In municipalities across the globe, traditional forms of governance are being supplemented by collaborative arrangements between governments and their constituencies toward jointly produced public services. Since the late 1970s, this phenomenon known as coproduction has been utilized in efforts to survive severe budget cuts, improve performance, increase accountability, and welcome traditionally silenced voices. However, no study to date has undergone a citywide assessment of coproduction to determine its breadth and depth in a city. Additionally, there is practically no empirical study that examines what citizen characteristics and perceptions are associated with participation in coproduction. The present study represents a first attempt to begin to fill these gaps in the literature. Specifically, this dissertation analyses: (1) How prevalent is coproduction? (2) Who engages in coproduction? and (3)What motivates coproducers? I employ a mixed-method case study of Atlanta, Georgia via its Neighborhood Planning Unit system, using focus groups, citizen questionnaires, census and GIS data, and direct observations. Overall, the coproduction classifications developed in this dissertation enable more systematic research on coproduction. The dissertation findings also contribute to our understanding of (1) how much this service delivery strategy is being utilized in an urban municipality, (2) which forms are most utilized, (3) what triggers participation in each form, and (4) who utilizes coproduction the most – even challenging the longstanding perception that African Americans and low-income groups do not participate in such activities. Lastly, study findings suggest a need to reconceptualize the current theory of coproduction as a public service delivery strategy.

<p> Climate change is a significant public health danger, with a disproportionate impact on low-income and communities of color that threatens to increase health inequities. Many important social determinants of health are at stake in California climate change policy-making and planning, and the distribution of these will further impact health inequities. Not only are these communities the most vulnerable to future health impacts due to the cumulative impacts of unequal environmental exposures and social stressors, they are also least likely to be represented in climate change decision-making processes. Therefore, it is imperative that public health and social equity advocates participate in climate change policy-making that protects and enhances the health and well-being of vulnerable communities. Regions have emerged as important policy-making arenas for both climate change and public health in California, because many drivers of climate change are also social determinants of health (e.g. land use, housing, and transportation planning); these play out regionally and are under regional governmental authority. However, the public health sector is not engaged adequately with climate change planning given the magnitude of risks and opportunities inherent for health. Examination of where public health and equity partners have engaged in regional climate change planning and policy-making may offer lessons for how to change the drivers of health inequities and climate change through this work. </p><p> This dissertation examines why the public health sector in California is not more engaged with climate change work and regional scale planning given current threats to and opportunities for health, and whether and how public health and social equity stakeholders&rsquo; participation in climate change solutions and regional scale planning can improve health and inequities outcomes and decision-making processes. The overarching goal of this research was to inform efforts to increase public health work on climate change and regional-scale planning, strengthen partnerships between public health, social equity, and climate change stakeholders, and formulate strategies that address climate change and health equity. </p><p> The first chapter of this dissertation was conducted in conjunction with a study at the Center for Climate Change and Health at the Public Health Institute, where we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews (n=113) with public health and climate change professionals and advocates. I performed structured coding and conducted inductive-deductive thematic analysis within and across respondent groups. I found that individual-level barriers to public health engagement with climate change include perceptions that climate change is not urgent, immediate, or solvable, and insufficient understanding of public health impacts, connections, and roles. Institutional barriers include a lack of public health capacity, authority, and leadership due to risk aversion and politicization of climate change; a narrow framework for public health practice; and professional compartmentalization. Opportunities include integrating climate change into current public health practice; providing support for climate solutions with health co-benefits; and communicating, engaging and mobilizing impacted communities and public health professionals. </p><p> In the second chapter, I conducted two case studies of Sustainable Communities Strategies planning to achieve greenhouse gas reduction targets through integrated regional land use and transportation planning under California Senate Bill 375 (San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California). I used in-depth interviews (n=50) with SCS planning participants, public document review, and participant observation. I analyzed interviews using thematic analysis in an iterative inductive-deductive process. In both regions, climate change planning was a major lever for increasing the language, consideration, funding, and measurement of health impacts into the SCS plans. Public health&rsquo;s analytic skills and social determinants of health conceptual framework were valuable for both regional planning agencies and equity groups. Political context influenced the priority concerns, framing, and outcomes. Desire to improve public health was influential in both of these environments. In the Bay Area, a health equity frame promoted regional solutions that can improve health, equity, and climate change. In SCAG, a public health frame increased awareness, language, and future funding for active transportation. Public health was a less contested and commonly held value across diverse political jurisdictions that may be an entry point for future discussions of equity and climate change. In both regions, reform of regional governance processes was pursued to sustain institutionalization of health and equity concerns and improve regional democracy. I discuss implications and recommendations for engaging in multi-system integrated regional planning that can simultaneously improve climate change, health, and equity. </p><p> In the third chapter, I analyze the same data as a case for understanding regional-scale public health, social equity, and regional planning staff efforts to slow climate change and improve social determinants of health and social equity. In both regions multi-year SCS planning processes, public health and equity stakeholder engagement was instrumental in getting health goals, targets, and indicators into plans. In the Bay Area, advocacy efforts yielded health and equity language in policies and implementation funding guidelines and changes to the basic governance structure. In SCAG, advocacy efforts yielded significant future funding for active transportation and more metrics to monitor the health and equity impacts of planning. Participants in the SCS planning process described their motivations for engaging at the regional level, the barriers to effective regional planning, the achievements of their engagement, and recommendations for improving future efforts. In the interviews, three main themes emerged related to the opportunities and challenges of working at the regional scale: (1) Building regional identity as a foundation for advancing health and equity; (2) The importance of governance structures for health and equity, and the need for regional governance reform; (3) The prospects and barriers of building regional coalitions both within public health networks and with regional equity partners. I discuss implications and recommendations for public health&rsquo;s engagement with regional planning agencies, creation of coalitions, and reforming of regional governance structures to sustain better consideration of climate change, health, and equity.</p>

