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High quality built environments are promoted in urban planning and design in the UK on the grounds that they support positive social activity and behaviour. There is a severe lack of empirical evidence examining these concepts holistically, and there is little evidence to support such claims made in theory, policy and practice in the UK. Therefore, the aim of this research is to determine the relationship, if any, between the quality of the built environment and social cohesion in English neighbourhoods. As quality seems to be a multi-faceted concept, a further aim is to identify those features of quality of the built environment most likely to support social cohesion in English neighbourhoods. The methodology adopted in this research is primarily quantitative and takes the form of a large-scale multivariate investigation of the influence of quality of the built environment on social cohesion, both of which were operationalized as a series of indicators. The data were collected using a number of different methods including a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview, and the nature and extent of relationships were investigated through statistical analysis. The findings show that a number of features of quality of the built environment are significantly associated with dimensions of social cohesion, however the nature and extent of the associations vary from feature to feature. There is consistent evidence to suggest that features of quality of the built environment, on the whole, do positively contribute to residents' sense of community, feelings of trust and reciprocity, feelings of safety, and sense of place attachment. These findings support existing policy to varying degrees and, on the whole, support claims made in the current UK government's 'sustainable communities' plan and associated policies. This research provides tools for further empirical investigation which include a set of indicators which express the abstract concepts of quality and social cohesion in operational terms and a method of neighbourhood delineation which takes into account residents' perceptions of neighbourhood boundaries. It makes a contribution to the extensive body of theoretical, and to a lesser extent, empirical evidence to shed light on the relationship between the physical environment and social activity and behaviour.

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The importance of a critical understanding of space in contemporary social scientific enquiry is increasingly recognised as fundamental for the analysis of the development, enlargement and experience of modern capitalism. In particular, the concentration of forces and relations of production, circulation and consumption, of people, commodities and services, is progressively appreciated as achieved through the creation and exploitation of urban space. The thesis presents a critical examination of a variety of theories of space and spatial theories as a foundation for the analysis of urban modernity. These include the works of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau and Georg Simmel. The syncretic adaptation of these formative theoretical analyses provides a conceptual framework for the subsequent substantive analysis of a case study of specific forms of modern urban social space. That is, an exploration of the processes by which the origins and development of what came to be integral features of the landscape of the modern city were produced, namely, the creation of the social spaces of public parks. The growth and increasing importance of the city in the 19th century had important social as well as economic and political consequences for the development and administration of the infrastructure and experience of the urban environment. The physical and mental, medical as well as moral consequences of city development led to campaigns to improve the condition of the urban population that provoked a response by the local state. One prominent aspect of this municipal commitment was the development of urban public parks as an ameliorative response. Glasgow’s experience of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation in the 19th century and the particular conditions that arose led to a specific form of municipal government that produced a network of public parks that was unrivalled by any other city. The investigation and analysis of the production of municipal public parks in the city of Glasgow in the period from the early 1850s to the late 1970s gives detailed consideration to a large number and variety of empirical sources to deliver an historical, sociological and geographic account of the complexity involved in the analysis of such commonplace everyday spaces as public parks. As such, the investigation of parks as social spaces constructed, depicted and used for leisure and recreation contributes to the understanding of the development and experience of urban modernity, as well as to contemporary socio-spatial analysis.

This research project was developed in practice through the production of artwork. Alternating between art and reflection, my aim was to develop a strategy for artistic research that was targeted towards the goal of an intergrative project supported through information technologies. This idea developed out of my position as an artist working at a distance, from a small isalnd (Malta). My problematic, therefore, was focused around the question of territory. This research endeavoured to investigate the notion of "territory" through theories of deterritorialisation and machinic connectivity.