilitate existing low-income units to meet housing code standards.
Seattle's housing programs have had mixed results. Despite their efforts, due to downtown's expansion, the City has continued to lose low-income units in the downtown to demolition and rent increases, no gain has been made on the City's overall housing need, and while the City has replaced the lost federal subsidies, it has not created significant ongoing revenue streams for future housing development.
Results of this study indicate that, only the long term commitment of federal funds to a national housing strategy can stem the growing tide of homelessness across the U.S. and avert, a deepening of the country's housing crisis.Applied Science, Faculty of
Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of
Graduate
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Sousa, Carina Isabel Correia de. "Diversidade genética e resistência natural ao Maraviroc em estirpes do vírus da imunodeficiência humana Tipo 1 (HIV-1) em circulação em utilizadores de drogas por via endovenosa na Grande Lisboa." Master's thesis, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas. Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/8170.
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RESUMO: O maraviroc (MVC) é o único anti-retroviral antagonista do co-receptor CCR5 licenciado e interage com as ansas transmembranares de CCR5, induzindo uma
alteração da sua conformação e impedindo a interacção com gp120. O MVC é activo
apenas contra estirpes R5 de HIV-1, sendo utilizado em terapia de recurso.
Neste trabalho, foi estudada a diversidade genética da região C2V3C3 do gene env de estirpes de HIV-1 de oxicodependentes por via endovenosa da Grande Lisboa, pesquisando-se também a presença de polimorfismos genéticos naturais. Foram
utilizadas 52 amostras de plasma e para 35 destas foi amplificado por RT-nested PCR
um produto de 565 pb. A análise filogenética revelou a seguinte distribuição de genótipos: 23 B (incluindo, provavelmente, 2 CRF14_BG), 8 A, 3 G e 1 F1. Após tradução, e por comparação com a sequência consenso B, verificou-se uma elevada frequência de polimorfismos genéticos, sendo encontradas algumas “assinaturas de aminoácidos” relativas aos subtipos não-B. Realizou-se ainda uma pesquisa de locais de N-glicosilação e a previsão da utilização de co-receptores (abordagem genotípica), com
recurso às regras 11/25 e da carga líquida da ansa V3 e aos programas PSSM e
geno2pheno[coreceptor]. Observou-se uma conservação genérica do número de locais de
N-glicosilação e foram identificadas 5 sequências com tropismo X4 ou duplo. Por fim,
com base na literatura, realizou-se uma pesquisa de polimorfismos genéticos associados a resistência ao MVC presentes na ansa V3. Foi observado um número elevado destas mutações. A presença dos padrões 11S+26V e 20F+25D+26V, num total de 3
sequências, é relevante, visto estes estarem inequivocamente associados à resistência in
vivo ao MVC.
Apesar de não estar ainda definido um perfil de resistência para o MVC, a presença das mutações encontradas, em indivíduos sem contacto prévio com o fármaco, trará implicações relevantes na sua gestão clínica, considerando a introdução do MVC
na terapia de recurso.---------- ABSTRACT: Maraviroc (MVC) is the only CCR5 inhibitor licensed today. This drug interacts
with the transmembrane helices of CCR5 co-receptor, inducing a conformation change
of its extracellular loops and preventing the interaction with gp120. MVC is only active against R5 strains of HIV-1 and is currently used in salvage therapy.
The genetic diversity of the env C2V3C3 region of HIV-1 strains from injecting
drug users in the Greater Lisbon was studied, along with the presence of natural genetic polymorphisms. 52 plasma samples were used and the amplification by RT-nested PCR of a 565 bp-product was possible in 35 of them. The phylogenetic analysis revealed 23 sequences classified as subtype B (probably including 2 CRF14_BG), 8 A, 3 G and 1 F1. After translation, the presence of natural genetic polymorphisms was studied by
comparison to a subtype B consensus. A high frequency of genetic polymorphisms was
observed and significant “amino acid signatures” were found in association with non-B subtypes. A full characterization of the N-glycosylation sites was also performed and a coreceptor prediction (genotypic approach) was accomplished using the 11/25 and the V3 net charge rules and the programs PSSM and geno2pheno[coreceptor]. The number of N-glycosylation sites was generically preserved. Five sequences were defined as X4 or dual-tropic. Based on published data, a search for genetic polymorphisms, present in V3loop, associated to MVC resistance was finally undertaken. Several of such mutations
were observed, being particularly interesting the presence of the patterns 11S+26V and 20F+25D+26V, in a total of 3 sequences, since these patterns have unequivocally been associated with MVC resistance in vivo.
Although a resistance profile for MVC is not yet defined, the presence of these mutations in MVC-naïve populations may have significant impact in their clinical
management in the future, especially considering the introduction of this drug in salvage therapy.
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Ruiz-Cepeda, Maria de los Remedios. "The urban-poor challenge : delivering services for the urban poor : government organizations versus non-government organizations (NGOs)." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77332.
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Zhu, Erqian. "Urban poor in China a case study of Changsha /." abstract and full text PDF (free order & download UNR users only), 2007. http://0-gateway.proquest.com.innopac.library.unr.edu/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:1442876.
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Tshabalala, Thandeka. "The Urban Poor, Civic Governmentality and the Problem of Participation." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33047.