The widespread introduction of Local Area Network (LAN) media has had profound implications for communications protocols. It is required that the campus network at Hatfield, which since 1981 has been based on the cambridge Ring, should take advantage of the properties of their LAN, should meet the demand of both new and traditional applications and should allow network interconnections. To show how these requirements might be met a review is given of the communications support provided elsewhere by data transportation protocols. Expansion is also required, but it may not be achieved unless appropriate planning decisions are made. Measurements which provide knowledge of typical traffic characteristics and quantities and of constraints or erroneous behaviour which may affect the decisions made are required. This information will allow modellers and planners to make predictions and estimates so that future demands can be met. A monitor tool has therefore been developed. It allows the traffic of the network to be monitored and measurements to be retrieved, displayed and analysed. A decentralized approach which provides an integrated measurement facility has been adopted. The design, and the decisions and constraints which influenced that design, are desribed. From the measurements gathered a comprehensive traffic characterization is provided. It relates traffic characteristics of different grains to applications, to system characteristics and to constraints. The measurement analysis therefore establishes a firm base from which predictions and estimates may be made. It also provides a base for comparisons, one which allows the effects of hardware and software changes to be observed and which also provides valuable information to both planners and modellers of similar and different environments. Implementation errors and erroneous behaviour are demonstrated and their cause is established. A bottleneck is identified, performance thresholds are determined and protocol modifications are suggested. Specific traffic characteristics are identified for particular applications and user groups, effects of different buffer sizes are considered and relationships between protocol efficiency and traffic patterns are discussed

Local Government has undergone ma.n;r changes in the past decade. Not least of these is its changing relationship with the organisations which lie outside its institutional boundaries. A particular focus of interaction between the Local Authority and other agencies has been Policy for the Inner Cities. This thesis examines the implementation of an Inner Area Programmein Nottingham and the changes in local policy making which have been associated with it. It argues that the implementation of the Inner Area Programmehas involved the development of closer relationships between statutory and non-statutory seotors, which oontain some corporatist fea.tures. Importantly, these changing relationships were identified not only by institutional features, but also by values and ideas, thus indicating an ideological dimension to corporatism. Other aspeots of the UP, such as its strategio and main programme components, and its requirements for momtoring and review, were not developed, despite the 1nitial stress on them at national level. . The Inner Area Programmewas implemented within an existing framewrk of trends and patterns, some of which reinforced the oonsultation emphasis' and interaction between sectors, while others mitigated the strategio and planning aspects of the policy. The inJeotion of the Inner Area Programmeinto the local policy makjng system in Nottingham illustrated the complexity of interactions between a national policy, local institutions and values, and underlying 'imperatives' to political action. Within this framework there was soope for the organisational choices which determined the particular fo:m of the Inner Area Programme in Nottingham.

