Thesis: Ph. D. in Urban and Environmental Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-311). / From the eastern seaboard of the United States to coastal cities in Southeast Asia, severe weather events and long-term climate impacts challenge how we live and work. As the debates over cities, planning, and climate change intensify, governments are proposing increasingly ambitious plans to respond to climate impacts. These involve extensive reconfigurations of built and "natural" environments, and massive economic resources. They promise "ecological security" and the perpetuation of capitalist growth. Yet they often involve intractable social questions, including decisions about how and what to protect on sites that are home to already marginalized urban residents. Scholarship on urban adaptation planning has tended to reinforce divisions between social and spatial, drawing a line between designed and engineered solutions and sociopolitical measures. It often assumes urban politics to be contained and cohesive. And it has relied on static conceptualizations of the city as a bounded territory, neglecting interconnections across networks and broader processes of globalization, urbanization, and geopolitics. This dissertation, on the urban spatial politics of climate change adaption, is posed as a conceptual and methodological counterpoint to the dominant discourse. Exploring what I call a political ecology of design, I investigate sites and strategies in three cities, New York, Jakarta, and Rotterdam. Looking, on one level, at city and national initiatives, including Rebuild By Design in New York, the "Great Garuda" sea wall plan in Jakarta, and Rotterdam Climate Proof, my dissertation also searches out alternate narratives, the "counterplans" - including community resiliency in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and grassroots design activism in the informal "kampungs" of Jakarta - and new global/urban networks - the multiscalar, multilevel connections through which urban concepts travel, transform, and embed. I focus on the contested visions, the interrelationships of local and global, and the role of design in urban adaptation. I ask, in the face of climate change and uneven social and spatial urban development, how are contesting visions ofthe future produced and how do they attain power? I ground my research in theories of sociospatial power relationships - the social production of space (Lefebvre 1991), urbanization and uneven development (Harvey 1985; Smith 1984), spatial justice (Soja 2010), and the geographies of policy mobility (Peck 2011; Roy and Ong 2011). I also look to theories of the interrelationships between social, ecological, and technological processes in and through cities (Bulkeley et al. 2011; Hodson and Marvin 2010). I develop a method of urban relational analysis to study disparate yet highly interconnected sites. On one level, this is a mixed methods study of multiple design strategies across different cities, combining semi-structured interviews with field and participant observation, and spatial and visual methods. On another, I build on frameworks for a more reflexive approach to case selection and analysis (Burawoy 2003; McMichael 2000) and a relational reading of sites - each understood through the others (Amin 2004; Massey 2011; Roy 2009). In Ananya Roy's words, "to view all cities from this particular place on the map." I find that, 1) in this new landscape of climate policy mobilities, urban adaptation projects, globally constituted, are reformatted by and to local urban sociospatial systems, 2) climate change motivates relationships, but plan objectives often transcend climate-specific goals, and 3) the production of alternative visions - "counterplans" - opens terrains of contestation, enabling modes of organizing and resistance to hegemonic systems. These findings emphasize the agency of marginalized urban communities, the sociopolitical role of design, and the embeddedness of climate change responses within multiple scales and levels of global urban development. They imply that planners committed to just socio-environmental outcomes engage across the range of urban scales and networks, and learn from critical social and political imaginaries and practices. I end with speculations on an insurgent, networked, urban ecological design practice. / by Kian Goh. / Ph. D. in Urban and Environmental Planning

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-284). / The current consensus in housing policy recognizes the importance of learning from rather than about informal settlements. To serve this end, this dissertation presents a novel methodology for investigating land and housing markets. The methodology consists of investigating time-evolving relationships between attributes of the social agents who intervene on a market (e.g. social standing, religious affiliation, gender), rules-institutions systems (formal and informal institutions), and the macro political-economic context (e.g. price of land, demographic growth). The method was applied to a case study that tracked three groups of actors: developers, public agents, and homeowners, over a fifty-year period (1950-2000) in Hayy el Sellom, a neighborhood located in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon. The case study relied on in-depth interviews of developers, public agents, and residents, a structured survey of homeowners, research of public archives (e.g. construction and urban regulations, building permits, lot subdivisions), and time series analysis of aerial photographs. The case study demonstrated that the proposed method can unpack the category of the "informal market" by revealing a web of co-existing formal (market and public institutions) and informal (e.g. social, geographic, political associations) institutions whose interplay determined market characteristics (e.g. openness, flexibility, security) and resulted in unequal opportunities for housing and capital accumulation by residents and developers, respectively. Second, the case study unraveled dialectical actor-institution relationships in which one's ability to intervene in the housing market depended on one's ability to tap existing institutions that sustain exchanges and build new ones. Third, the / (cont.) study documented the heavy involvement of public agencies or agents in the development of informal regulations and the organization of illegal processes of housing production. Fourth, the case study documented the interconnectedness of housing markets segments, showing how so- called informal markets are directly influenced by city-wide parameters (e.g. price of land, political stability, housing demand) and partially rely on formal market institutions such as banks and contracts. Finally, it was found that greater involvement of formal market institutions did not improve market conditions (e.g. transaction security) or opportunities for capital accumulation. / by Mona Fawaz. / Ph.D.

