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In the era of globalisation we are required to negotiate a large series of global flows. These include the flow of capital ideas, imagery, goods and people. Contemporary culture has increasingly become nomadic, and the idea of place has become transitive. This condition stands in contradiction to the time-honoured notion of the city as a stable entity. Whether brought about by natural catastrophe or initiated by choice, instant cities emerge, only to disappear again just as rapidly. This has given rise to new terms such as relief urbanism, deadline urbanism or event urbanism. This shift from notions of fixed locality to temporary accommodation for mass migration requires equivalent forms of flexibility in planning. (Weiss 2007:3) This thesis will focus on the particular flow within this contemporary situation which has the biggest implication for architecture, namely the movement of people. Since the world war, migrancy has rapidly become more global in scope and scale with there being more mobility than any other period in history. (Cairns 2004:3) Contemporary migrancy involves the movement of immigrants, emigrants, guest workers, refugees and asylum seekers. The effects of migrancy are also being more intensely felt and widespread than ever before. Nowhere are the impacts more evident than in Africa where the movement of people as a result of war, poverty and persecution are central to the continent’s economics and politics. While migrancy is rapidly transforming Africa the region lacks the capacity to understand and manage these movements. (Forced Migration Studies Programme 2008) So the focus of this thesis will be on refugees and asylum seekers seeking refuge in South Africa and the impacts it is having on displaced people themselves and the local population made terrifyingly manifest in the recent Xenophobic attacks plaguing the country. Following a discussion of the many problems faced by refugees and the root causes of the Xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg this thesis will look at the alleviation of some of these problems culminating in the design of a Prefabricated Housing Prototype and System which can be implemented in a combination of contexts. The system will be developed using 3 test studies. The first will be as an infill project in an dense urban context providing cheap rental unit options for the urban poor including South African low income earners and refugees in the inner city, the second will be a housing model for upgrading stable South African informal settlements and the third as an alternative Refugee camp in an emergency or cross border context. It will examine the role of architecture as a means to sustain dignity and create a sense of belonging for people with very few social connections. The facility will aim to help people regain control of their lives by helping them to contribute to the market economy. It will also aim to be an architecture that is against alienation and will facilitate healing.

Transition Neighbourhoods: Re-Imagining the Suburb in a World Without Oil This research report was inspired by two urban concerns: the first being the intrinsic structural and functional inefficiencies of the typical suburban environment and secondly, building on that, what the future of these environments will be in a scenario where cheap fossil fuels will no longer be readily available. A review of the literature available on the subject showed that although the notion of peak oil and/or oil depletion is not necessarily universally acknowledged, there is a growing group of scientists and scholars globally that believe that it is only a matter of time before we will no longer have the level of access to oil that we are used to. As a potential urban scenario it therefore warrants some consideration. The central question of the research report is whether the built form and function of existing suburban residential neighbourhoods can be retrofitted to become more resilient and to enable its residents to adapt to a life without oil (or at least drastically reduced availability of oil) while at the same time maintaining or (where absent) introducing accepted norms for a liveable neighbourhood. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how the principles of localisation and the Transition Movement can be made applicable to suburban environments. The theory is that the more a community is able to survive locally the less it will depend on external inputs and linkages. The outcome of the research is a model for how to adapt a conventional suburb to become a Transition Neighbourhood that will enable the survival of the suburban neighbourhood as a functional place in the larger cityscape. The research report uses Menlo Park, a centrally located residential neighbourhood in the City of Tshwane, as a case study. An Urban Design Framework was developed for the neighbourhood that applied various dimensions of resilience, localisation, liveable neighbourhoods and the Transition Movement to a practical context, and illustrated how the suburb will look and function after such a transformation.

