The escalating urbanization process has given rise to various complications in the urban structure. One of the major issues is the one concerning urban cohesion. As modern cities are facing a transformation from industrial to knowledge societies, many aspects have to be taken into consideration in the planning of cities. This thesis aims to study the significance of a cohesive city centre from a social and spatial point of view, and to understand modern cities’ development towards innovative Knowledge Cities. The objective is to present proposals for how a unification of a fragmented downtown can be made possible seen from a Knowledge City perspective. The two main research questions of this thesis are answered by literary reviews of existing theories in urban planning, by a case study of the downtown area in the Swedish city of Jönköping, and finally also by a design proposal showing on how urban cohesiveness can be obtained from a Knowledge City perspective. If cities are to become successful knowledge cities they have to promote culture, attractiveness and above all an innovative urban environment. Innovation is mainly achieved by so called “innovation engines” – simple urban elements, such as a café or a library. For innovation to emerge, human interaction and meetings have to occur in the urban environment, why innovation engines are key factors in the development towards knowledge cities. As human interaction is maximized in the simple meetings between people, added interaction possibilities are enabled in public spaces such as a square or a pedestrian street. Public spaces are used as a tool for assembling people in the city. They have positive impact on the city only when they are part of a whole, and works as a network system in the urban structure. This is why urban cohesiveness is essential in the planning of modern cities. Public space is a fundamental feature in the urban structure, endorsing coherence, urban quality and human affiliation, making it an essential element if a city is to be coherent. Cohesion in public spaces can be regulated by the design and planning of cities and either stimulate or dampen the public areas. Gathering people creates opportunities for people to interact on an individual level and thereby stimulate each other, and it is people that need to be gathered rather than buildings. Urban activities and the complementarity between public spaces needs to promote social dynamics, which in turn enhances the urban experience, enables urban cohesion and minimizes social exclusion and urban fragmentation.

The main aim of the thesis is to analyse the recent socio-spatial patterns of Istanbul, in which squatter areas on publicly-owned land (gecekondu) and old historical centre of the city are subjected to regeneration projects, under the impact of making Istanbul a purified place for the significant social classes via exclusion of the others. The formulations of Henri Lefebvre for analysing the production of (social) space are used as the conceptual framework of the thesis. To reveal the case study, the recent urban regeneration projects in Istanbul, a wide range of qualitative data collection techniques and methodology, documentary analysis, in-depth interviews, participant observations, which will pave a way to understand the complex relations among social and spatial formations, are used. According to the analysis on the acceleration of urban regeneration projects in the city of Istanbul, the thesis argues two main points: Firstly, the specificity of urbanisation period in Istanbul after 2000 is characterised with the strong role of the central state, mainly MHA. Secondly, the people, who are living in the gecekondu areas and old historical centres in the inner city are not only evicted from their living spaces, they are also socially and spatially excluded from the city centres.

The main objective of this study is to investigate reproduction strategies of upper-middle class group of people in Ankara and their differentiation propensities in the fragmentation process of urban space. Dispositions and everyday life practices of upper-middle group on Bourdieu&rsquo / s approach in the urban space of Ankara are analyzed on the basis of intensive interviews with upper-middle class women. In this sense, special emphasis is placed on this group&rsquo / s close family relations, investment strategies in education, housing and living space strategies.

The focus of the dissertation is to be a flâneur in Shanghai and explore the relationship between ¡§urban space¡¨ and ¡§flowing body¡¨. In this paper, I attempt to describe the connection between daily practices and identities by interviewing Taiwanese entrepreneurs. As result, some major findings emerged from the study¡GFirstly, Taiwanese enterprenuers enjoy the flexible status based on the accumulation of their (original)capitals. Second, Shanghai is presented in both nostalgia and modernization. Due to the Satisfication of their daily life in shanghai, Taiwanese entrepreneurs like to join this global city.Third, Taiwan is less competitive for Taiwanese entrepreneurs in shanghai.

Seeking to widen the existing literature on postcolonial cities, this thesis conducts an inquiry into the multilocality of postcolonial space. Through ethnographic research in Sri Lanka’s Galle Fort, it investigates how different social groups differently use and interpret the city’s former colonial built environment. Specifically, it examines how the postcolonial city is socially produced and constructed as a place of home for local communities, a World Heritage Site, and a gentrifying neighborhood. Using interviews, observations, and spatial analyses, it teases out the local, national, and transnational socio-economic forces that drive these processes, as well as the power-dynamics and resistances that come into play. It finds that postcolonial uses of space often relate to, and sometimes recall, social struggles that characterized urban space under colonialism. Drawing on these findings, it highlights the importance of studying social relations, heritage management, and gentrification in postcolonial cities in conversation with literatures on colonial urbanisms.

State violence in Egypt is an embedded part of daily life and popular culture, and well documented in social and news media. The uprisings of January 11, which took place in Egypt were organized in large part against violence and torture regularly delivered by police forces. In this dissertation I examine the implications of chronic state violence on everyday life for low-income Egyptians. In doing so, this dissertation provides analysis of how violence shapes forms of intimacy within social life, how it shapes urban landscapes and the politics therein and how it informs individual piety and banal practices of security. This work contributes to studies within feminist geopolitics, memory and emotion within geography by understanding the lives of Cairenes through their experience of the landscape and places they inhabit, maneuver through, and create with the memory and threat of state violence. The project focuses on four selected sites in Greater Cairo: Kholousy Street in Shoubra, Musky Market in Old Cairo, Cairo University in Giza, and Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. These sites have been chosen because they represent different nodes of daily life (shopping, leisure, education, and political participation) for low-income Cairenes. Research methods include participant observation at the four sites, eleven focus groups and thirty-one interviews with low-income Cairo residents in two age cohorts: one group of participants between the ages of 18 and 26, and a second cohort between the ages of 49 and 57. For each of these questions, this project provides a gender sensitive comparison of the two age cohorts in order to gain insight into the role of youth and memory and gender in Cairenes’ interpretations and representations of the Mubarak era and the recent revolution.

Harm minimisation approaches to illicit drug use have proven extremely successful in reducing drug-related harm and improving health outcomes for those using drugs, their families and the broader community. Despite these successes, however, many harm minimisation programmes face strong community opposition, and many others are limited in their effectiveness by their reluctance to acknowledge the complex ways in which drug using contexts, social relationships, desire, pleasure and aesthetics are involved in the production and reduction of drug-related harm.[NP] Deleuze and Guattari’s ethico-aesthetic philosophy offers a conceptual framework through which to begin to grapple with the sensory and affective elements of illicit drug use and their implications for an embodied ethics. Following an introduction to their key concepts, this thesis explores the implications of their ontology for understandings of injecting drug use across four inter-related dimensions: the drug using body; urban spaces of injecting; public overdose memorials; and drug referenced, ‘heroin chic’ advertising imagery. It argues that aesthetics and ethics are complexly intertwined, and that ethically positive responses to drug use require an active appreciation of the ways in which aesthetics affect bodies and their capacities to form relations with others

Entre la fin des années 1960 et les années 1980, la ville de Paris a connu à la fois une période de grande transformation urbaine et un changement dans les stratégies de cette transformation par rapport aux héroïques Trente Glorieuses. L'analyse de ces modifications architecturales et urbaines et les processus de leur mise en œuvre sont souvent basés sur le point de vue de la morphologique ou des politiques urbaines. De plus, en France, l'étude des processus de décision et des transformations urbaines relève des sciences sociales. Cela a abouti à une malheureuse séparation des approches académiques: l'une portant sur la recherche du lien entre les politiques ou les théories de la communauté architecturale et les projets, alors que l'autre considère l'espace urbain déjà transformé comme un point de départ pour l'analyse sociale. Cette recherche vise à étudier l'écart entre ces deux approches méthodologiques influentes en France dans les années 1970 et 1980, grâce à une étude dans le domaine de l'histoire urbaine. Le principal objectif de la thèse est d'explorer le rôle de l'Atelier Parisien d'Urbanisme (ci-après APUR), une entité bureaucratique chargée de tâches multiples, dans le contexte du décalage entre rénovation et forme urbaine quant à la ville de Paris. Entre 1967 et 1989, l'APUR a joué un rôle essentiel dans la traduction du passage susmentionné en termes opérationnels, en créant un lien avec les institutions qui ont le pouvoir de transformer de vastes zones de la capitale française. Cela fut possible grâce au processus de négociation entre des institutions entre elles et avec les architectes et designers urbains dans lequel APUR a joué un rôle important. Dans ce contexte, la recherche étudiera également la relation entre les références culturelles et les processus par lesquels les espaces urbains sont convertis. Deux cas d'études nous permettent d'analyser ces changements urbains et le rôle joué par l'APUR: les transformations des Halles Centrales de Paris, et les projets pour le Secteur de la Villette, en particulier ceux de la place Stalingrad (Bernard Huet, de 1985 à 1989) et le Parc de la Villette au cours du premier concours organisé par l'APUR (1976).Ces deux cas sont liés. D'une part, ils illustrent un point de vue culturel; d'autre part, ils rendent compte des processus institutionnels et politiques, montrant une transformation qui s'est produite dans toute la ville. Enfin, ils croisent la trajectoire de certains des personnages les plus emblématiques de l'architecture française de l'époque. L'un d'eux était Bernard Huet, un enseignant, théoricien, critique et concepteur qui a joué un rôle fondamental dans la définition d'un nouveau paradigme culturel. La recherche montre un changement dans le processus de transformation de l'espace urbain à Paris. Les pratiques sont passées de projets qui ont été générés par un débat animé, fortement lié aux sciences sociales contemporaines françaises, à une normalisation successive des projets urbains et d'un imaginaire urbain ainsi qu'à une légitimation culturelle de l'APUR. Le rôle crucial de l'APUR dans les deux cas d'études est analysé en comparant les archives de l'Atelier, celles des architectes impliqués dans les projets urbains ainsi que les fonds ministériels et présidentiels. Les sources orales sont limitées à un rôle de contrôle. Enfin ce travail vise à mettre en évidence le processus de « faire la ville » en soulignant le rôle d'une bureaucratie publique dans les transformations urbaines qui mènent, entre 1967 et 1989,à la conception contemporaine de la ville de Paris / Between the end of the 1960s and the 1980s, the city of Paris faced a period of extensive urban transformation and a change in the strategies of this transformation at the same time, in comparison with the heroic Trente Glorieuses. The analysis of these architectural and urban changes and the processes of implementation, are often based on a morphological or a policiy-oriented perspective. Moreover, in France, the study of decision-making processes and urban transformation falls within the scope of social sciences. This has resulted in an unfortunate separation of academic approaches: one focusing on finding the link between the theories of the architectural community or policies and the projects, while the other taking the already transformed urban space as a starting point for social analysis. This research aims to investigate the gap between these two methodological approaches, both influential in France during the 1970s and 1980s, through an urban history-oriented study. The main goal of the thesis is to explore the role of the Atelier Parisien d'Urbanisme (hereafter APUR), a bureaucratic entity charged of several different tasks, within the shift from urban renovation to urban form, concerning the city of Paris.Between 1967 and 1989, the APUR had an essential part in translating the aforementioned shift into operative terms, in connection with those institutions that had the power to transform large areas of the French capital. This was possible thanks to a negotiation process involving different institutions , as well as architects and urban designers, in which APUR took a major role. In this context the research will also investigate the relationship between the cultural references and the processes through which urban spaces have been converted. Two case studies allow an analysis of these urban changes and of the role played by the APUR: the transformations of the Halles Centrales of Paris, and the projects for the secteur de la Villette, especially those for Place Stalingrad (Bernard Huet, 1985-89) and Parc de la Villette during the first competition organized by APUR (1976).These two cases are intertwined. On one hand, they illustrate a cultural point of view; on the other hand, they give an account of institutional and political processes, showing a transformation that occurred throughout the whole city. Finally, they cross the trajectory of some of the most emblematic figures in French architecture at that time. One of them was Bernard Huet, a teacher, theorist, critic and designer who played an fundamental role in the definition of a new cultural paradigm. The research shows a change in the process of transformation of urban space in Paris. The practices shifted from projects which were generated through vivid debate, strongly linked to contemporary French social sciences, to a later standardization of urban projects and urban imaginaire and a cultural legitimation of APUR. The central role of APUR in the two case studies is analysed by comparing the Atelier's archives, the ones of the architects involved in the urban projects as well as the ministerial and presidential ones. Oral sources are restricted to a control role. In the end this work aims to highlight the process of city-making trough the role of a public bureaucracy within urban transformations: an active contribution which led, between 1967 and 1989, to the definition of the contemporary conception of the city of Paris