No description available.

The central aim of this thesis is to investigate how a collaborative partnership approach as presented in contemporary planning theories can be applied to, and improve, a process of integrated waterside revitalisation. The emergence of a new model of governance, bringing together governmental and non-governmental forces to achieve the policy goal, calls for a novel form of partnership driven by interdependence and networking between a range of actors. Although this approach is often described as 'collaborative planning', there is widespread acknowledgement that the 'new' practice has operational difficulties. Collaborative planning has raised issues about how common values can be forged and applied in a real-life context, especially in the face of political inequality. This thesis draws on the results of a research project investigating a concrete example of collaborative partnerships, the Mersey Basin Campaign in the North West of England. The Campaign is a government-sponsored 25-year initiative that aims to improve water quality and the waterside environments of the Mersey Basin, a heavily urbanised area containing the two conurbations of Merseyside and Greater Manchester. In carrying out the study, six detailed case studies within the Campaign's activities have been investigated; about 40 semi-structured interviews have been undertaken, and over 25 meetings and field works have been observed. The study investigated the establishment and operation of a particular collaborative partnership according to a four-stage life cycle of partnerships. By exploring the six cases of collaborative practice through the views of practitioners, the research has shown how collaborative efforts can be made in a real-life context. The results showed that waterside sustainability issues were essential to tackling a river basin ecosystem management by creating a win-win strategy for wider stakeholders. The sustainability issue however, was not a top priority for all key stakeholders in deciding whether or not to put their money, time and efforts into the partnership. The research showed that funding availability is the best way to attract reluctant stakeholders, although partner organisations seemed not to be interested in implementing the tasks of the partnership once the initial excitement of funding availability had died away. There is, therefore, the partnerships need to develop an understanding of the collaborative approach among stakeholders and to change their attitudes towards a collaborative form of planning practice. Collaborative partnerships need different implementation processes to tackle different problems in the face of the complexity of waterside agendas; some planning processes require continuity of leadership, whilst others need bottom-up approaches. In this context, the study identified three key aspects of integrated waterside revitalisation; consensus building, facilitation, and open participation. It also developed a mechanism of collaborative partnership service delivery in coordinating a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach. The study has shown that the role of representatives linking their parent organisations to the partnership is fundamental for effective service delivery. It has been seen that once the representatives have shared ownership of the partnership, they act as a catalyst to stimulate and motivate action from their parent organisations.

The main objective of this research is to develop a systematic approach for comprehensive ex-post evaluation of urban policy. In broad terms, urban policies are central government initiatives applied in a spatially targeted manner within urban areas where specific needs have been identified. 'Comprehensive' is defined as the attempt to answer all the questions policy-makers and stakeholders are likely to raise at the various stages of the planning and implementation process. In moving towards the achievement of this objective a number of different, yet supplementary, sources of knowledge and experience are examined. Part 1 reviews the underlying assumptions and strengths and weaknesses of existing appraisal methods and examines their applicability in ex-post evaluation and the choice among them. It also examines the different views and models of both monitoring and implementation analysis and the role each can play within a comprehensive evaluation approach. Part 2 examines evaluation methods adopted in a number of case studies in various fields. It starts with the first hand experience in urban policy evaluation within a governmental context. Then, it critically reviews the methodology adopted for evaluation in a number of case studies in the field of urban policy. Evaluation traditions in the fields of regional (economic) policy in Britain and, trunk road and motorway schemes in the UK, USA and the Netherlands are also reviewed. These different strands are brought together in the form of a flexible systematic approach for comprehensive ex-post evaluation of urban policy. The choice of the 'components' of the approach is based, to a large extent, on the first part of the research. However, the organisation of the approach and the exact role each tool can play are greatly informed by the second part.