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The advent of accelerated global warming and volatile climate change has prompted the need for a better understanding of what factors and policies might contribute to mitigate these events as well as increase the resilience of communities. Transit systems’ effectiveness and efficiency in increasingly disperse, car-dependent, and poly-centric urban agglomerations is one such factor, including the search for strategies to increase transit patronage and decrease car-dependence. Improving access to rapid-transit systems is one key area as it has the potential to expand the system’s influence beyond station’s immediate pedestrian service areas into larger and less developed suburban areas, and/or serve more disperse employment. Precedent studies and most on-board surveys have focused on a variety of access modes to reach rapid-transit services, including automobile, walking, and bicycle. Bus access, despite representing on average a non-trivial 19.3% of all access trips at national level, more than 30% at some large poly-centric cities in the U.S., and close to 50% of access trips for some rapid-transit lines (out-sizing the share of pedestrian access) has not received as much attention as other access modes. Predictive models for bus access mode report notably lower explanatory power as compared to other modes and the account of bus access events is often conflated with that of walk access in many technical reports and surveys for reasons yet to be understood. Ignoring, overlooking and/or misrepresenting this mode of access may lead to misunderstanding of multi-modal transit travel behavior and its spatial extent, possibly misguiding planners and policy-makers’ decision-making and resulting in system-wide ineffectiveness and/or inefficiency. This investigation documents bus access share for one exemplary case study and clarifies built-environment and bus networks’ influence on rapid-transit patronage within descriptive and inferential quantitative methodologies. This study seeks to answer two guiding research questions: 1- How important are bus networks to rapid-transit ridership in large, dispersed, poly-centric metropolitan regions in the U.S.? and 2- Do land-use and built-environment attributes around feeder bus-stops influence rapid-transit boardings? Because of diverse geographical scales and service levels experienced by a rider on a chained bus / rapid-transit trip this study focuses on two distinct yet linked geographies for analysis: 1-rapid-transit station; and 2- bus-stop. Research design is based on a single-case study in the United States (Los Angeles metropolitan multi-modal transit system). The first study focuses on quantifying the share of bus access trips at station-level and gaging its influence on total boardings within a multivariate generalized regression framework. Several socio-economic, service-level, built-environment, and network attributes are taken into consideration as informed by travel behavior theory and literature review. A strong positive association between bus network’s service and connectivity levels with rapid-transit station boardings registers high statistical confidence levels with boardings across all specified models. The mutual dependence of rapid-transit and bus networks evinced in the case of Los Angeles argues for a full multi-modal transit planning and operations paradigm for advancing a more effective, equitable, and sustainable transit system if it is to compete with ubiquitous automobile travel and its underpinning policy, fiscal, infrastructural, and cultural support. For Los Angeles, rapid-transit bus access represents an estimated 33.5% of all access events at a system-wide level, 20% - 49% at line-level, and a notably wider range at station-level (0% - 86%). The second study in this investigation focuses in assessing bus-stop pedestrian service areas built-environment and land-use attributes’ potential influence on rapid-transit station boardings, whilst controlling for both known and hypothesized control factors at bus-stop and station-level. By simultaneously focusing on bus-stop level attributes and higher-level rapid-transit stations’ attributes this part of the investigation fills a gap in the extant land-use / travel-behavior literature that more often focuses on pedestrian service areas adjacent to rapid-transit stations and ignores those around feeder bus-stops. Results evince a highly significant statistical relationship between bus-stop service area built-environment characteristics and the number of boardings associated with access trips to rapid-transit stations. However, the absolute effect relative to bus service levels and to automobile availability is notably smaller. Taken together as a multi-scalar study of bus and rapid-transit network interactions this investigation points to the importance of bus / rapid-transit network connectivity and service integration for maintaining and increasing rapid-transit patronage and the potential of synergistic contributions of built-environment interventions at feeder bus stops that seek to improve walkability and shorter walking distances. As a general conclusion, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority and its associated MPO policy emphasis on TOD development as a strategy to increase transit ridership is limited. A more comprehensive policy approach based on ‘integrated public transportation’ and a more extensive station access policy that incorporates improvements around feeder bus stops, not only around stations, is the recommended course. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / June 19, 2018. / built-environment, bus, multimodal, rapid-transit access, sustainable, transit / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey Brown, Professor Directing Dissertation; Mark Horner, University Representative; Michael Duncan, Committee Member; John Felkner, Committee Member.

As global tourism continues to rise, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) continues to encourage the use of tourism as an economic development strategy for poverty reduction in many developing countries. The Caribbean country of Jamaica has used to tourism, especially cruise ship tourism, to some economic success and, perhaps, little poverty reduction. With a substantial investment in tourism-related infrastructure projects, including building and renewing port facilities for cruise ships, from the federal government and international agencies, tourism in Jamaica has grown to the second largest economic sector for the country. While the Jamaican government has promoted the economic success of the tourism investments little has been said about the social costs to communities near the ports. This dissertation will use grounded analysis to begin to explore the experiences and the social issues that the locals face due to cruise ship tourism in their communities. The qualitative research will show that there are profound social issues and stressors impacting the quality of life of the residents, both within the tourism sector and outside of it, while achieving little of the economic success that the government has claimed. Using interviews conducted in Montego Bay, Falmouth, and Ocho Rios, Jamaica, and previous studies on social impacts and stressors, a social impact assessment matrix was created for tourism developers to use to help mitigate future negative social externalities of cruise ship port development projects within Jamaica. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / June 15, 2018. / Cruise Ship, Jamaica, Social Impact Assessment, Social Issues, Tourism Planning / Includes bibliographical references. / Petra Doan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ralph Brower, University Representative; Tisha Holmes, Committee Member; John Felkner, Committee Member.