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. 116-123). / As WEB DuBois notes in his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, "it is a peculiar sensation, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity [...]." The Black person wishes to merge the double-consciousness, but "would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American...". And, hence, it is within this space, in the chasm created by double-consciousness, within which Black Urbanism aims to draw from. A Black Urbanism discourse assumes there is a latent genius in that space, untapped by contemporary design and planning literature and practice. My thesis aims to develop a theory of "Black Urbanism," and derive a set of employable design principles. Black communities contribute greatly to the liveliness and culture of cities, however, their contributions are seldom engaged meaningfully by planners/designers; the framework is intended to fold Black Urban principles into a larger understanding of how cities function and thrive and to develop a tool not only for analysis, but also for the active role of designing new spaces. In light of the search for a sustainable urbanism, the retrofitting of America's urban landscapes offers a major opportunity to apply this approach, as much of what is considered "wasted landscape" may be disproportionately located in communities of color. I explore the history of the federal interstate system, its disproportionate construction in Black neighborhoods, and the growing argument for the removal of elevated expressways in cities' urban core. In New Orleans, the Claiborne Expressway, a spur off of Interstate 10 planned by Robert Moses, runs through the heart of what is considered America's first Black neighborhood, and the neighborhood that birthed jazz. I explore the local manifestations of Black Urbanism on the street and describe the opportunities for a Black Urban design strategy to revive the sense of place and scale should the freeway be removed. / by Sara Zewde. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / BRT is a new type of bus transit with high speed and capacity. With its advantages and benefits, BRT is getting popular in the world, including China. Since BRT and urban rail transit (URT) are both rapid public transports, the comparisons between the two will be inevitable. Generally speaking, BRT could theoretically reach the speed and capacity of light rail, but there is still a gap in abilities between BRT and metro. Though for construction investment, BRT is much lower-cost than the same-length metro, if considering the land value and exclusive effects altogether, the total cost of a BRT system could increase faster with the raise in passenger numbers. Therefore, depending on different development stages, cities should choose the right mode with highest efficiency as the dominant public transit. Sometimes, both of the systems should work in corporation for the best effectiveness. Though there are competition and substitution between BRT and URT, compatibility and complementarity also exist. The integration between the two will bring us a new understanding on the developments of the urban transit system. For integration of BRT and URT, thoughtful network planning is the first step. Second, the service quality and efficiency of transfers between the systems should be emphasized. Also important, a cooperative management will be necessary. At the same time, land development opportunities should be considered with this integration trend. / by Yun Zhan. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1986. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Bibliography: leaves 129-137. / by Shih-Liang Tu. / M.C.P.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1984. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: leaves 208-223. / by Hugh Emrys Evans. / Ph.D.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-75). / Social networks in the Vietnamese nail salon industry were studied for their utility in addressing occupational health risks. Major findings include heavy reliance on family networks for fundamental needs, an extensive industry network effective in spreading information, and a sparse community network. Practitioners hoping to work with this population are directed to the opportunities and challenges to taking action, particularly the potential for greater cooperation and the lack of weak-bridging ties. / by Tam Minh-Thi Doan. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-107). / by Kenji Mitsui. / M.C.P.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. Thesis. 1973. M.C.P. / Bibliography: leaves 100-105. / M.C.P.

Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2018. / 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 (pages 89-97). / In September 2017, two severe earthquakes hit Mexico, killing hundreds of people and destroying thousand of structures, including houses, schools, churches, and other buildings. As a consequence, 18,851 settlements were declared disaster areas (DOF. 2017); 96% of those settlements are rancherías -- rural settlements and smallest geo-political unit in Mexico (INEGI. 2010). Because they tend to be very poor, the Mexican federal government intervened to assist affected families by utilizing national savings to provide conditional cash transfers for self-building, with the aim of facilitating housing reconstruction. However, this federal program, like other development programs used by the Mexican government, uses a top-down approach that has been criticized as a one-size-fits-all-solution that does not address the overwhelming needs of those living in earthquake-affected rancherías. This thesis studies the Mexican post-earthquake house reconstruction program at national, state, ranchería and household levels, with the objective of (1) examining the post-earthquake housing development program implemented by the Mexican government, (2) analyzing how national reconstruction plans can be made more efficient at local level, and (3) making recommendations to increase program efficiency through the proposal of a new policy initiative. In order to understand the reconstruction process, I first studied the protocols deployed at national and state levels. I then visited families in the midst of their reconstruction process in three rancherías -- La Nopalera in Yautepec, Morelos; Acatzingo de la Piedra in Tenancingo, Estado de Mexico; and San Juan Tlacotompa in Ecatzingo, Estado de México. This fieldwork permitted discovering that reconstruction is being led by external agents that fail to understand rural needs, consequently imposing urban housing solutions on a rural setting, thereby creating financial, structural and health risks. At the same time, capacity building training is concentrated on these external, urban-oriented agents, leaving local communities with minimal involvement or training in reconstruction efforts. Based on these findings, this thesis provides recommendations on how to address the misdirection of reconstruction efforts and proposes the creation of a university network for Rural Risk Reduction, so as to decentralise the technical capacity, currently concentrated in Mexican cities, while integrating local knowledge regarding rural-specific needs. / by Akemi Sato Matsumoto Miranda. / M.C.P.