The thesis addresses the research question “What is transient and what endures within Japanese urban space” by taking the material constructed form of one Japanese city as a primary text and object of analysis. Chiba-shi is a port and administrative centre in southern Kanto, the largest city in the eastern part of the Tokyo Metropolitan Region and located about forty kilometres from downtown Tokyo. The study privileges the role of process as a theoretical basis for exploring the dynamics of the production and transformation of urban space. Three aspects of temporal experience identified by Giddens – routine, biographical and institutional time – are adopted as a framework for considering how the dynamics of social reproduction are expressed in terms of transience and durability within urban form. A methodology is developed to explore the changing interrelationship between six conceptual ‘entities’ – the individual, household, dwelling, establishment, premises and site. Metrics are identified for each to facilitate a consistent analysis over time of the changing relationship between these based on a formal diachronic longitudinal survey. An analysis of the spatial transformation of the material form of the city between 1870 and 2005 was completed based primarily on recording the changing use over time of about 4,500 sample points. The outcome of the study is presented in five substantive chapters. The first considers characteristics of the layout of neighbourhoods and dwellings that have endured largely through their close association with processes of social reproduction. The following four chapters examine chronologically the evolution of the city, documenting transformations in urban form and their expression in terms of changing use of volumes of space, the characteristic infrastructure, premises and dwelling types, and how these relate to broader trends in Japanese history. The final chapter summarises the interrelationship of these transformations and draws some conclusions concerning what promotes transience and durability in an urban environment.

The transition from deindustrial to post industrial city from the 1970s exposed how cities developed regeneration strategies as their traditional industrial base experienced terminal contraction. These strategies to re-make urban places positioned at their core an improvement of the built environment either by retaining and adapting or demolishing and replacing historic buildings. Decisions to re-use or demolish revealed the contemporary valorisations of the past as they mediated the extent to which the reinvention of the city embraced or denied the cumulative memories of the city. Unravelling these decisions revealed the process of urban change by exposing the management of urban regeneration, the actors and agencies involved, their motives, constraints and failings and their ability to access funding. How these actors valued, perceived, and subsequently received the cityscape was revealed by their decisions whether or not to incorporate the historic environment in their vision for the city. Moreover, how public and private agencies such as local authorities, government quangos, and entrepreneurs manipulated the existing capital stock to attract people and investment into the inner cities was a vital component of urban regeneration. Four stages of re-making places: recognising place, managing urban change, seducing urban users, and manipulating the historic environment that each exposed the contemporary valuations of the past were identified and were explored through an examination of two British and one French urban centre. By these means, and using these examples, the research located the practice of restoration and re-use in the context of place-making and value judgements to question the extent to which there was a contemporary place for urban history.

The thesis deals with the formation of the post-Second World War reconstruction and planning machinery in Great Britain on the one hand, and on the other, with the replanning efforts undertaken in London and especially the redevelopment programme regarding its central area in the form of the comprehensive development projects. The central hypothesis is that, although the planning thought, legislation and technique realised significant evolutionary steps by introducing important innovatory instruments and bold planning concepts, the rebuilding of Central London was not a success to a comparable extent. This divergence between concept, plan and outcome was mainly due to the difficulties faced during the implementation stage as a result of financial problems and, in addition, to the way that the application of aspects of Modern Architecture in some of the new buildings were carried out. The work is structured in three parts. The first one, under the title "Reconstruction and Planning Machinery", explores the administrative and statutory developments in town planning matters during the period 1940-1959. The conclusion of this analysis is that, because of the sweeping character of the new planning system which was introduced, a contradiction had emerged due to the pluralistic character of the British socio-economic system. The second part has the title “Replanning London” and deals with the plans proposed for London as a whole during the 1940s. The main finding was that the six plans which were proposed could be considered as sections of one planning endeavour. These plans have a unified and continuous character, although each one had been prepared by a different team of planners. Finally, the third part, under the title “Redeveloping Central London”, examines the proposals for the rebuilding of the City of London and for specific areas of Central London located on both sides of the Thames. The main conclusion of this analysis is that, although these projects introduced innovations concerning the control of urban dencities, and the hygiene of residence and office accommodation in the city centre, they failed to achieve one of their main targets. This was the unification of both parts of Central London located at the north and south banks of the Thames.