Many community-dwelling older adults spend a significant amount of time in their homes, neighborhoods, and nearby areas. Much is known about the effects that the physical environment has on older adults, but comparatively less is known about neighborhood social environments. The neighborhood is an important unit for study because it is a microcosm of greater social processes and smaller interpersonal relationships. This doctoral case study examined the characteristics and functions of social relationships for older adults in three socioeconomically different New Orleans, Louisiana neighborhoods that were differently affected by the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster. The study also explored differences between older adult-serving networks across neighborhoods. Older adults comprised a majority of storm-related deaths from Hurricane Katrina. Over a decade post-storm, residential life in the study neighborhoods has entered a new normal, but for older adults, recovery has been difficult. The constant throughout the recovery period has been relationships with family, friends, neighbors, and informal ties in the community. Findings suggest that apart from family and friends, relationships with neighbors and those known from informal community settings serve important supportive and social roles for older adults. Participation with older adult-serving networks enables individuals to stay active, social, and intellectually engaged. Formal networks including senior centers and community organizations operate official programs to meet needs, but engage with participants in an informal manner, thereby increasing participation. Findings reveal that having neighborhood-based community resources empowers older adults to socialize with others, maintain their health and wellness, and remain thriving, productive community members near their homes. These resources promote rich social lives and successful aging in the community. Additionally, special districts and partnerships affect the flow of resources and opportunities into neighborhoods, which influence how different networks in different neighborhoods in this study function. Planners and local governments recognize the neighborhood as an important unit of the community and are empowering them to secure resources and meet needs on a small scale. Policymaking bodies are supporting the community in these endeavors by supporting legislation that empowers neighborhoods to leverage resources to help themselves. These efforts are having significant impacts on the greater community as recovery in these neighborhoods progresses. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / February 26, 2018. / aging, disasters, neighborhood, older adults, social networks, social relationships / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey R. Brown, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jean Munn, University Representative; Rebecca Miles, Committee Member; April Jackson, Committee Member.

The percentage of older adults residing in America’s auto-oriented suburbs is projected to grow significantly in the coming decades. When these individuals are no longer able to safely drive themselves, they may seek alternative modes of transportation in order to maintain their independence. In many metro areas, robust public transit exists in the urban core but can be relatively sparse in suburban areas, thus creating a service gap. At the same time, a growing number of elder-service nonprofits have begun to offer transportation services for older clients, leveraging unique staff expertise with elder-care issues in order to fill the service gap. The potential for partnerships between nonprofits and public transit agencies is on the rise, fueled primarily by federal grants and skyrocketing demand for transportation. This dissertation examines the state of affairs in elder-service transportation in the suburbs of three American cities from three perspectives: The elder-service nonprofits innovating programs, the transit agencies partnering with these nonprofits, and the older adults who use these services in order to age in place. The investigation relies on interviews, focus groups, and document analysis as source material. Using a process of axial coding and pattern matching, analysis focuses on the ways in which providers function, partner, and meet the needs of suburban older adults. The results show that these nonprofit innovators are delivering specialized and elder-conscious services that are quite popular with riders, while also often remaining deliberately independent of taxpayer support. Interagency partnerships, although viewed positively by managers in both agency types, are thus limited to short-term contracts that dissipate as the nonprofit matures and secures local funding. Where partnerships do occur, results show a need for simplified reporting of designated outcomes and better information-sharing between agencies. Taken together, the results indicate a rich and varied network of resources being committed to address this critical mobility challenge. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / March 1, 2018. / Nonprofit Management, Older Adults, Partnerships, Rider Perspective, Suburbia, Transportation / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey R. Brown, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ralph S. Brower, University Representative; Rebecca Miles, Committee Member; Michael Duncan, Committee Member.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries