This dissertation presents research conducted by Wrixon Mpanang'ombe titled ‘Addressing car dependency in Cape Town: Reviewing how the city's mobility and spatial frameworks can transcend car-oriented urbanism'. The research stems from a background of the need to address problems associated with the dominance of cars in cities. The problems include carbon emissions contributing to climate change, road safety issues, pollution and other public health challenges, but also inequitable accessibility favouring private car users, among many other problems. Also, the research is motivated by and in response to the argument by Newman and Kenworthy (2015) that cities are experiencing an end to car dependency. However, since this argument is made based on Global North contexts, researching what an end to car dependency might imply for Southern cities is very relevant. Therefore, this research situates in Cape Town to explore how the City of Cape Town is currently dealing with the issue of transitioning away from car dependency and caroriented urbanism. The research explores this by deploying an analysis of the discourse around issues addressing car dependency and car-oriented urbanism in the City's key transport and spatial planning frameworks. The frameworks were analysed through a series of assessment criteria that were derived from the literature review. Three main gaps emerged through the research: (1) the reluctance to call out car dependency as a major transport problem in the city, (2) the focus on costs for low-income groups in the City's transport planning objectives while overlooking the car dependency in medium- and high-income groups, and (3) the inadequate spatial alignment of plans with the varying urban fabrics (i.e., based on Newman's and Kenworthy's (2015) theory of urban fabrics) and therefore not positioned to leverage the potential of rejuvenating urban fabrics as a pathway toward ending car dependency. The research further suggests that to address these gaps, the key frameworks should be repositioned to explicitly name car dependency as a major problem for the urban mobility system, but also the various urban fabrics should be mapped and aligned with the City's transport and spatial plans and land use policies.

18th of April 2021, a wildfire raged through parts of the University of Cape Towns upper campus, with damage assessed at approximately R500 million. There were calls from senior leadership that UCT "will rebuild facilities". The post-disaster rhetoric of rebuilding is problematic, as we should never rebuild what was because the old geographic, economic and social position is no longer sustainable. Critical disaster management frameworks strongly advocate more emphasis on preventing disasters; without compromising the much-needed reactive qualities of the discipline. It places responsibility on spatial planning – development restrictions, land uses, building regulations, tenure boundaries, spatial layout and road patterns –as the critical juncture toward achieving long-term disaster risk reduction. Due to climate change, wildfire anomalies and associated destructiveness oblige humankind to revise pieces of knowledge calibrated to conditions that no longer exist. This research responds to this call for "different ways of thinking", investigating the local merging of planning and disaster disciplines in hopes of creating new knowledge to realise longterm wildfire risk reduction within flammable Wild and Urban Interface, City of Cape Town. This qualitative dissertation collected primary data using online semi-structured interviews with local spatial planners, engineers, disaster management officials and insurance brokers. Secondary data was collected through a review of published journals; and regulations and policies from California, Victoria and Western Cape. Both data sets are used to investigate spatial planning as leverage to realise long-term wildfire risk reduction for the University of Cape Town and Spanish Farm Somerset West sites (the case studies of the dissertation). Even the best firefighting equipment will not help much during an extreme weather wildfire due to ember storms making fire breaks redundant. Fire-fighting and suppression technologies are less effective than perceived during wildfire extreme weather events. When it comes to traditional wildfire disaster measures such as prescribed burnings and alien vegetation removal – locally, these mitigation techniques are well established. However, the study found that disaster management respondents and best practice policy analysis, local and abroad, unanimously agree that focus must be placed on protecting urban structures for overall wildfire risk reduction. The study found that local planners and disaster management officials rarely collaborate on wildfire disaster matters due to misaligned goals and ideals. In the context of climate change, the study found that the local zoning scheme needs an overlay zone dedicated fully to wildfire mitigation, as local overlays have the unique ability to guide development in a potential "fire-safe manner". Within the City of Cape Town, spatial planning has the unique potential to realise this focus through an amended provincial zoning scheme. The study proposes a Western Cape veld and forest fire management overlay zone that demarcates high-fire risk regions on the urban edge, pre and post-development. The proposed overlay imposes restrictions on these sites to bypass "rebuilding" unsustainably and initiate "build back better" post disaster. This theorises a wildfireresilient City of Cape Town wild land urban interface. The study employs this proposed fire-specific overlay zone over the projects case studies (UCT and Spanish Farm) – to show how it could potentially mitigate wildfire risk in these flammable sites. The basis of this idea is formed from a cross-contextual analysis of Victoria, California and Western Cape regulation; and from the insights of planning, engineer, wildfire disaster management and insurance industry respondents from the Western Cape region.

