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Latin American cities are challenged by the effects of population growth and insufficient infrastructure. As a consequent, Informal Car Share (ICS) is increasingly filling the gap as a transportation choice for underserved populations. ICS is the use of private vehicles to provide transportation for a fare that is neither taxed nor regulated by any type of government. Although this practice contributes significantly to development and economic growth, it is often stigmatized as unreliable and inconsistent, and little is known about it. This research expands existing definitions of ICS, using cases from Quito, Ecuador, a mountain city located in the Andes region in South America. It does so by analyzing Quito's ICS perceived effectiveness and performance from its users and drivers, the disruptions this system faces in the communities in which it operates, and its resiliency to bounce back from those disruptions. Findings suggested that despite its informality, ICS works with fixed stops, schedules, routes and fares. This is similar to formal systems operated by the government. Users and drivers described ICS as reliable and consistent, and they all reported a positive experience with the service. Findings also suggested that Quito's ICS is disrupted by six natural and political disruptions that delay the ICS service for 10 to 40 minutes. However, ICS proved to be adaptable and able to circumvent disruptions to ensure passengers connectivity to the city. Lastly, findings suggested that ICS users and drivers developed eight adaptation strategies to circumvent disruptions. Those strategies have created a system that aligns with features of resilient urban systems from UN-Habitat. Expanding the current understanding of how ICS operates, as well as its resilience capacity, is the first step to understanding better the value these self-organized systems provide to cities. / Doctor of Philosophy / The population in Latin America's cities is increasing and cities have been unable to keep up with the infrastructure demands that growth has created. As a consequent, Informal Car Share (ICS) are self-organized systems that arose as a solution to fill the gap in the peripheral areas that government provided transportation have not addressed. ICS is the use of private vehicles to provide transportation for a fare that is neither taxed nor regulated by any type of government. Although this practice contributes significantly to development and economic growth, it is often stigmatized as unreliable, inconsistent, and little is known about it. This research explores existing definitions of ICS, using cases from Quito, Ecuador, a mountain city located in the Andes region in South America It does so by analyzing Quito's ICS perceived effectiveness and performance from its users and drivers, the disruptions this system faces in the communities it operates, and its ability to adapt to those disruptions. Findings suggested that despite its informality, users and drivers described ICS as reliable and consistent, and they all reported a positive experience with the service. Findings also suggested that Quito's ICS is disrupted by six natural and political disruptions that delay the ICS service for 10 to 40 minutes. However, ICS proved to be adaptable and able to overcome disruptions to ensure passenger connectivity to the city. Findings suggest that ICS developed eight adaptation strategies that align well with UN-Habitat (2018) characteristics of resilient urban systems. Expanding the understanding of how ICS operates is the first step to understanding the value ICS provide to cities and their urban resilience.

Les économies de Jacobs représentent l’idée répandue que la diversité économique promeut le développement économique dans les villes. Dans les études des économies de Jacobs, le médiateur entre la diversité et le développement est presque toujours l’innovation, que stimule la diversité des connaissances. De plus, les mesures conventionnelles de cette innovation sont biaisées en faveur des grandes entreprises établies, ainsi que de la technologie matérialisée et de l’invention. Cependant, le rôle critique de l’entrepreneuriat dans le développement apparaît de plus en plus clairement. De plus, l’économie est de plus en plus mue par la connaissance et les services plutôt que par la technologie matérialisée, ce qui favorise des entreprises plus petites et plus entrepreneuriales. Étant donné l’importance économique de l’entrepreneuriat, l’étude de sa contribution à l’économie urbaine semble nettement insuffisante. Au contraire, selon Jane Jacobs, le moteur primaire du développement économique est l’entrepreneuriat innovant, que favorise la diversité des activités et non seulement des connaissances. Par suite, notre question de recherche est de savoir si la diversité économique promeut l’entrepreneuriat innovant dans les villes. Nous définissons l’entrepreneuriat innovant à la lumière de la recherche en gestion entrepreneuriale et dans le contexte de l’économie de la connaissance et des services. Nous reformulons les économies de Jacobs autour de l’entrepreneuriat innovant, que favorise la structure des activités locales plutôt que leur taille.Nous mesurons l’entrepreneuriat innovant sous la forme des naissances de nouveau siège d’entreprise dans la base de données Crunch Base de la création d’entreprise et du capital-risque, un indicateur qui corrige les biais des mesure conventionnelles. Nous observons une corrélation statistique fiable entre la diversité de secteurs découpés au niveau le plus fin et l’entrepreneuriat innovant dans l’ensemble des aires métropolitaines areas des États-Unis entre 1999 et 2016, en neutralisant la taille de l’emploi. Ce résultat corrobore l’existence d’économies de Jacobs, d’un point de vue qui adhère plus strictement à la thèse de Jacobs en 1969, mais qui n’en reste pas moins tout à fait inédit pour sa succession scientifique. Ce point de vue contribue aussi à rendre à l’entrepreneuriat sa place critique dans le développement urbain. / Jacobs economies represent the widespread idea that economic diversity fosters economic development incities. In the scholarship of Jacobs economies, the mediator between diversity and development is almost invariably innovation, stimulated by the diversity of knowledge. Moreover, the conventional measurements of such innovation skew towards big, established business, as well as materialised technology and invention.However, the critical role of entrepreneurship in development has been appearing more and more clearly. Furthermore, the economy is increasingly powered by knowledge and services rather than materialised technology, which enables smaller and more entrepreneurial business. In view of the economic importance of entrepreneurship, its contribution to urban economies appears significantly under-researched. In contrast,according to Jane Jacobs, the primary engine of economic development is innovative entrepreneurship,enabled by the diversity of activities, not just knowledge. Our research question then is whether economicdiversity fosters innovative entrepreneurship in cities.We define innovative entrepreneurship in the light of entrepreneurial management research and in the context of the knowledge and service economy. We reframe Jacobs economies around innovative entrepreneurship, enabled by the structure of local activities, rather than their size. We measure innovative entrepreneurship as the births of new headquarters in the CrunchBase database of new ventures and venture capital, a metric which corrects the biases of conventional measurements. We find robust statistical correlation between most-granular industrial diversity and innovative entrepreneurship across allmetropolitan areas of the United States between 1999 and 2016, controlling for employment size. This result supports the existence of Jacobs economies, from a perspective which adheres more closely toJacobs’s 1969 thesis but is still very new to its scholarship. This perspective also contributes to giving entrepreneurship back its critical place in urban development.

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