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Today, the urban as a category of space remains a vague notion–a background condition made visible empirically through its effects and treated as the outcome of a certain naturalised, transhistorical capacity of human co-habitation. As a result, despite the common fact of urbanization as a planetary phenomenon, we remain unable to qualify the urban itself as a distinct spatio-political order of the contemporary world. This thesis attempts to write a political history of the urban. It will do so by interrogating the concept of circulation, since circulation is not only central to the knowledge and practices of urbanization, but it also constitutes a certain historical nexus between political form and spatial order. The thesis can be framed by three fundamental questions: How is it that circulation became epistemologically bound up with the city? What is the relationship between circulation and urbanization? And, more broadly, what is the relationship between circulation and power? The thesis departs by taking issue with the birth of ‘urbanization’ in the nineteenth century, for it is in this period that, not only would circulation become a fundamental condition of the city, but it would do so with a distinctly political ambition—one that is curiously overlooked by our present histories of the city. I place particular emphasis on the work of Ildefonso Cerdá, the figure who authored the first explicit theory of urbanization in 1867. From here, the thesis embarks on a more historical examination of circulation, charting the ways in which, as a concept, it was made useful for giving order to the physical world, tracing its migration from a signature of divine and natural order to its emergence as a concept in the seventeenth century offering a spatial principle by which a new sphere of earthly, oeconomic and political power could emerge. It examines how circulation helped produce forms of political and spatial thought while embedding itself in the spaces of the modern European state and in the networks of colonial trade. From signature to concept, circulation by the eighteenth century became the foundation for an idealism around which a counter-state discourse could appear through the emergence of ‘society’—a subjectivity for which Cerdá’s theory of urbanization would later be established. Through this genealogy, the thesis engages the question of urbanization as a spatio-political order in its own rite. By reading this alongside various political and legal analyses, I argue that the urban, in opposition to ‘the city’, is a crucial dispositif in the construction of modern biopolitics in which the very organisation of space and its mediation of population constitutes a political form. In addition, the urban bears a rather striking epistemology which, I argue, was discovered not in the spaces and architectural forms of the city, but rather in the knowledge and practices fundamental to establishing the territory. The urban, I argue, is a hybrid spatiality—both city and territory while being neither at the same time— something in excess of both ontologies. At once biopolitical and territorial, the urban, I urge, should be seen as the process and product of a radical reorganisation of political power in space. In total, this thesis will follow the ways in which the construction of modes of circulation both gave form to preexisting political ideals and were also useful as a model for giving birth to new ones. In this way, the thesis also seeks to challenge a certain presumed linear causality between the cognitive sphere and spatiomaterial world that continues to underpin many discourses today. Thus, a subtext of the thesis may be read which claims that a dialectic relation between intellectual projection and interpretation is deeply rooted in the formation of the modern world itself.

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This thesis focuses on the renovation and regeneration projects, and also on the gentrification concept in the historic neighbourhoods of Istanbul. Exploring the complex and diverse relationship of economic change, housing markets, property and land ownership, the state leading to gentrification and why in certain cities gentrification occurs after renovation and regeneration projects are the main aspects of the present study. Another pivotal point of this thesis is to move away from the well-known subjects of global North when it comes to study of gentrification. This thesis does not claim that the global North urban theories are not applicable in global South, but it aims to expand the limited sites in which the urban theory is produced by moving towards the geographies with a new set of cities. To investigate these points, world city theory and processes of gentrification are examined in the first part of the thesis. In the second part of the thesis, research motivation, research aims, research questions and research methods are investigated. In the third and last part of the thesis, changes in Turkish economic and housing system are studied to understand the dynamics that affect Istanbul. Particular attention is provided to the gentrified neighbourhoods in the historic part of Istanbul. Before the 2000s, gentrification through private housing market was the case in Istanbul, but from the 2000s state-led gentrification started to become more common. The reason behind the increase of state intervention and involvement in gentrification from the 2000s represent a key aspect to the study. Lastly, in this part, Galata and Tarlabasi case studies and analysis of these case studies are discussed with regard to the abstractions used in the thesis. In the conclusion, state’s role in “renovating” the historic neighbourhoods of Istanbul and the possible future paths for the historic environment of Istanbul are explored in relation to the developing countries’ world cities literature. This thesis aims to provide an alternative to the gentrification and regeneration processes in developing countries’ big cities with respect to the historic environment.

The Tehran housing market is the largest concentration of most forms of economic activity, with the largest and most important housing market in the country. The roots of economic and demographic centralization in Tehran go back to the time when it became the capital of Iran. This market is a complex market dominated by the private sector, and encounters many problems such as high housing prices and a shortcoming in the housing supply, which seem unsolvable to experts and residents. In spite of multiple agents and institutions involved in this sector and engaging at different level of authority – state, government, and local – there is no official information or research for identifying this wide variety of actors and the housing market’s performance is ambiguous for both policy makers and private actors. Lack of understating in this scope causes inefficiency in the market and makes the housing plan and policies inapplicable and inappropriate for the social system. This research, therefore, was undertaken to develop a deep understanding of the structure and operation of the private housing supply in Tehran; in particular, it attempts to identify the constraints on housing provision. From the structure and agency philosophical perspective and using a qualitative approach based on 40 interviews as the primary data collection method, this research focused on the way that the housing development process takes place in Tehran and the relationship between the structuring dynamics of housing development process and the particular interests, beliefs, perceptions and strategies of each individual agent. It is concluded that, in general, the housing development process involves a complex and contextual embeddedness of institution and agency relationships. The housing development process in Tehran is shaped by the form of economic and institutional structure, which in turn affects the interests and the way agents behave in deploying rules and resources. The state control, lack of democracy, government policies, and unstable institutional environments caused turbulence in the housing sector.