Thesis: B.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of City and Regional Planning, 1952 / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 47). / John A. Ranyek. / B.C.P. / B.C.P. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of City and Regional Planning

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2005. / "Publication number AAT 3176985."

Includes bibliographical references / Defensible space aims to provide residents with the power to control their residential environment, so that they will defend it against any threat. While the literature on defensible space is prolific, and while its principles are still being adapted for different contexts across the world, critiques of defensible space indicate that its validity for different contexts is questionable and necessitates further exploration. This paper explores how the implementation of defensible space principles in the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) safe node area of Harare, Khayelitsha has reduced crime rates and anti-social behaviour. Furthermore, it also aims to provide planners with knowledge regarding VPUU's prescription to defensible space principles. The research was conducted primarily through the use of the case study method, and a critical discourse analysis of VPUU's urban design principles. Harare's crime statistics were analysed through the use of mixed methods, in order to gain an understanding of how crime has been affected in the area. Interviews with locals from Harare provided insight on how residents perceived safety in their area after VPUU's intervention. Observations were also made in order to understand how the intervention area functions and how people use it. Cognitive mapping was done with primary school children to ascertain their perceptions of safety in Harare. The research findings revealed that the implementation of defensible space principles in Harare has improved the quality of public space, but it has not reduced crime rates or anti-social behaviour. Moreover, the main finding revealed that crime was not solely a result of design flaws, but rather as a result of the social conditions in the neighbourhood. As a result, the main recommendation was that crime prevention strategies should not focus solely on design but should address the social conditions present. The researcher argues that the implementation of defensible space principles should be context-driven, because what works in one context will not necessarily work in another.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of City and Regional Planning, 1964. / Includes bibliographical references (eaves 78-79). / by Samuel Alleyne Otis, Jr. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of City and Regional Planning, 1999. / "June, 1967." / Includes bibliographical references. / Boston's public housing program is plagued with problems, both social and physical, some of which are common to housing authorities throughout the country, and some of which are unique to Boston. The Boston Housing Authority has been under attack from civil rights groups for racial discrimination, and from other liberal groups for its out-moded policies and philosophies. The members of the 5-man Authority have been criticized as unqualified, politically-motivated, and lacking in understanding of the special needs of the problem families who are increasingly the inhabitants of public housing. In spite of a waiting list of 4,500 families, no new family public housing has been built in Boston in 13 years. Although several new programs -- leased housing, turnkey, rehabilitation, rent supplement -- have been tried, none is operating with maximum effectiveness. Increasing vandalism, crime, disrepair, and tenant complaints about indifferent managers, indolent maintenance men, and unreasonable tenant regulations, all attest to a need for re-evaluation of the program. This thesis is, in essence, a case study of the Boston Housing Authority. It examines the organizational structure, the policies, and the operations of the BHA, and describes the people who run it: the Board, the Administrator, the department heads, the project managers, the staff. It analyzes present BRA programs, and assesses their effectiveness in the face of today's needs. It identifies those inadequacies which are the result of internal BHA management and structure, and those which are the result of state and federal legislation over which the BHA has little direct control. It attempts to evaluate the extent to which political patronage and nepotism -- in selection of tenants, in hiring of employees, in appointment of Authority members -- affect the program and its operation. In the concluding sections, recommendations are made for changes that seem indicated: Those which could be made within and by the BHA itself, those which could be made only by the Mayor of Boston, and those which would require legislative action at both state and federal levels. In brief, the thesis asks, "What is wrong with Boston's public housing program?" and suggests what could be done to improve it if the citizens of Boston want a more vigorous and viable program. / by May Boulter Hipshman. / M.C.P.

Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universiteit Delft, 2003. / DatabaseEbrary. EAN: 9789040724794. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis (M.U.R.P.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Architecture & Town Planning, 1979.

Thesis (M.L.A.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2007.