Gentrification has been seen to be a predominantly urban process, characterised by wholesale replacement of working class communities by a mobile middle-class population (Glass, 1964). More recently, contributions have acknowledged that gentrification is taking place further down the hierarchy of urban settlements with Neil Smith (2002) noting that gentrification is expanding both vertically, upwards and downwards through the settlement hierarchy (from cities to provincial cities, Dutton 2003; 2005 to smaller towns) and horizontally across the globe. English market towns, this thesis argues, have become part of what Hackworth and Smith (2001) term the third wave of gentrification with the state ‘entangled’ in the process of gentrification. This can be seen through the encouragement of regeneration in market towns, initiated through the 2001 Market Towns Initiative (MTI) that sought to regenerate ailing market towns within England. The service role of these rural towns has been seen as crucial to anchoring key services that service the wider rural hinterlands in which market towns serve (Powe and Shaw, 2004) The central argument of this thesis is that market towns are now at the leading edge of rural restructuring. Many types of market town gentrifier have been identified, specifically mature, ‘geriatrifiers’ who reside in the remote market towns and had past service class working lives via professional and managerial employment and secondly, professional/managerial gentrifiers, identified previously in rural villages (Phillips, 1993) who were using market towns as bases to commute and raise a family. Unlike previous narrative concerning gentrification, this middle class incursion was physically reflected through new build developments that have been targeted at market towns.

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The magical words 'protection' and 'leisure' convey the two concepts which together were responsible for shaping Man's shelter and settlement in the pre-industrial city, in such a way as to accommodate, whatever his estate, the individual's varied physical and biological requirements, within an environmental framework and the constraints of available natural resources. Since the Industrial Revolution sophisticated technology has increased Manis capacity for protection and leisure which has changed the dimensions of his lifestyle and become the dominant influence on the quality of life. However, the significance of technological advancement has extended far beyond this, especially in situations where it has been uncritically imported, without adaptation, often creating discord within the host community. This conflict will be the focal point of the thesis, which itself represents an attempt more closely to juxtapose the needs of Man and his environment with the tools of advanced technology, in order to achieve a pleasant and satisfactory urban fabric. This thesis commences with an historical analysis of different consecutive civilizations within a single context, in order better to understand Man's attempts at creating an environment fitted to his needs. It is followed by a consideration of the nature of human form and its capacity to adapt to change, together with an examination of the characteristics of the surrounding natural environment, the attendant natural and cultural resources, and Man's efforts to control and utilize them. The theoretical foundation has been developed through experimental studies and empirical research by case studies in Iraq. A detailed case study of urban fabric in Baghdad has analysed both traditional and modern housing areas. This analysis is also brought into a broader national perspective by further case analyses in different regions of Iraq. The case studies were carried out through personal observations and measurements, and an interview survey in Baghdad with a multi-phase random sample of 300 households. The assessments and conclusions from the case studies are used as a basis for a set of design principles and guides for future urban design in Iraq.

