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This thesis develops quantitative indicators of environmental sustainability for Mexico City and its metropolitan zone of influence (MCMZ). These indicators of sustainability were developed by taking into account seven key variables for the urban environment: the water supply situation, air pollution, transportation and roads, energy, solid wastes, the housing supply and green areas. Based on these indicators and the history of the city's physical evolution since it was founded seven centuries ago, a desirable type of urban form is proposed, one in which there is a "decentralized concentration" which would allow Mexico City to approach sustainability in a time frame that concludes in or about the year 2030. Accordingly, the thesis proposes urban policy measures that, while addressing issues of sustainability, permit Mexico City to face the challenges of globalisation, which would entail transforming it into a "global city'' within a worldwide network of great cities. The urban policy and environmental measures that are recommended anticipate the largest economic, demographic and technological changes that will affect Mexico City, but are above all in harmony with the natural ecosystems of the elevated endorheic basin in which it lies. They do no call for a break with or the alteration of the city's natural landscape or its already constructed historical patrimony and, when possible, they presuppose a new sustainable hydraulic model, capable of restoring lakes and recharging the underground aquifer. Finally, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the recuperation of green areas in accordance with the basin's original natural vegetation. / Geography / D.Litt. et Phil. (Geography)

This thesis develops quantitative indicators of environmental sustainability for Mexico City and its metropolitan zone of influence (MCMZ). These indicators of sustainability were developed by taking into account seven key variables for the urban environment: the water supply situation, air pollution, transportation and roads, energy, solid wastes, the housing supply and green areas. Based on these indicators and the history of the city's physical evolution since it was founded seven centuries ago, a desirable type of urban form is proposed, one in which there is a "decentralized concentration" which would allow Mexico City to approach sustainability in a time frame that concludes in or about the year 2030. Accordingly, the thesis proposes urban policy measures that, while addressing issues of sustainability, permit Mexico City to face the challenges of globalisation, which would entail transforming it into a "global city'' within a worldwide network of great cities. The urban policy and environmental measures that are recommended anticipate the largest economic, demographic and technological changes that will affect Mexico City, but are above all in harmony with the natural ecosystems of the elevated endorheic basin in which it lies. They do no call for a break with or the alteration of the city's natural landscape or its already constructed historical patrimony and, when possible, they presuppose a new sustainable hydraulic model, capable of restoring lakes and recharging the underground aquifer. Finally, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the recuperation of green areas in accordance with the basin's original natural vegetation. / Geography / D.Litt. et Phil. (Geography)

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Thesis (MA (Political Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The global city discourse posits a new role for cities in light of increased economic integration and the rise of a global economy. Firms are increasingly investing capital in locations where profits are anticipated to be highest, creating a geographic dispersal of economic activity. As a result, the central command functions of firms – management, coordination, servicing, and financing of vast networks of operations – have become more complex and strategic. Firms thus outsource a portion of their central command functions to specialised service firms. Specialised service firms tend towards high levels of agglomeration and concentrate in a small number of locations, giving rise to command and control centres of the global economy or global cities. Cities of the South are increasingly fulfilling global city functions, yet are generally approached through a developmentalist framework. The global city discourse places salience on specialised services and exhibits a Western bias. This study develops an alternative analytical framework that recognises an array of activities and processes, across three spheres of globalisation – markets, mafias, and movements – that contribute to the global connectivity of cities. In this way the role of cities of the South in the global economy is better understood. This study focuses on Mexico City and Johannesburg as global cities of the South. What the research uncovers is that these cities fulfil many global city functions and are amongst the best connected cities in their respective regions in terms of their ability to service global capital through growing specialised service sectors. In this way Mexico City and Johannesburg emerge as global cities of the South that integrate large geographical areas, populations, and sub-global economies with the global economy. This study also illustrates that the way in which global cities are conceptualised limits the extent to which the concept can be applied in Southern context. Global cities of the South service far less global capital because of the nature of core/semi-periphery/periphery relations and underdevelopment, the role they fulfil in the global economy is, however, no less critical than that of global cities of the core. This study therefore proposes thinking of global cities as constituent units of a global urban network, garnering certain power by occupying a particular niche constitutive of the whole network.

Air quality in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) is the subject of many studies due to concerns from high emissions and their adverse effects on public health and the environment. In this study, a high resolution simulation is performed with the Community Multi-scale Air Quality modeling system (CMAQ) using meteorology generated by the Weather Research Forecasting system (WRF). The boundary conditions for CMAQ are provided by the Goddard Earth Observing System-CHEMistry model (GEOS-Chem). The simulation period was March 2-7, 2006. Hourly species concentrations of O3, NOx, CO, SO2, PM10, and PM2.5 for the period were provided by the Automatic Air Quality Monitoring Network (labeled as RAMA). Preliminary evaluation showed GEOS-Chem and CMAQ being in good agreement with their predicted concentrations. In comparison with the base case boundary conditions, the GEOS-Chem case performs better and predicts closer to the observed values of O3, NOx, PM10, PM2.5, and SO2. Particle trajectory analysis was performed using the HYbrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model (HYSPLIT) to ascertain the major sources of SO2 emitters and their impact on the MCMA.

The central question of this thesis is: How (and why) do we preserve sports legacies? Based on my research and experiences as the project coordinator for the 1968 U.S. Olympic Team Oral History Project at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports, this thesis examines the social meanings of sports legacies and the rationale behind their preservation. I propose that sports legacies are located at the intersection of culture, memory and history; at the same time, on an individual level, sports legacies are also a form of symbolic immortality. This thesis conceptualizes sports legacies as contested terrain in which individuals and communities engage in continual negotiations on meaning and struggles over representation. Consequently, I propose that public history and oral history are the medium and methodology best suited to sports legacy preservation. Finally, I outline the process by which the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports is preserving the legacy of the 1968 U.S. Olympic Team. This thesis explains how and why we are preserving the legacy of this particular sports team and serves as a blueprint that others may use for preserving sports legacies. / text

This study addresses eighteenth-century illustrations of Mexico City's Alameda Park. The study reads views of Alameda Park for information about the cultural, political, and economic topographies of the colonial city. Alameda Park offered a place of leisure that was free and open to all members of society. It is argued that as a popular, public setting the Alameda represented a discursive space where cultural opinions were shaped. These beliefs found expression in physical objects: views of Alameda Park. Despite the informational value of these expressions, views of Alameda Park remain an untapped resource on account of the ambiguity surrounding their classification as either an objective map or an artful landscape. This study takes a visual culture approach; it calls attention to the ways views of Alameda Park utilize the conventions of both map and landscape. The study analyzes four views of the park. Each view illustrates a moment in colonial history. These include: the 1719 founding of a convent for Amerindian women—the first in two hundred years of colonial rule, the 1774 opening of the Hospicio de Pobres—a facility that incarcerated vagrants in order to rehabilitate them, the circa 1775 renovation of Alameda Park—a project joining citywide efforts to better police the population, and the 1778 promulgation of the Royal Pragmatic on Marriages—a bill designed to preserve Spanish hegemony in a racially-diverse context. Each view speaks a separate narrative; by reading the object, audiences gain detailed information about the shifting cultural landscape of eighteenth-century Mexico City.

This dissertation investigates cabdriving as a form of spatial work, involved in the production and reproduction of social space through three interrelated products: physical movement from place to place; the experience of movement, of connection made between places; and the articulation of these places, movements, and experiences with visions of society and the social. The particular forms of knowledge involved in this work, and the politics in which taxicabs are entangled, are explored through fieldwork conducted in two very different cities: Mexico City and San Francisco, California. The political context of cabdriving knowledge changes as new technologies are introduced into the cab to reframe the relationship between the interior of the cab (where passengers and drivers interact) and the exteriors (urban and informational spaces) through which it passes. In Mexico City, interviews with libre, base, and sitio cabdrivers about their knowledge and work strategies revealed three aspects of cabdriving as a rhythm analytical practice: 1) the points of confluence, i.e., the spatial pattern or method by which drivers link up with passengers; 2) the temporal and monetary patterns of constraint the occupation puts on drivers; and 3) the sense of the city which emerges, as this is described by drivers. Each form of taxicab has different patterns of movement, and different spatial and technological means of establishing contact with customers, which results in differing experiences and strategies elaborated by drivers. In San Francisco, interviews were conducted with taxi, limousine, and "ridesharing" drivers on the impact of smartphone-enabled "e-hailing" technology. The term allegorithm (the productive co-deployment of a socially relevant allegorical script and a software-mediated algorithm) is borrowed from gaming studies to describe how interfaces reframe the cab-riding experience. Of particular interest is the emergence of "ridesharing," or the overcab (a cab-riding experience which is superior to the experience of riding in a cab). The effectiveness of the overcab’s reframing project depends on the acceptance and performance by participants of the "overcab" narrative. There are indications that the transcendence of the overcab is fragile, and that cracks are developing in the experiences of both drivers and passengers, due to continuing tensions which the overcab has failed to resolve, or which have been introduced as part of its regulating mechanism.