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This thesis examines practices of the Informal Settlements Network (ISN), part of the South African Slum Dwellers International (SA SDI) Alliance, as initiators of civic participation in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. The SA SDI Alliance is made up of four organisations namely the Community Organization Resource Centre (CORC), Utshani Fund, the Informal Settlement Network (ISN) and the Federation of the Urban Poor (FEDUP). Through the thesis, I aim to provide an understanding of the nature of civic participation and the formation of "responsible" citizens amongst the urban poor in Khayelitsha, South Africa (Brown, 2015, p. 133). Critical in developing this understanding are the tools of the SA SDI Alliance through which the urban poor of Khayelitsha, Cape Town are allowed to participate in civic affairs. Drawing on theories of neoliberal governmentality the study traces how civic participation facilitated by the SA SDI Alliance manifests nationally through policy and at the provincial and local government level. The ultimate objective of the thesis centres on how participation under neoliberalism affects the lives of people in urban settlements through the activities of self-help organisations such as ISN. Using semi-structured interviews and shadowing three community mediators, the study unpacks the life trajectories and lived experiences of community mediators who are members of ISN. Whilst, describing these community mediators' lived experiences, the thesis examines the tension points relating to how ISN members navigate personal, community and institutions of participations that we do not see in the public discourse. The closer examination of these tension points enhances our understanding of the theoretical discourse surrounding the challenges and contradictions that participants face under neoliberalism. These challenges include the interface with fluid community dynamics. Furthermore, the thesis provides insights into the mutability of roles assumed by the community mediators and how it practically manifests on the ground.
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Kekana, Daniel Senkgoa. "A socio-economic analysis of urban agriculture the Soshanguve project case study /." Pretoria : [s.n.], 2006. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08272007-154407.
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Chona, Quiñónez Gilberto Enrique. "Housing the poor in Venezuela : from policy to specific targets." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/65208.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1991.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-78).
by Gilberto Enrique Chona Quiñónez.
M.C.P.
17
Watanabe, Nobuhide 1967. "Business valuation of location-specific infrastructure projects in data-poor regions." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16750.
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Thesis (S.M. in Urban Studies and Planning; and, S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57).
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
A methodology in determining the financial values (business values) of physical infrastructure projects is presented from the public point of view. The business valuation model in this thesis adopts three concepts of financial modeling, Monte Carlo simulation (probability-generated cash flow), Capital Asset Pricing Model, and Adjusted Present Value. Using this model, the business values of a hypothetical infrastructure project are simulated 1,000 times and the mean business value is analyzed in terms of patterns and magnitudes of the simulation. The results from the 1,000 simulations showed large differences between the value derived by this model and those by the traditional net present value method. Also, this model elucidated qualitative information on how levels of government’s financial support such as subsidies, tax incentives and revenue guarantees will affect the project’s business value by components. The model elucidated, as well, the qualitative information on how project’s contractual framework may affect the business value when private contractors bear key uncertain risks, such as demand changes and construction cost overruns.
by Nobuhide Watanabe.
S.M.in Urban Studies and Planning; and, S.M.in Real Estate Development
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Ozen, Yelda. "Health And Illness Experiences Among The Urban Poor: The Case Of Altindag." Phd thesis, METU, 2008. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12609438/index.pdf.
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In this study similarities and differences in health experiences among urban poor in relation to the forms of capital they possess: economic, social, cultural, and health capital and the different positions they hold in the urban field, are analyzed. The research was conducted in two poor gecekondu neighborhoods in Altindag, Baraj and Gültepe, via face to face interviews with 40 individuals. A main finding has been that the different forms of capital, in volume as well as in composition, had an influence on the urban poor&rsquo
s health perceptions, health care access, health seeking strategies and experiences in health institutions. The rural-urban migrants refer to a habitus in relation to health which still strongly relies on their rural practices. Major differences among men and women have been observed, where men seem to be more open to integrate into the urban dispositions. Economic capital plays a crucial role. Regular income earners do tend to emphasize that they have a certain autonomy and control over their health. On the other hand, benefit dependent poor mention that they have less control over their health. Economic capital can be seen as very much the same among the group studied, but the differences in health experiences rely strongly on Cultural capital is understood as their different identities: villager/non-villager
illiterate/ non-illiterate
women/men
healthy/non-healthy. Social capital (formal and informal solidarity networks) is studied as the role in health experiences, access to health care and strategies to use the existing health system
as well as how individuals support each other materially and immaterially. Social capital is important because it converts into economic capital, not as exchange but as use value. An analysis of the different forms of capital allows us to address at the interrelationship of structural conditions in the field and the practices actors experience through their internalized habitus. Health experiences therefore differ even among a socio-economic homogenous group. In addition to the above mentioned forms of capital, it is also argued that health itself should be considered as a form of capital. Health capital (self perceived health/illness and medically diagnosed disease) influences and is influenced by the other forms of capital.
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Akbar, H. M. Delwar. "Accessibility of the urban water supply to the poor in developing countries : the case of Dhaka, Bangladesh /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2005. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe18725.pdf.
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Serrano, Berthet Rodrigo. "Why do poor people demand accountability from some participatory programs and not others?" Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34166.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-170).
There is a consensus that citizen oversight, or the capacity of citizens to demand accountability, over government programs improves program performance. Yet little is known about the conditions that enable citizens/beneficiaries to demand accountability. This dissertation approaches this void in the literature by comparing two Community Driven Development (CDD) programs in Argentina and asking the question of why beneficiary oversight was higher in one program than in the other and why, within the same program, it was higher in some provinces than in others. The main conclusions are: (i) for beneficiary oversight to work at the project level (i.e., for beneficiaries to be able to control subcontracted providers of technical assistance) it was not sufficient to have accountability mechanisms at that level (in this case being able to hire and fire providers); (ii) due to asymmetries of technical knowledge and power between beneficiaries and providers, the former depended on the support of program staff willing to level out these asymmetries; (iii) given a highly politicized context, ensuring that program staff supported beneficiaries at the project level required having beneficiary oversight at the program governance level; in the program where this did not happen, patronage and clientelism took over the program, distorted its participatory nature and led to its collapse;
(cont.) (iv) when beneficiary oversight took place at the program governance level it was due to (a) the program's commitment to support the consolidation of beneficiaries as a political actor capable of interacting with government, which expressed through (b) the creation of institutional mechanisms for program governance oversight that provided access to information about the program's performance, (c) the strengthening of supra-local networks at the national, provincial, and local level which increased beneficiaries' capacity for collective action and leverage; and (d) the construction of the program as part of the beneficiaries identity, which motivated them to mobilize to defend the program. (v) Intra program variation (across provinces) in beneficiary oversight was related to the capacity of state and civil society actors to resolve successfully the tensions involved in relations of critical collaboration (i.e., relations where actors need to collaborate with each other while remaining critical and vigilant of maintaining their autonomy).
by Rodrigo Serrano-Berthet.