<p> In the last twenty years, anchor institutions such as universities and academic medical centers have been addressing societal problems in building a more democratic, just, and equitable society (Taylor, 2013). Anchor institutions are those nonprofit or corporate entities that, by reason of mission, invested capital, or relationships to customers or employees, are geographically tied to a certain location (Porter, 2002; Taylor, 2013).</p><p> This study sought to understand what organizational capacity is needed by urban universities in order to undertake large-scale neighborhood revitalization efforts. This study used qualitative research methods to examine the University of Chicago&rsquo;s Washington Park Incubator project, established in 2011, and Johns Hopkins University&rsquo;s East Baltimore Development Initiative, established in 2001. Through 22 interviews with executive and senior university officials, leaders of community-based organizations and neighborhood residents, this study sought to answer two research questions: What strategies do anchor institutions use to seed, support and sustain their anchor initiatives? What are the barriers or complexities to forming sustainable agreements and cohesion around partnership collaboration?</p><p> This study found that IHE anchors use three critical strategies to sustain their work: the role and actions of a university&rsquo;s president, the role of the board of trustees, and the use of community boundary spanners as leaders of partnerships. A major barrier to sustainability and a primary challenge to achieving cohesive partnership agreements with partners is historical mistrust. The findings were situated within a university real estate investment model (Austrian &amp; Norton, 2005), an engaged institutions leadership model (Sandmann &amp; Plater, 2009), and a framework for community boundary spanners (Weerts &amp; Sandmann, 2010) to explain how these models impact the sustainability of IHE anchor initiatives.</p><p> Conclusions drawn from this study will equip urban college and university executive and senior leaders and operational administrators as well as community leaders with insight into how to sustain anchor institution partnerships. </p>

Migrants' experiences in space open a window to better understand how global dynamics of capital play out culturally, and within the local. Departing from the conviction that spatiality is a key component in asserting human rights (Lefebvre 1991; Mitchell 2003; Massey 2000; Marston 2000), how do hegemonic definitions of citizenship and immigrant in Spain and Ecuador affect migrants' perception and experiences of, as well as responses to, Madrid's urban spaces? How do Ecuadorian migrants experience and (re)make the city locally through transnational practices? To answer these questions, I use a transdisciplinary approach to analyze the cultural expressions emanating from spaces in Madrid that hold special significance in Ecuadorian migrants' everyday lives.The objectives of this dissertation are: 1) to analyze how Ecuadorians' different levels participation in Madrid's urban spaces, and the municipality's response to these practices, dialogue with definitions of citizenship, and with migrants' place in Spain and Ecuador's configurations of nationhood; 2) to show the interrelation between the material realities of Ecuadorian migrants in Madrid, access to space, and cultural production (and consumption), focusing on the historical specificity of postcolonial relations between Spain and Ecuador; 3) to document how Ecuadorian migrants are actively engaged in the urban planning of Madrid and Quito, making both cities through local transnational practices (Michael Peter Smith 2001, 2002).Altogether, this work shows how migrants are active subjects in the urban initiatives of both Madrid and Quito. Their local experiences in Madrid challenge and participate in global agendas of what a `modern' city should be, and show how definitions of `public' spaces become a most valuable resource to affirm private interests over the global city. Addressing the entwinement between transnational processes and migrants' experiences of locality this work shows how urban processes manifest culturally on both sides of the Atlantic.

This thesis, located in Edmonton, Alberta, aims to magnify the differences between urban development and nature. It proposes a vision of future Edmonton in which the River Valley Park system is restored as an intensive greenway through the heart of the city, acting as a necessary counterpoint to urbanization. Contrasting elements such as natural vs artificial, celestial vs the clock, recreation and relaxation vs work and stress are the basis for treating the river valley an anti-city rather than as an extension of it. This does not mean that the park system is isolated from the city, but that development in the River Valley is concerned in opposition to the city. Architectural interventions in the River Valley take advantage of landscape and environmental processes to enhance the experience of being in this natural “wilderness”.