published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Philosophy

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Architecture, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree master of science (Development Planning) / Urbanisation processes in South Africa have historically been influenced and affected by the government's political ideology based on segregation and racial discrimination. This led to the constrained urbanisation of the African population facilitated by literally hundreds of restrictive pieces of legislation. ( Abbreviation abstract) / Andrew Chakane 2018

劉煒. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-208) / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Liu Wei.

This dissertation explores architectural building types as critical components of, and unique points of interface with, three infrastructural systems, built or re-built in New York City in the decades after World War II. While contemporary infrastructure is enmeshed in regional and global networks far beyond the administrative bounds of the five boroughs, an architectural focus reveals these systems as inescapably local, tied to political struggles surrounding the siting, design, and construction of buildings; to socio-technical imperatives of density; to material consequences like traffic and air pollution; and to aesthetic effects like beauty, monotony, and monumentality. Three case studies—in food distribution, telephone service, and sewage treatment—explore different spatial techniques involved in the management of commodities, information, and waste. Reading each through the social history of technology, as well as the disciplinary tools of architectural history, brings to light unique aspects of architecture’s participation in the political, social, and technological landscapes of the contemporary city. This dissertation looks closely at the prewar roots and postwar creation of New York’s present-day systems: the adoption of the infrastructural buildings we see today, and the rejection of alternatives in design, values, and policies. It argues that the city’s vital systems, and their architectural manifestations, were largely designed according to the needs of various elite groups, in ways that supported the long-term deindustrialization and stratification of urban existence, though not according to a consistent or coherent plan. Well-studied postwar phenomena such as decentralization, automation, demographic change, and “urban crisis” take on different casts as familiar characters like politicians, property owners and architects are joined by monopoly corporations, technicians, and neighborhood organizers. Granular study of the processes that led to the adoption of particular plans, and the rejection of alternatives, reveals the city’s visual and functional landscape as one shaped by a wide—though far from democratic—range of actors. Today, these same infrastructures, physically durable even as their social use has been redirected or transformed, continue to participate in an ostensibly postindustrial and rapidly gentrifying city. By reexamining the narratives of these systems’ design and construction, the study of infrastructural architecture illuminates this inequitable history, while revealing moments of resistance and supporting calls for the further democratization of urban life by those whose needs have been discounted.

Public authorities supplement routine government functions by building infrastructure, maintaining bridges, building stadiums and convention centers, managing public housing, and running mass transit systems. These special purpose governments are a fixture of urban development and service delivery. Drawing on a framework informed by theories of public authorities and intergovernmental politics, this study examines how statewide public authorities interact with localities and what the implications are for intergovernmental politics and local democratic planning. This research focuses on a state public authority in New York State responsible for economic development: the Empire State Development Corporation. Through archival analysis, interviews, legislative review, and document and project analysis, I show that when a public authority carries out economic development, it can facilitate local economic development planning by overcoming local political inertia, or it can hinder a locality’s planning efforts by substituting statewide economic development interests for local interests. In both cases, there is a negative effect on local democratic processes. By overriding local laws, acting in isolation from the public and the legislature, and allowing the businesses community special access to the public authority, the public authority subverts deliberative and inclusive democratic processes. This study concludes by suggesting ways that public authorities can take up democratic planning principles.

This three-article dissertation uses a mixed-method research design to examine a contemporary phenomenon related to grassroots resistance to urban gentrification. In New York City, Los Angeles, and other high-growth US cities, community-based organizations are utilizing National Register of Historic Places listing and local designation of historic districts as strategies to resist residential displacement in the context of gentrification and diminishing housing affordability. The central issue with this practice is quantitative research overwhelmingly finds that neighborhood socioeconomic trends follow indicators of gentrification after the implementation of historic districts. Qualitative studies also demonstrate that historic districts are most often associated with the interests of homeowners who seek districts to protect or increase property values. Therefore, the use of historic districts for anti-displacement purposes can appear counter-intuitive. Arguably, the few existing studies of this practice do not thoroughly analyze the value of publicly stating the intention of districts for anti-displacement purposes or how organizational entities hypothesize causal links between historic districts and the reduction of displacement by gentrification. This gap between research and practice presents an opportunity to examine the functions of historic preservation regulations and participatory venues within the uneven distribution of racial, political, and economic resources necessary to affect authoritative land use decisions. The three articles are sequential. The first article uses logistic regression to estimate the organizational, contextual, and neighborhood socioeconomic factors that influenced a sample of community-based organizations in New York City, NY, and the City of Los Angeles, CA, between 2000-2020 to state motivations for anti-displacement purposes at public hearings for new historic districts. The second article further examines organizations’ motivations through archived conference proceedings and focused interviews with the key informants of six (6) New York City community-based organizations on the political, socioeconomic, and racial processes that influenced their use of local and NRHP districts as anti-displacement strategies. The interviewed organizations were identified by the review of public hearing testimony and correspondence for Article 1. Finally, Article 3 uses a difference-in-differences statistical technique to test the neighborhood socioeconomic impacts of contextual rezoning in New York City between 1986-2020 as a type of non-FAR rezoning. Contextual zoning and historic districts are similar in that their implementation depends on the presence and maintenance of neighborhood character. Unlike historic districts, new development in contextual zones functions as an administrative process with the Department of Buildings without reliance upon discretionary review of proposals by a city agency. The articles find that community-based organizations pursue historic districts for a blend of procedural, regulatory, and financial benefits related to anti-displacement activism. Some organizations seek historic districts as substitutes for neighborhood-wide downzoning due to rezoning’s high financial and administrative costs, reflecting power inequalities in urban politics. The articles’ findings also suggest that there are causal links between regulatory restrictions on development and the exclusion of new socioeconomic groups, albeit in the interest of excluding residents of higher-socioeconomic status to resist gentrification. Ostensibly neutral, character-based discourse in urban development is implicated in preserving historical patterns of urban racial and economic isolation. Without state and federal interventions in the provision of urban growth, historic districts and character-based rezonings have limited influence on long-term urban equity.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York City (NYC) emerged as a global epicentre, revealing stark disparities in its impact across diverse neighbourhoods and populations. This dissertation delves into the uneven geographies of the pandemic city, critically examining the paradoxes, linkages, and questions embedded in the infrastructures that shape and are shaped by the politics of the city. As modern life becomes increasingly intertwined with complex digital control systems, these infrastructures, far from being rational, orderly or even intelligible, obscure systems of power that govern their stable flow and circulation. Drawing on Stephen Graham’s concept of infrastructural “disruption”, this research sheds light on how everyday infrastructures—often invisible until they fail—reveal intricate tensions between distance and access, between participation and criminalisation, and between mobility and class. Through a multi-scaled empirical analysis, this research delves deeper into the topological and topographical characteristics of urban infrastructure during a time of crisis to illuminate their role in mediating relationships between citizens, space and justice in our everyday lives. This dissertation is anchored around three categories of spatial unevenness: geographies of access, geographies of digital participation, and geographies of work. Three infrastructural modalities are interrogated during the COVID-19 moment in NYC: the built environment, a digital governance platform, and the personal mobile phone. The study seeks to answer pivotal questions regarding access to critical pandemic response infrastructure, patterns of civic participation in NYC’s 311 non-emergency hotline, and the spatial politics of remote work behaviour. Ultimately, by unmasking the intricate web of infrastructural politics, this research offers an in-depth understanding of the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 spread and emphasises the significance of spatial considerations in our theorisations of justice.