Ph.D.
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Goyes, Francis Jhoan. "The politics of implementation : towards a pro-poor land legalization policy in Quito." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111388.
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Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2017.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [99]-107).
This thesis explores Quito's historical development of policies for informal neighborhood legalization to analyze the relationship between the national government, municipal council and low-income neighborhoods of the City. I follow Gilbert and Ward's reasoning of regarding the State as a political entity, and its policies of land as a proxy of its relation to the most vulnerable populations (Ward 1985). I ask how constitutional and legislative arrangements were implemented through different political moments, and in what ways their implementation contributed to the successes and failures of the land legalization efforts of Quito using a pro-poor framework. I concentrate on the policies enacted by the last three Municipal administrations as well as Regula tu Barrio (Legalize your Neighborhood), the current program for legalizing informal settlements in Quito. While legalization policies have existed since the late 1980s, they were never fully operationalized due to the low capacity of the Municipality, clientelist practices and lack of continued political interest. Through a pro-poor policy analysis, I argue that following the ratification of the 2008 Constitution and other national legislation, the Municipality had a greater responsibility towards establishing a pro-poor policy towards land legalization, which resulted in an increase of legalized neighborhoods and basic infrastructure provision for previously informal settlements. I also show that while there appears to be continuity through Municipal administrations, difficulties for legalization remain, including evaluation mechanisms, overcoming obstacles of land traffickers and community organizations and creation of a comprehensive policy for land and housing.
by Francis Jhoan Goyes.
M.C.P.
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Tagle, Laura. "Inadvertently reaching the poor : the diffusion of small scale irrigation in northeast Brazil." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35475.
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Robb, Carla. "Housing for the poor: A case study of the Johannesburg inner city." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29689.
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This research focuses on the Johannesburg inner city, which is located in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Gauteng Province, South Africa. Johannesburg inner city has had a tumultuous history, from being the most economically powerful urban centres in Sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1900s, to falling into a state of disrepair from the 1980s, the inner city is now home to more than 300 000 households. The public sector and private sector both play a critical role in the delivery of affordable accommodation opportunities in the Johannesburg inner city, but the lack of formal supply of housing for the urban poor, specifically the “poorest of the poor” is stark. It is with this knowledge that this dissertation explores the commitment, from both public and private sector, to delivering accommodation options for the poorest of the poor in the inner city. The Johannesburg inner city has seen increased involvement from the private sector in the delivery of housing since 1994. Significantly, housing delivered by the private sector is accessible to the households in the income group referred to as the gap market. The lowest income group is left to resort to the informal sector to seek shelter. The lack of adequate housing supply for this group has given rise to illegal occupation of buildings, often run by slumlords with appalling living conditions. The public sector has many plans and strategies in place with identified mechanisms to assist in increasing the delivery of accommodation for this income group. However, there is still a massive gap in the delivery. Many plans and strategies have been put in place with the intention of addressing the housing demand in the inner city. Although many of these policies and strategies, created by the government, were intended to increase the delivery of affordable rental accommodation, what is obvious is the lack of delivery. This dissertation, therefore, intends to determine why there has been no formal provision made for the lowest income group in the Johannesburg inner city and, if there are plans or mechanisms in place to rectify this, why they have not come to fruition. The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality has been criticised for not responding to the emergency accommodation cases seriously and creating realistic strategies to deal with the poorest income group or destitute. There is a lack of a programmatic approach to meet the housing demand, which is evident from the number of bad buildings in the Johannesburg inner city. Without a realistic strategy to assist this income bracket, a domino effect of failure seems to plague housing delivery in the inner city. A lack of opportunities for this income group gives rise to bad buildings, which in turn affects the livelihood of the people in the inner city, across all sectors.
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Marshall, Sunaree (Sunaree Kim). "Of squatters and schemes : considering city-level strategies for housing the poor in India." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59580.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2010.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-59).
This thesis examines two approaches to housing the urban poor in the city of Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat - the Slum Networking Project, an attempt to institutionalize slum upgrading at the city-level and the Development Plan-Town Planning Scheme mechanism, an enabling approach similar to land readjustment that seeks to deliver serviced land to the urban land market and contains a provision to reserve some of this land for housing for economically weaker sections of society. Given the shifts in thinking in the past three decades around housing policies in developing countries, and particularly in India, from project-level approaches to enabling approaches that attempt to tackle housing shortages and substandard quality at a broader scale, this thesis asks the question: What is the appropriate role of cities in adequately housing their poor populations? In conjunction with this, additional questions explored include: What has been the history of housing strategies in India? What are some relatively successful efforts that are not national-level policies or small community-level projects, but instead use the scale of the city to address this pressing issue? What are the barriers to bringing these methods to scale?This thesis finds that while upgrading approaches may provide basic services to slum dwellers at the project level, attempts to take upgrading to scale must carefully consider the prevalence and implementation capacity of NGO or other intermediaries, the demand of residents for the services offered, the incentives for participation by private sector entities and the pace of urbanization in the city in question.With respect to the Town Planning Scheme mechanism, there has been considerable success in converting agricultural land to serviced urban land and in appropriated land for housing for the urban poor, but concerns remain about the overly centralized nature of the process, its openness to corruption, and its neglect to consider informal or tenants claims on the land to be developed. Finally, it is found that the mere designation and availability of urban land for housing for the poor is not sufficient to instigate housing production and more research is needed to determine appropriate policies to encourage affordable housing development on this land.
by Sunaree Marshall.