A majority of Sweden’s population, about 80 %, lives in urban environments, and a majority of them live in residential complexes with shared residential yards. People spend a large part of their time in or around their home, which is why the outside environment and the green space in the area play an important part in a person’s well being. The green yard offers space for children’s activities, recreation, solitude, relaxation and gardening and gives the opportunity to learn and understand nature and its processes. The green yard also constitutes a part of the city’s factual green structure, informal green spaces that are not owned by the city and are therefore not included in the formal planning processes. The green residential yards also provide a number of ecosystem services such as climate regulation, purification of water and air and rainwater infiltration, all of which are of importance in the fight against climate change. The goal of this thesis has been to present the advantages an improved planning and maintenance of the urban green space and the residential yard in particular can offer. A number of important properties and functions that affect a yard’s functionality and how it is perceived are also presented and explained. The paper also aims to offer a better understanding of the garden’s role in improving the social conditions in the neighbourhood, and of the importance of involving the residents in planning and maintaining the green spaces. A number of case studies and analyses offer a more concrete perspective on the real world situations, and of successful refurbishment projects. Involving the residents in the formal planning and building processes has been proved to have positive effects on revitalising areas such as Gårdsten in Göteborg. Tenant involvement in open space management can lead to a positive spiral where people start caring for and identifying themselves with their neighbourhood, which can reduce the degree of stigmatisation and marginalisation.

Le roman espagnol contemporain a vu l’émergence dans les années 1990 d’un ensemble de romans publiés par une cohorte de jeunes auteurs regroupés par les critiques sous le nom de «Generación X», appellation sans doute problématique dont nous tenterons néanmoins de délimiter les contours. Nés dans les années 1960, ces auteurs mettent en scène une jeunesse désenchantée dans l'ère des mass media et empreinte de culture rock et punk, à laquelle les critiques les ont souvent assimilés, évoluant dans un cadre résolument urbain (généralement Madrid), qu’ils connaissent pour en avoir souvent été acteurs avant de le mettre en scène. Représentants d’une culture éclectique et contemporaine, la ville et l’univers « underground » et marginal que les romans représentent sont profondément marqués par l’omniprésence de l’image et de la musique, et par le rythme accéléré de la vie moderne. Cela se manifeste dans les modalités d’une écriture novatrice et hétérarchique qui repose sur un mécanisme référentiel imposant et où s’entremêlent différents codes sémiotiques et où le langage de la rue est reproduit de façon mimétique. Ces aspects sont ceux qui permettent d'affirmer la convergence de ces auteurs dans un ensemble de textes qui davantage que le critère biologique permet de les rassembler et de dire que ces romans constituent un jalon dans le mouvement généralisé de retour au réel. Notre thèse consistera à étudier ces aspects, la représentation de la société qui se dégage des romans à travers le traitement et le dépassement des instances classiques du réalisme, et notamment la façon dont les différentes visions et représentations de la ville s’opposent et se superposent pour participer à l’élaboration du portrait d’un secteur dérangeant de la société espagnole de la fin du XXème siècle, qui justifie l’emploi du terme de "realismo sucio" pour qualifier l’esthétique de ces romans. Nous proposerons une approche d’une pluralité de textes représentatifs publiés entre 1990 et 1999 par Francisco Casavella,Lucía Etxebarria, Ismael Grasa,José Angel Mañas, Ray Loriga, Benjamin Prado, Pedro Maestre ou encore Roger Wolfe. / Contemporary Spanish novel saw the emergence in the 1990's of an ensemble of novels published by a group of young authors gathered together by critics under the name of " Génération X ", doubtless problematic naming of which limits we shall nevertheless try to define. Born in the 1960s, these authors represent a disillusioned youth in mass media's era,a youth suffused with rock and punk culture to which the critics often likened them, evolving in a decisively urban space (generally Madrid), that they know for being themselves actors of this scenery before staging it. Representatives of an eclectic and contemporary culture, the city and the " underground " and marginal universe which they represent are profoundly marked by the omnipresence of image and music, and by the accelerated rhythm of modern life. It shows in the modalities of an innovative writing based on an imposing mechanism of references, where various semiotic codes are mixed and where language of the street is mimetically reproduced. These aspects are what authorize us to mantain that more than the authors it is an ensemble of novels that converge and constitute a stage in a generelized realistic turn. Our thesis will consist in studying what kind of overview of spanish society emerges from the way this litterature processes the construction of characters, time and space, and how various visions and representations of the city get confronted and overlap to participate in the elaboration of the portrait of a disturbing sector of the end of the XXth century Spanish society, which justifies the use of the term of " realismo sucio " to qualify the esthetics of these authors. We shall propose an approach of representatives published between 1990 and 1999 by Francisco Casavellas, Lucía Etxebarria, Ismael Grasa, José Angel Mañas, Ray Loriga, Benjamin Prado, Pedro Maestre and Roger Wolfe.