Alvin Min Che Lin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-127). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract in English and Chinese --- p.i-ii / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / List of Abbreviations --- p.v / Photo of Tolo Harbour reclamation near Chinese University --- p.vi / Chapter Chapter 1. --- "The Harbour Reclamation Debate: Introduction, Theoretical Framework and Literature Review" --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- Govemment as City Planner: How and Why the Government Came to Pursue its Reclamation Plans in Victoria Harbour. Issues in Hong Kong's Town Planning System --- p.29 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Framing the Debate: the Rise of the Harbour Protection Movement and the Government's Initial Response (October 1994 ´ؤ October1995) --- p.41 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- "The Debate Gets Underway: Organizing, Campaigning, Lawmaking (November 1995 - June1997)" --- p.59 / Chapter Chapter 5. --- "Continuity and Change After the Handover: Escalation, Showdown and Resolution (July 1997 - October 1999 and Beyond)" --- p.82 / Chapter Chapter 6. --- Discussion and Conclusion. What We Learn From the Harbour Debate Significance of the Debate for Hong Kong Politics --- p.118 / Bibliography --- p.124 / Appendix: / The Protection of the Harbour Ordinance and TPB Vision Statement Table of Government Plans and Alternative Plans / Tables: / Chapter 1.1 --- Existing/Committed and Proposed Reclamations in Victoria Harbour in1994 --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Uses for Existing and Proposed Harbour Reclamations --- p.33 / Figures: / Chapter 1.1 --- Lessig's Four Elements for Regulating Behavior --- p.13 / Chapter 1.2 --- The Framework Applied to the Harbour Reclamation Debate --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1 --- "The Harbour Debate, October 1994-October1995" --- p.40 / Chapter 4.1 --- "The Harbour Debate, November 1995 - June1997" --- p.58 / Chapter 5.1 --- "The Harbour Debate, July 1997 ´ؤ October 1999 and Beyond" --- p.81 / Chapter 6.1 --- How Civil Society Influenced the Government --- p.121 / Miscellaneous: / Blueprint of the reclamations and SPH petition --- p.6b

The dissertation has three major objectives. The first is to examine the relation between the nature and trajectory of urban and regional planning in South Africa, and developments within the, South African political economy of which it is an integral part. The second is to contribute to the sparse literature on the history of urban and regional planning in South Africa. The third is to consider the historical record on and the prospects for facilitating progressive social change through planning in South Africa. An empirical analysis of the history of urban and regional planning for the period 1900 to 1988 provides the basis for the achievement of all three objectives. In attempting to fulfil the first objective Sate emphasis is placed on examining the relationship between territorial apartheid and planning. The experiential basis of the distinction often made between planning and apartheid by South African planners is explored. The conclusion reached is that whilst a distinction between the trajectory of professional town planning and territorial apartheid is sustainable, there has also been a very substantial measure of articulation. Special emphasis is also given to examining the relationship between planning and the specific nature and history of the accumulation process in South Africa. In this regard it is concluded that the accumulation process has bone both an indirect and direct relation to planning at different junctures. At times the trajectory of accumulation has simply provided a context which has affected the definition of social priorities and placed limits on what could be pursued through planning. At other times the momentum of accumulation has quite directly affected planning, providing opportunities for or requiring responses from planners. As far as the record on the social role played by planners is concerned, it is concluded that planning has not cut a particularly progressive profile. The emergence of a progressive planning movement in South Africa is however noted. Possibilities for pursuing progressive practices are identified against the background of a detailed analysis of the contemporary period. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1989.