M.C.P.
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Quirós, Rosa M. (Rosa Maria). "Rural water supplies that work, endure, and reach the poor : lessons from Ceara, Brazil." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/69359.
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Mitter, Anjali 1973. "Water for the urban poor : Côte d'Ivoire's experiment with private and informal sector cooperation." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/9325.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-73).
The urban poor in developing countries, many of whom live in illegal squatter settlements at the periphery of the city, often have insufficient access to affordable, clean water. Both public and private utilities are often unable or unwilling to install piped water connections in these neighborhoods, and, as a result, the poor tend to rely on individual, informal vendors who sell water at very high prices. In an effort to bridge this service gap and provide the urban poor with easy and affordable access to water without investing in costly infrastructure, some public utilities have tried to form agreements with vendors to use them as an extension of their distribution network. In an era of increasing private sector participation in water treatment and distribution, some private companies are considering similar arrangements. This thesis presents the results of field-work conducted in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, where the private water utility has, since 1960, attempted to forge a partnership with vendors in the informal sector. The system of "registered vending" that the utility has implemented is promising in that, as long as the utility is prohibited by law from extending the network into illegally settled neighborhoods, it enables the residents of these neighborhoods to obtain at least a minimal amount of clean water. However, the system could be strengthened, and the lessons learned from this experiment may be helpful for other private utilities considering similar cooperative arrangements with water vendors in the informal sector.
by Anjali Mitter.
M.C.P.
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Tavon, Joyce S. (Joyce Shadi). "Neighborhood-based services for the poor : re-examining Morgan Memorial and the Settlement House movement." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42555.
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Nahiduzzaman, Kh Md. "HOUSING THE URBAN POOR: AN INTEGRATED GOVERNANCE PERSPECTIVE : The Case of Dhaka, Bangladesh." Doctoral thesis, KTH, Urbana och regionala studier, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-90297.
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It is claimed that low-income people in Dhaka city do not have the financial ability to enjoy adecent housing environment. There is a clear lack of knowledge on how low-income people,drawing upon both their available income together and support from formal financial institutions,would be able to afford housing. It is commonly considered a fact that their access to formalfinancial means is largely hindered by their poor financial status, along with the absence of anyform of land tenure security. The case of this study demonstrates, on the contrary, the adequatefinancial ability of the urban poor when it comes to meeting rent and payments for other necessaryservices. This study therefore primarily responds to the critical issue of whether the government isunaware of informal housing practices, or is simply ignorant of low-income housing provision.In this study, perspectives on change are analyzed in order to comprehend the obstacles andchallenges embedded within the housing organizations of Dhaka city. Within the local governanceparadigm, the concepts of deliberative dialogue and partnership are explored with the aim toreveal both the resources rooted in ‘informal’ low-income housing practices, and the resources atstake for the ‘formal’ housing gatekeepers. Different land tenure security options are explored inorder to understand their compatibility with the informal nature of low-income housing. Thetheory of social business is critically reviewed, and used to examine whether low-incomeaffordable housing could be seen as a product resulting from partnerships between vested actors,for whom the low-income community could be considered to be both a beneficiary and a partner.This study suggests that outside the boundary of ‘formal’ housing, there is an unexplored andfunctional ‘informal’ housing market where de facto owners purchase ‘business tenure security’from the slum lords, while de facto tenants buy ‘house rental tenure security’ in exchange forregular rental payments. Within this informality, an innovative financial organization (the JhilparCooperative) has emerged as a creative platform for business investment. This study reveals thatJhilpar’s inhabitants pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income for housing. As anabsolute value, this is more than what is being paid by middle-class – and even many high-income– people. The slum inhabitants also pay more for a limited supply of basic services, such aselectricity.This study concludes that the formal housing gatekeepers lack a complete knowledge of‘informality’ – a notion reflected in, for example, the actual financial ability of the urban poor; thestrength and potentials of systematic community-based cooperative business; and housing relocationdecisions (employment-housing nexus). This fundamental lack of knowledge precludesthe housing gatekeepers from taking the right decisions to achieve affordable low-incomehousing. These deficiencies have led to low-income housing projects that have barely benefitedthe urban poor, benefiting other income groups instead. Low-income housing projects utilizingland title provision, sites and services schemes, and relocation to other places (amongst otherstrategies) disregard the nature, strength, and potentials of housing ‘informality’ in the slums inthe most pronounced manner. This identified knowledge gap also rules out private and publichousing gatekeepers employing their resources as enablers or providers. To improve this impassewith regard to affordable low-income housing, this study advocates a ‘social business model forlow-income housing’ as the most effective option for the Jhilpar community, wherebypartnerships would be built on an ‘investment’ mindset, through a shift away from conventional‘give away’ practices.QC 20120221
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Manase, Gift. "Cost recovery for sanitation services : the case of poor urban areas in Zimbabwe." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.274072.
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Syed, Mohammed Ali. "Explaining fertility outcomes within the urban poor : a case study of Chittagong, Bangladesh." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2016. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/23795/.
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This century the population of Bangladesh will increase from 150m to 250m, with 70% of this growth concentrated in urban areas primarily due to rural-urban migration by the poor. The family planning programme aims to reduce fertility rates in Chittagong. The poor have the highest fertility rates in Chittagong. The aim of the study was to develop an explanation for why some couples within the urban poor of Chittagong have a low fertility outcome of ≤ 2 living children whilst other very similar couples have a high fertility outcome of ≥ 4 living children, in order to inform family planning programmatic interventions. A new small-N comparative approach, Counterfactual Mechanism Analysis, was developed for context-specific operationalisation of theorised causal chains leading to the fertility outcome and producing a causally symmetric explanation under a Ready, Willing and Able framework. The result from the small-N investigation suggests that some couples with low/high fertility outcomes formulate initial fertility preferences in response to the congruence of the husband's and wife's individual perceptions of social approval regarding the number and sex composition of children. Readiness to limit fertility can adjust dynamically for both husband and wife based on the importance of sex composition and whether it is being attained. For the wife, stillbirths and miscarriages can also adjust Readiness. The wife's Willingness to limit fertility and use modern family planning methods depends on the norm of her social network. The wife's Ability to acquire modern family planning methods depends on subjective cost. The relevancy of the explanation to similar couples within the population of interest is supported by patterns exhibited in secondary data. Interventions based on the current priorities of the family planning programme are considered unlikely to succeed in reducing the fertility outcomes of the urban poor in Chittagong.
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Connors, Genevieve. "Watering the slums : how a utility and its street-level bureaucrats connected the poor in Bangalore." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42262.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-275).
This dissertation is about how urban water utilities behave and what makes them interested in serving the poor. The infrastructure literature tends to treat public service agencies as monolithic entities and to ignore the great diversity of tasks and behavior patterns within them. As a consequence, common explanations for why utilities fail poor people tend to focus on attributes of the external environment in which utilities sit and not on the potential to elicit interest from within. This research corrects for this bias by applying a "street-level bureaucracy" approach to a study of a large urban water utility. The aim is to quash the notion so common in the water literature of a unified agency operating on the supply side and to rekindle an interest in the actions of workers. To do this, I examine the case of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) and its contrasting outcomes within the same case. Over a five year period from 2000 to 2005, the utility revised its operational policies to accommodate the legal and financial realities of slums and connected 5,000 households or five percent of the slum population to the water network. Although the BWSSB demonstrated an unusual commitment to the poor, its efforts were not an unmitigated success. Progress was slow and staff failed to connect households to the network in many of the slums targeted. This dissertation digs deep inside the utility to explain these contrasting outcomes holding the city, the agency, and the sector efficiency constant. I find that while external pressures were necessary to prompt a business-as-usual utility to take action in slums, variation in outcome can be explained by the different facets of engineering life in BWSSB service stations and the different kinds of relationships forged between frontline staff and slum dwellers.
(cont.) Specifically, a "willingness to supply" by engineers and the attainment of neighborhood deals were necessary conditions for a successful program outcome. This dissertation shows how these two conditions were met and highlights the critical role of the utility's Social Development Unit on both counts. It also shows how, in the process, certain kinds of conflict and resistance to reform had surprisingly positive effects. The main policy implications are that incentives must be aligned within utilities to elicit engineer buy-in and that well-staffed social development units are necessary to diffuse a new slum program to utility employees, to broker deals with slum dwellers, and to harness the benefits of resistance.
by Geneviève Connors.
Ph.D.
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Serrano, Berthet Rodrigo. "Who knows what's best for the poor? : demand-driven policies and rural poverty in northeast Brazil." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/26877.
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Kordowicz, Maria Julia. "Understanding 'poor performing' General Practices : findings from five qualitative case studies." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2017. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/understanding-poor-performing-general-practices(fc6f244d-b85c-46ac-9e0f-9b5a0927296f).html.
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Background: Defining poor GP performance through the target-driven lens of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) has its limitations. General practices which consistently underperform on QOF may be disengaged with top-down quality improvement initiatives – their characteristics remaining largely unknown. Aim: Through an ethnographically informed social constructionist methodological approach, I set out to capture the qualitative characteristics of ‘poor performers’ which lie beyond QOF targets. Method: I spent time embedding myself in the day-to-day reality of five practices across England, which have consistently scored in the lowest 10% of QOF scores nationally, since QOF’s inception. As a participant observer, I conducted interviews with the practices’ teams, kept field notes and sourced practice documents. The data were then analysed to identify key themes pertaining to the practices’ reactions to QOF and organised into case studies. Findings: Contrary to what would be expected from ‘poor performers’, there was evidence of high quality service delivery in some of the participating practices. The overarching themes concerned professional values and responses to QOF surveillance. A typology of the participating practices is proposed. Implications: This is the first time QOF poor performers and their responses to QOF have been studied in depth and by bringing together rich multi-source qualitative data. This thesis is important in recognising the values driving ‘poor performing’ general practices and the multi-faceted nature of quality patient care, and thus in highlighting the limitations of ‘one size fits all’ quality improvement initiatives. Government regulation is discussed in the context of surveillance and presented within a Foucauldian framework, supported further by current theory. It is suggested that in order to be effective, performance management must appeal more directly to the values driving general practitioners and their teams. The study contributes to knowledge by attempting to reframe current understandings of responses to surveillance and by presenting a typology of persistently low QOF scoring general practices.
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Punjani, Shahid (Shahid Nazmudin) 1976. "Providing security of tenure to the urban poor : investigating the roots of slum improvement in Hyderabad, India." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/69442.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (leaves [71]-74).
This thesis is concerned with the relationship between urban land reform and large-scale slum improvement in Hyderabad, India. It forges a link between citywide slum improvement in the 1980s and efforts to guarantee the occupancy rights of squatters a decade earlier. More than twenty-five years have passed since the city undertook land reform. This distance offers an opportunity to re-examine the history of land reform and its impact on slum improvement and the city in general. Studies interested in learning from Hyderabad's experience often credit the "political will" of the Government of Andhra Pradesh or the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad for the success of urban land reform in the city. In contrast, this thesis argues that Communist-led social movements, beginning as early as the 1940s, were a major influence in convincing the polity to acknowledge the land rights of the poor. In this way, political will is not equivalent to public benevolence or the charisma of a handful of decision makers; instead it emerges from challenging the political status quo. With the historical antecedents of land reform in mind, the thesis then investigates the current status of slums in the city. It concludes by enumerating conditions and caveats for cities contemplating the replication of Hyderabad's model for slum improvement and land reform.
by Shahid Punjani.