The assessment of urban sustainability is increasingly being seen as essential to mitigate the undesirable impacts of urbanisation in cities while improving communities’ resilience to environmental, social and economic changes. Several urban sustainability assessment tools (USATs) have been developed to make such informed decision-making. In addition to their role as an enabler for stakeholder engagement and increased public awareness throughout the lifecycle of an urban development project, USATs act as a catalyst to increase market demand for sustainable products and services by providing a mechanism for recognising excellence. Most current USATs have been developed based on the needs of developed nations which are different from those of developing countries, especially those affected by natural disasters and man-made events e.g. wars. Iraq has endured several decades of war and subsequent international sanctions which have affected its overall economy, infrastructure, public services and utilities. In consequence, rebuilding, rehabilitation and the development of new cities and urban areas are currently underway but without evidence of attention to sustainability and public participation in decision-making. This research aimed to investigate the factors affecting urban sustainability in Iraq through a literature review and stakeholder consultations, leading to the development of a comprehensive sustainability assessment framework for urban design and development projects. The proposed framework included attention to the local environmental, social and economic aspects and urban challenges, in addition to how to promote awareness and stakeholder participation. The methodology included: (a) an analytical comparison of a range of global USATs to define relevant urban indicators; (b) determination of the urban challenges in the Iraqi context, through an extensive review of the literature; (c) investigation of key local urban challenges from the stakeholder perspective by conducting a nationwide questionnaire, and (d) identification and prioritisation of local assessment factors by consultation with a panel of experts, conducting a consensus-built method and application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to allocate credits and rating formulas. This comprehensive consultation methodology is a unique contribution of the research to identify the key quantitative and qualitative assessment factors. The Iraqi urban sustainability assessment framework (IUSAF) comprises of 89 urban factors, ten of which are mandatory, which can be considered fundamental urban factors to assess the sustainability of a project. The results have revealed that ‘water’ was ranked as the most important factor with 8.5% of the total weight, ‘safety and security’ was second at 7.9 %, followed by ‘transportation and infrastructure’, ‘housing’, and ‘local economy’, demonstrating a link between deficiencies in the provision of environmental and socio-economic infrastructure in Iraq. These findings evidence that the IUSAF is based on an understanding of key local urban challenges and issues, this significantly different from a range of USATs currently in use, regarding urban factors (indicators, sub-indicators), their priorities and weighting systems. The IUSAF was validated using three urban development case studies of varying complexities. The applicability analysis reported the IUSAF as appropriate to assess urban sustainability. The final results of the testing process have validated the need for IUSAF to assess existing urban design and development which has been planned and developed in an unsustainable manner. IUSAF stands to create many substantial benefits as it has the capacity to raise awareness about urban sustainability issues for developers, specialists and decision-makers and to constitute a plan of action for current and new urban development projects in Iraqi cities.

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Since 2010, sub-national government in England has undergone a major restructure in view of a central government agenda to devolve more powers and fiscal responsibilities to city-regions, in the context of austerity. This has led to an increasingly complex governance and policy landscape for local leaders to navigate, who under these conditions are recognised for playing a significant role in responding to changes and acting strategically to ensure that local and regional development objectives are realised. In response, this thesis investigates the structures, processes and practices that underlie this new governance and policy context. It looks at this through the lens of a mid-sized city, bringing an alternative perspective to debates about urban and economic growth policy that have for a long time been dominated by big city-centrism and agglomeration economics. Drawing on 36 in-depth interviews with local leaders in Doncaster in the Sheffield City Region, rich insights are offered into the ways that sub-national institutions and leaders are coming together to implement city-regional governance on the ground. Drawing on the themes of power, negotiation and acceptability, the research reveals how city-regional devolution has created new institutional and spatial complexities, and has failed to rework central-local relations away from a highly centralised approach. The research also finds, however, that local leaders play a significant role in their ability to navigate the broader structures and controls for constructing an operating environment that they can work with. This is suggested to be particularly the case for mid-sized cities that have neither the political might nor collective weight of the ‘big cities’ under the current urban system. This research adds knowledge to theories on leadership and governance, providing a greater level of depth for understanding the structures and processes that underlie city-regional governance and leadership than mostly broader narratives. It also provides original insights on the role of agency within this context that has seldom been examined in local and regional development research. Furthermore, by recognising that places on the periphery are a worthy object of research within urban studies, it sheds new light on the mid-sized city experience of city-regionalism as well as the relational dynamics between a mid-sized city and a core city within a city-region. This research will not only complement future academic study in this field, but it also has practical relevance for policymakers and place leaders for navigating, making arrangements, and suggesting ways forward for future policy on city-regional devolution.