Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 2002. / Chair: Frederic Wakeman, Jr. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Master / Master of Philosophy

Although Buddhism was introduced in the United States over a century ago, only recently has it become part of the mainstream. In addition to the exponential increase in Buddhist practitioners in the United States, scholar Thomas Tweed argues that Buddhist images and references, devoid of religious context, have seeped into American society. The increasing popularity and prevalence of Buddhism in America is attributable to many factors including changes to the immigration laws in the 1960s and the episodic popularity of all things Eastern. This fascination with the East is epitomized by the current Dalai Lama, who has a pop-culture presence as well as political sway, as evidenced by his meeting with John McCain on July 25, 2008. Just as the pre-1965 immigration laws stifled Buddhism in the United States by limiting the number of Asian immigrants, Mao’s communist doctrines prevented the practice of Buddhism in China. As a result, in recent years Buddhism has emerged in the United States and remerged in China. By examining the state of Buddhism in Beijing and Chinese Buddhism in Houston this thesis shows that despite the comparable newness of the religion in both places, it is developing in very different ways, showing the impact region has on religion.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

As the principal subsidized home ownership housing scheme in Beijing, the Economical and Suitable Housing Scheme (ESHS) has gone through several different stages in the past three decades. Following the newly developed housing policy framework in 2007, ESHS was endowed with the objective of providing affordable home ownership to low-income urban residents. Despite the rich literature on ESHS in China, relatively little is known about the performance of estates of ESHS in Beijing developed after 2007 under the new regulations. Largely missing from the existing literature is an analytical account of the development of ESHS in Beijing and an in-depth evaluation and explanation of its performance in recent years. This study thus aims to examine and analyze the effectiveness of ESHS since 2007 with the intention of helping to improve the effectiveness of ESHS and to provide useful lessons to other subsidized housing schemes in Beijing. Following the lead of scholars who have studied subsidized housing schemes in other countries and areas, this study built up its own analytical framework appropriate to the Chinese context. To achieve the study goal, the evaluation of the performance of ESHS was conducted in terms of four indicators: housing affordability, housing accessibility, housing availability and housing quality. The investigation of the causes were conducted from the public policy perspective focusing on policy design and policy implementation. To enhance the data base, open-ended interviews with officials at different levels from different government departments and structured questionnaire surveys with residents in ESHS in Beijing had been conducted. This study reveals that the performance of ESHS after 2007 was barely acceptable. Specifically, the housing affordability and housing accessibility and housing quality of ESHS were less than satisfactory. Even though the housing availability of ESHS in quantity terms did not have significant problems, the housing availability in terms of location was highly undesirable. As for housing affordability, it is found that the ESHS was more affordable to urban residents than to suburban residents, the major reason being the higher income enjoyed by the former. Regarding housing accessibility, this study found that the approach to determine the eligibility criteria of ESHS failed to include all the households who could not afford to purchase market housing. In the housing quality domain, it is found that ESHS housing estates in Beijing failed to meet the residents’ daily needs, and suffered from poor housing construction quality and inconvenient locations. In addition to the evaluation of performance, this study also found that besides the strong commitments from the government, policy design commensurate with policy goal and effective policy implementation determines the performance of a subsidized housing scheme. In particular, the formulation of eligibility criteria and the pricing mechanism at the policy design stage, and the conflicting interests of the three levels of government at the implementation stage were most critical. This study further argues that the four dimensions of performance which were inter-connected to each other were all commonly hinged upon the use of land as the main source of subsidy. This study adds to the existing literature on contemporary China by evaluating and explaining the most recent performance of a dominant housing subsidy policy tool in China. By constructing and employing a comprehensive conceptual framework for the analysis, this study offers to the contemporary China literature a sophisticated yet revealing conceptual tool to unveil the intricacies of housing subsidies in the rapidly changing China. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Population aging becomes a serious social problem when the society develops into a certain stage, and it has a close relationship with the national economy and people’s livelihood, as well as the future of a country. Also, the improvement of medical level and social welfare help people prolong their life expectancy. As a developing country, which includes nearly 1/4 population of the world, China also faces the severe aging problem. After the establishment of People’s Republic of China, the population grows with a very high rapid. Later, the Chinese government implemented the One Child Policy at the beginning of 1980, this policy gradually modified the family structure in the micro dimension and the population structure in the macro dimension. There are more and more 4-2-1 families, which means there are 4 grandparents, 2 parents and only one child in one family, and this family structure causes some troubles and challenges to the traditional model, which is taking care of the old at home. The government and families all have difficulties to take care of the elderly people. As a result, the elderly housing emerges at the right moment. The world pays more attention to taking care of the elderly people, and many relative concepts have been introduced around the world. Such as the healthy ageing and active ageing pronounced by the WHO, and some other concepts like the ageing-in-place and community care, etc. All of these concepts give us a theoretical foundation when research on the development of elderly housing in China. Beijing Suncity Living Community is one of the best elderly communities in China, this dissertation tries to do a case study about the elderly housing in Suncity. After the data analysis, the author found that the Suncity does well in the design of the community, which suits the physical characteristics of the elderly people. Also, the services and facilities for the elderly people are relative complete, which can help the elderly people to spend their spare time in a more interesting way. However, the management in the Suncity is not good, and this may give the elderly people a sense of unsafety. Also, it may bring bad impact to their psychological health. Then, the recommendation about both the Suncity and the development of elderly housing in China will also be given. For the Suncity, it must change the poor management, and one method is to employ some professional people to enhance the management level. For the later development of elderly housing in China, recommendations are given from design of the elderly community and management of the elderly community. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

In China, a standard of "relatively comfortable housing conditions" is set for the nation, but there is still a need for a parallel goal for outdoor spaces. So far, this issue has not received adequate attention from either the government or practitioners. / The purpose of this study is to examine the space between buildings in Beijing's new housing developments. The space between buildings has been chosen as a starting point for this research because it covers largest amount of land and due to its close proximity to homes, it is closely related to people's daily lives. / The quality of outdoor space is defined by a combination of factors. This study uses eight criteria to address the notion of quality: spatial hierarchy; usable space; safety and defense; health and comfort; privacy and territoriality; social contact; aesthetic appeal; and maintenance and administration. These correlated aspects are set as evaluation criteria for the six case studies included in this research. Data and analysis of case studies is used to arrive at conclusions for policy-making and further study.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.