This study was motivated by the desire to examine the economic dimension of controversies about the past and present use and future potential use of land in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland for agricultural purposes. This led to the need to review theories of economic efficiency in relation to land use and the derived approaches to land use adjustment. Section I considers extant conceptions of efficiency in economics, both at a level of Iindividual efficiency and at a level of social efficiency. It is suggested that different economic conceptions of efficiency are underlain by different sets of values. Conventional neoclassical approaches to efficiency are contrasted with behavioural approaches at the level of individual efficiency and with a conception of social efficiency derived from the work of Rawls. Section II focusses on the study of agricultural adjustment. Agricultural economists have frequently been guided in their analysis of agricultural adjustment by one economic paradigm. The "conventional wisdom" on agricultural economic adjustment is derived from this paradigm and is criticised on a number of empirical and theoretical grounds, both generally, and specifically in the context of the agricultural situation in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Section III reviews a number of major controversies about land use in the Highlands and Islands and identifies the economic dimension of these controversies. Controversies are considered to arise from two sources. In the first place, controversies have arisen because the economic behaviour of different groups in society has been motivated by different conceptions of efficiency which may lead to conflicts between groups over the desirability of land use changes. Secondly, controversies arise because of empirical difficulties of measurement of costs and benefits, despite agreement on what constitutes economic efficiency. Interest groups develop to advocate a particular conception of efficiency and/or a particular method of measurement. Historical and contemporary controversies relating to land use efficiency yield evidence of conflicts derived from both empirical and normative sources. Section IV provides a prelude to the detailed case study of Section V in looking at the regional setting, from which a smaller area for more intensive study is selected. The types and patterns of land use in the Highlands and Islands region are examined, making use of the available statistical sources of information. The physical, technical and economic environment within which agricultural producers in the region operate is considered, especially insofar as it leads to hypothesised inefficiencies of use and difficulties of farm business adjustment. A worked example of one of the few strategies for business expansion on hill farms is considered which reveals the practical difficulties of business expansion and the financial results. It is, however, impossible to generalize about the financial aspects in an area as physically varied as the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Section V consists of a case study of agricultural adjustment, which examines changes in Okney over the decade 1966 to 1975. On the basis of the conclusions of the two predominantaly theoretical sections (I and II), it was considered necessary to explore the total - human environment insofar as it affected the economic adjustment of Okney farm bisinesses. An attempt was made to gather information which would allow the development of an explanatory model of farm business adjustment, which structually bears a close resemblance to the behavioural theory of the firm. The technique used for this explanatory study was a "key contact" questionnarie which involved interviewing both participants in and observers of the agricultural adjustment process. This was backed up before and after the field survey by a study of the available statistical sources of information on farm business adjustment. The survey yielded conclusions which would seem to corroborate the theoretical assertions of Sections I and II. Firstly field evidence suggested that there was not a single, universally held conception of efficiency in the Orcadian farming community, and that conceptions of efficiency held by farmers did significanty affect their identifiable adjustment behaviour. Secondly, the evidence suggested that the farm firm should be examined as an evolving socioeconomic entity, rather than as an equilibriating profit maximizing business. The failure government agencies planning for the agricultural sector to take account of the human environment of change may lead policy measures designed to assist in the adjustment process to generate additional adjustment problems.

Walkability in urban environments is explicitly aimed at by policy makers. However, navigation, although a fundamental part of walkability, is typically absent from studies of pedestrian movement and has traditionally been separated from architectural practice. This becomes evident in urban design guidelines which seldom address navigation issues. Yes as urban environments grow, wayfinding becomes increasingly difficult. The performance of pedestrian navigation is closely related to urban configuration. However, the opportunities to alter configuration are rare and costly. Evidence shows that other physical properties also influence decision making during navigation. So, which 'non-configurational' features can designers use to influence navigability, and how should these be combined with 'configurational' properties? In this study, a detailed analysis of the visual experience of users while wayfinding in real environments through eye-tracking, is used to identify objects of attention and visual search behaviours, such as hesitation points, gazing direction and fixated elements, thus revealing which design features are more relevant to navigation. Evidence that the 'signified', rather than the 'signifier', is relevant to cognition, is studies through an analysis of declared preferences which explores the role of the presence of other pedestrians in wayfinding decision making. The results show high levels of attention to building edges and to pedestrians which reflects the importance of both configuration and meaning in wayfinding. The significance of the presence of people seems to partially explain the role that configurational intelligibility has on the level of navigability of a setting, by acting as a local cue for global configurational properties. These results suggest that features that presuppose usability may be the most relevant non-configurational features for wayfinding. This insight on the nature of spatial cognition in real large environments creates the potential to the development of an approach to design that is more centred on the user, and thus may inform the creation of user-oriented environments. Furthermore, exposing the rational behind one link between local information and global cognition emphasises the relevance and potential of a theory of spatial congruence.