M.C.P.
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Tanis, Duygu. "The Decline Of Community-based Solidarity Among The Urban Poor: The Case Of Bostancik Neighbourhood In Ankara." Master's thesis, METU, 2009. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12611445/index.pdf.
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This thesis concentrates on the effects of poverty and socio-spatial exclusion on the local communities and the solidarity ties among the poor. The field research conducted in Bostancik Neighbourhood revolved around two basic questionssocio-spatial segregation of the poor communities from the wider society and the impact of this on the internal structure of these communities with special reference to the solidarity ties and networks. The findings of the research show that the urban poor have been excluded from the mainstream economy and such an exclusion is companied by their further exclusion from social and political processes and public spaces of the city which resulted with their confinement in such physical settings looking like ghetto. Likewise, the research findings point to the fact that in Bostancik Neighbourhood, the community relations revolving around supportive networks, so-called common norms and interests have been severely damaged by the increasing poverty and exclusion. What replaces such relations is a new life style characterised by fragmentation and atomisation of not only community but also other forms of solidarity. In turn, it is observed that there is a high level tension and hostility within the community. The overall findings show that as a result of the economic, social, political and spatial exclusion and social isolation, the communal characteristics of the neighbourhood have been largely dissolved in favour of an atomistic life style threatining the conditions of living together.
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Greenstein, Daniel I. "Urban politics and the urban process : two case studies of Philadelphia." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ed50068a-eeb2-433a-b2ab-279c7296b95f.
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Both academics and the makers of public policy have for a long time been interested in the study of urban politics, but the subject needs to be integrated with the process of urban growth and development. Too frequently, the urban polity is analyzed as an arena which passively reflects or mechanically responds to more fundamental changes in the urban social structure. In this work, case studies of political reform in Philadelphia at two periods, 1800 to 1854 and 1890 to 1915, develop a number of hypotheses about how the urban polity plays an influential role in shaping the process of urban growth and change. Both case studies begin with computer-assisted analyses of changes in the socio-economic and spatial structures of urban society. Such changes are often considered to be fundamental causes of urban political reform either because they altered political elites' interests in municipal government or because they created enormous new demands on existing municipal works and services. The studies show, however, that social structural changes cannot by themselves explain the course of urban political development in the city of Philadelphia. Concentrating primarily on the formulation and implementation of municipal public works, the studies show that in both periods, the course of political reform was often shaped by two things: the 'private' or selfish interests of political actors, and the fragmented financial, administrative and party structures of the urban polity. More important, the studies show how self-interested political activities, in a polity in which authority was highly fragmented, often had consequences which were far reaching in their impact on the structure and experience of urban life. Indeed, the first case study shows how urban politics shaped the process of social group formation in the industrializing city. The second case study shows how the structure and conduct of urban politics determined social groups' political power in the city. The conclusion then demonstrates how the case studies support a number of hypotheses about the relationship between urban politics and urban society which may be applied generally to analyses of the process of urban growth and change.
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M, Mendez de M. Y. "A multidimensional approach to poverty among farmers in Mexico with small holdings : case studies /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2001. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe16189.pdf.
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Tang, York-wan Angela, and 鄧若韻. "Redevelopment and urban form." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1996. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B42574651.
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Lukito, Penny Kusumastuti. "Urban water supply--the complimentarity between public hydrants and truck delivery : water service for the poor in North Jakarta, Indonesia." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/68293.
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Majale, Michael Matthew. "Settlement upgrading in Kenya : the case for environmental planning and management strategies." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/969.
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Environmental degradation from problems of the 'Brown Agenda' is an everyday reality in Kenya's rapidly growing urban centres; and it is the low-income majority who are most affected. Deficient water supply and sanitation, inadequate solid waste disposal, and poor drainage are among the foremost problems that characterize informal settlements in which indigent urbanites are compelled to live. Analysis of environmental problems at settlement and household level can provide vital information about the appraisive environmental perceptions and cognitions of inhabitants of informal settlements, as well as their satisfaction with the infrastructural services to which they have access and their housing conditions, in general. Such information is essential to the formulation of apposite strategies for sustainable improvement of environmental conditions in informal settlements. Based largely on a comprehensive review of theoretical perspectives on the urban housing question in the South, international policy responses and experiences with settlement upgrading, this thesis seeks a better understanding of the socioeconomic and physio-environmental dynamics of urban low-income informal settlements and the formulation and implementation of upgrading policies. A comparative analysis of two majengos in Kenya-one of which has been upgraded while the other has not-serves to contextualize the study. The central thesis in the present study is that settlement upgrading is the most rational approach to improving the residential circumstances of the urban poor majority in Kenya. Applying a fundamentally liberal approach, the development of pragmatic opportunities is discussed, and pursuable policies and programmes, which are realistic and implementable, for effective environmental planning and management of urban low-income informal settlements in Kenya are proposed.
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Paredes, Sadler Miguel. "Giving a voice to the poor : rural telephones and economic development in Peru." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45366.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 81).
Although the current literature on technology and development has mainly focused on the Internet, I focus on a case where an "old" technology can be more beneficial and appropriate. In 1993, the Peruvian Government created the Telecommunications Investment Fund - FITEL, a fund aimed at providing subsidies to the private sector so that they would provide telecommunication services to remote and poor communities. FITEL's rural public telephone projects have had tremendous impacts on isolated and poor rural communities, providing an increase in welfare. The FITEL model has been replicated in many countries around the world as it has been considered successful by the literature and the development organizations. However, FITEL has also have drawn much criticism due to many problems that were unforeseen at the design phase of the projects. In this thesis we analyze how the political environment, the institutional arrangements, and the different actors affected the outcomes of the projects, providing some lessons to policy makers, especially those working on developing projects involving technology.
by Miguel Paredes Sadler.
S.M.
M.C.P.
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Mayer, Richard Campbell. "Low-income housing in Kampala, Uganda : a strategy package to overcome barriers for delivering housing opportunities affordable to the urban poor." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/67233.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, June 2011."June 2011." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-88).
The city of Kampala, Uganda, is struggling with a housing deficit that is compounding each year and creating market distortions that threaten to derail recent economic success and destabilize the social fabric of the community. The majority of government and private developers who build new housing are only providing units affordable to Kampala's minority of wealthy and well-connected elites. The majority of Kampala's residents are low-income earners who currently live in unplanned slum neighborhoods that consist of mostly informal rental housing. Inflating land values, exorbitant infrastructure costs and the lack of affordable home finance mechanisms are preventing the delivery of affordable housing to the majority of city residents. The same factors that are compounding the housing crisis in Kampala can be leveraged and reversed to create new opportunities that incentivize the private sector to deliver housing for the low-income market. Developers who construct middle-class housing products should be given tax discounts in exchange for formal commitments to deliver simple and well-planned housing estates for low-income families. This strategy provides a monetary incentive for private developers to bring their project management efficiencies into the low-income market and facilitates the government's need to placate social and political pressure to improve the local housing sector's performance for Ugandans at all levels of household income. To achieve these goals, pre-tax profits generated by a private developer utilizing tax incentives provided through a public/private partnership with government are reinvested into low-income housing projects built by the same developer. On the periphery of Kampala, where many development costs are significantly lower, new housing opportunities can be built and sold for a low price while generating a profit. Existing community groups and NGO programs can form a service network to help reduce the credit risk of low-income families and help them apply for "micromortgage" products to become homeowners and shift away from survival economics to working towards economic self-sufficiency. This program can be implemented to a large scale if supported by the "three pillars" of the "affordable housing cycle" that are: public/private development incentives, community training programs and customized low-income mortgage products. Government can achieve a more diversified real estate market and establish a formal planning process for suburban communities to accommodate the approaching urbanization of the city. Developers earn strong profits while expanding capacity and creating jobs. And finally, this strategy can begin a transformative process to bring poor families out of city slums and into formal housing, providing an avenue for increased civic engagement and entrepreneurship for people stuck in the poverty trap.
by Richard Campbell Mayer.
M.C.P.
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Maxwell, Daniel M. "Water Governance in Bolivia: Policy Options for Pro-Poor Infrastructure Reform." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2013. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/767.
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As the case with most countries across Latin America, unprecedented migration to urban areas has strained city infrastructure systems. More particularly, the region faces a pressing crisis of water security, where rapid urbanization has outpaced water sector development. This thesis addresses the water infrastructure reform in El Alto and La Paz, Bolivia, focusing on strategies to better promote water access for the peri-urban poor. The research investigates the level of progressivity of water service expansion and pricing regimes: in other words, does the present model of water distribution positively improve the lives of the poorest groups? By investigating these social dimensions of water management, this study brings perspectives on the broader dialogue on Bolivia’s economic development, along with issues of participatory governance.
Resumen: Como es el caso en muchos países latinoamericanos, la migración a áreas urbanas a niveles sin precedentes ha superado la capacidad de infraestructura. Concretamente, la región se enfrenta a una urgente crisis en la seguridad de agua potable dado que la rápida urbanización ha sobrepasado el desarrollo de este sector. Esta tesis aborda la reforma de la infraestructura de agua potable en El Alto y La Paz, Bolivia, enfocando en las estrategias para mejorar el acceso a agua por parte de los residentes periurbanos pobres. La investigación averigua el nivel de progresividad de los regímenes de precios y expansión de servicios de agua potable. En otras palabras, ¿contribuye el actual modelo de distribución de agua al mejoramiento de la vida de los grupos más desfavorecidos? Al investigar estas dimensiones sociales en el manejo de agua potable, este estudio ofrece perspectivas en cuanto al diálogo amplio del desarrollo económico de Bolivia, así como asuntos de gobernanza participativa.
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Mohr, Jennifer A. "Persevering from the margins : families in poverty reveal their expectations for early childhood programs." Virtual Press, 2008. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1395463.
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A case study approach was employed to investigate the expectations families in poverty had for their children's early childhood education program. Questions explored included the purpose of early childhood education, the needs of young children, the association of early childhood education to formal schooling, and families' aspirations for their children. Four women whose children or grandchildren were enrolled in an urban early childhood program and considered at risk because of poverty participated. Qualitative methods were used including analysis of interviews and families' photographs of representations of childhood, as well as the researcher's participant observations at the early childhood program. Results indicated that the women had mainstream aspirations for the children, including going to college. Analysis revealed that the women were insightful in regard to the development of children, to appropriate ways of learning for young children, and to the needs of young children. It was also apparent that the women understood the need for and desired a shared role between families and teachers in their children's development. The participants expect early childhood programs to not only prepare young children for school but to prepare them to successfully negotiate social interactions with both children and adults. The need for young children to be outside of the home was an unexpected theme of this research. The results also indicated that the women felt that childhood was a special time of life, free from anxiety, but a time to also form a secure base from which they could take risks in the world. The present study addresses myths that families in poverty do not understand the needs of young children, are not concerned with their futures, and have low expectations for their children. This study has implications for the preparation of teachers. Preservice teachers need opportunities for personal reflection regarding their assumptions about families. The development of initiatives that would allow low income families to reveal their expectations for their children's early childhood education is also implied.Department of Elementary Education
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Manouchehrifar, Babak. "The divine hand of the state? : how religion has influenced social policies for the poor in Iran." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99095.
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Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2015.Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2015.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 96-101).
As a paramount concern in development planning, poverty alleviation encompasses a variety of agents and actions, depending on the larger context of organizations and political economy within which it is embedded. Iran has a distinctive constellation of religion, society, and politics. This thesis examines how religion has influenced the ways in which the poor have been helped in Iran since the formation of the (modem) nation-state in the 1870s. Religion has often been considered a monolithic institution that inherently supports or obstructs social policies for the poor. The notion of functional differentiation-and emancipation-of the state from the religious sphere constitutes the conventional understanding of how social policies are to be planned and implemented-a notion contrary to theocratic ideals. There exists a marked disparity between this secular understanding of social policy and the lived reality in many parts of the world, where such policies can generate resistance from their intended recipients, especially when they are considered to disrupt religious ties, imperil religious authority, and undermine traditional sources of social meaning. Therefore, how religion influences social relationships and how religious beliefs can help or hinder the formulating of social policies remain crucial issues. Religion in Iran has affected social policies in varied ways. First, as an organized set of beliefs, religion has invariably cultivated a moral-spiritual discourse to help the needy by motivating state officials who are in charge of social policies. Second, as an institution, religion has established, mediated, and unsettle relationships between the poor and the principal agents of poverty alleviation. Finally, as an instrument, religion has been used by the state to serve populist or security purposes. This thesis shows that if the 'guiding hand' of the state and the 'divine hand' of religious institutions are joined, the impact can be either regressive (particularly for religious minorities) or progressive, depending on a host of variables among which the central one is the historically produced power relationship between the two sets of dominant institutions. Herein lies a central dilemma for development planners: if modernization efforts do not take into account religious sentiments, which are a primary source of meaning for people, such efforts are bound to fail in the long term; and yet, if religious sentiments dominate state-making efforts, it can at best lead to 'charitable efforts' without deep constitutional groundings of the rights of the poor to state resources. Therefore, how to blend state policies and religious beliefs is a crucial issue if both religious extremism and state monopoly are to be avoided in crafting social policies.
by Babak Manouchehrifar.
M.C.P.
S.M.
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Brasier, Alana. "Urban Greenways: The Case for the Selmon Greenway." Scholar Commons, 2011. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3014.
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Across the country and world, cities are building urban greenways to achieve environmental, economic, and social objectives. Greenways are recreational trails that provide functions beyond recreation, such as stormwater management, economic development, community development, and aesthetic improvements. A plan to build an urban greenway in downtown Tampa is underway. The greenway is proposed to be built underneath and adjacent to the Selmon Expressway, in conjunction with a widening and redecking project. A feasibility study was performed and approved by the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization; now the biggest hurdle standing in the way of the Selmon Greenway is finding funding. This thesis uses qualitative research methods to build a case for the Selmon Greenway by demonstrating the importance and usefulness of greenways and examples of other urban greenways to provide ideas for possible funding and implementation strategies. Three case studies of greenways in New York City, Minneapolis, and Miami provide real-world examples of greenways, the benefits these cities have seen, and the funding sources and implementation strategies used to develop these greenways. Additionally, an in-depth case study of Tampa and the Selmon Greenway details the planning process and status of the greenway, the potential benefits the greenway could bring to downtown Tampa, and possible sources of funding.
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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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Susnik, Ann Elizabeth. "Urban redevelopment and displacement outcomes : case studies of urban renewal in Hong Kong /." Thesis, Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1997. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B18735666.
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Canepa, Claudia. "New information technologies in the old political economy : an exploration of community-based GIS for improving basic services for the poor in New Delhi, India." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33012.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-223).
Rapid urbanization, limited neighborhood-level data, and the multiplicity of overlapping agencies in mega-cities in the developing world are creating a significant gap between citizens, particularly the poor, and government. Rising poverty rates have led NGOs and government actors to explore the role of community-based geographic information systems (GIS) in improving service provision to the poor. These participatory GIS applications focus on collecting neighborhood-level information directly from residents and providing this information to government for more need-based planning and policy-making. This thesis examines the development of three such applications in New Delhi, India, that illustrate the potential of participatory GIS production and implementation processes in strengthening communities and creating organizational change within government. However, these three projects also suggest that a stronger understanding of the political economy of information gathering and policy- making is needed if the use of resident perceptions and other types of local knowledge is to be institutionalized in government resource allocation and policy-making processes. Findings suggest, first, that, contrary to the popular belief that government lacks sufficient knowledge about the needs of the poor and that the role of participatory GIS is simply to inform "government," frontline workers have much information on the poor, and it is the higher-level officials who lack the knowledge. This knowledge differential highlights the need to deconstruct the state and consider the political economy issues that prevent information sharing between different levels of government.
(Cont.) Second, due to differences in ideology between NGOs and government, these two actors collect data on the poor for very different reasons. These differences may act as major impediments to GIS co-production unless special processes are set up and intermediaries are brought in to help generate common motivations between the two groups. Third, the NGOs' participatory approach to gathering local knowledge, which is deeply rooted in the flexible nature of NGOs, contrasts sharply with the standardized data collection methods that government officials and policy-makers value. This contrast, coupled with the fact that policy-making processes are often structured in ways that prevent easy incorporation of local knowledge, presents a challenge for NGOs and governments who seek to work together to create more need-based planning and policy-making.
by Claudia Canepa.
M.C.P.
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Hollister, Matissa N. (Matissa Nicole) 1973. "The forgotten half : an exploration of factors behind the poor performance of low income men in Project Pioneer, a job training demonstration program in Maine." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/67160.
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