In the twenty-first century that we are living, most of the contemporary metropolises are under constant visual electronic surveillance under the name of security and public safety. Istanbul as being one of the big cities has joined this surveilled metropolises / its streets and public spaces are under constant watch by the invisible watchers behind the MOBESE cameras. The way that the system works on how to impose power on the citizens with the constant observation has it roots in the design principle of Panopticon that Jeremy Bentham created long time ago. Today, Bentham&rsquo / s eighteenth century design Panopticon has dispersed and merged into the urban scale and replaced by these surveillance cameras. The observation tower and the guardian in panopticon have transformed into the main control room and the cameras. Citizens in Istanbul are under a panoptic power of surveillance. Ordinary citizen is being watched by the invisible guardians behind the cameras. The ones behind the cameras constantly see everything, but never seen by the citizens. This thesis attempts to discuss this assumption of Istanbul becoming an urban panopticon and its affects on the physical layout together with the social aspect of it in Istanbul. One of the main objectives is to investigate the consequences of this visual surveillance on the way that the public life and public spaces of Istanbul is affected.

Therefore Kinmen because of the Kuomintang and Communist Parties war, for a long time battlefield government affairs related prohibition rule and military control influence. After on November 1, 1992 relieved the battlefield government affairs military control, for the effective management land resource's development, in January 20, 1996 announced that implemented the Kinmen specific area plan. But shape extension from the Minnan tradition construction pattern and the culture, has the regional color extremely the traditional settlement, after facing the so significant policy the change, in the settlement has many big heavy changes inevitably. This research is on the Kinmen specific area land development permission consideration system (Kinmen County natural village development permit consideration standard), review on the traditional settlement public space development's influence, divides into the system and the actual case observation and so on two general orientations, spirit and the goal the elaboration development permit consideration system, the execution way and the result is the key point; The actual case extension of by the traditional settlement public space texture, newly supposes the construction to use the open area for the public to use directions and so on inventory survey primarily. By present situation material's collection reorganization,, preceding the public spatial production result the appraisal, Seeks for the settlement public space the significance and the value is., seeks for in the system the feasible adjustment. The public space's production is the Kinmen specific area land development permission consideration system important goal. This research already regarding development plan's important item and the topographic diagram, inspected one by one by the observation approach the development base has constructed in the use, the collection reorganization public uses the open area present situation material. After collecting entire data and set of cartography discovery, this policy and is inferior to the public spatial production's result to anticipate obviously. May discover the consideration system lacks the superior plan to instruct, the examination resolution carries out the mechanism deficient, with the place environment project deficient conformity contact surface, to use the open area deficient for the public to be too scattered, and the development consideration process lacks questions and so on public participation to wait for overcoming with adjusts. In addition, this research to Kinmen area tradition settlement under development licensing system, for adaptation modern life state, regarding public spatial texture development and vicissitude, by examination licensing system moderate adjustment, but promotes the public spatial production to carry out the proportion effectively, improves in the natural village the living conditions quality.

ABSTRACT    This thesis discusses the changing society and how the urban setting affects how and where people spend their time socializing and eating. The city of Hanoi has undergone changes, which have had an impact on people’s movements, consumption choices and street traders’ livelihood in the city. There are also issues with housing that have arisen, mainly because the city’s expanding growth. The youth of today are living in quite a different social context society than their parents and especially grandparents, due to economic reforms that have rapidly increased the foreign investment and flow of information from the outside world. This has led to some diverging and sometimes conflicting opinions arising from people of different ages possibly having other ideals and values than their parents and grandparents. The state ideals and global influences also affect people’s behaviour and opinions and food choices. I will describe the food scene and changes that have happened to it, due to foreign influences and trade. This study is mainly based on secondary sources, combined with a case study of young people’s eating out food choices based upon my own fieldwork in Hanoi, Vietnam from February to April, 2013. I will situate and contextualize what part food plays for the youths and exploring the difference between street food and fast food and why people would choose one over the other.

I do not intend to talk about architecture as just shapes or forms but as an ongoing construction of the social, political and physical spaces we inhabit. I will concentrate on the different elements that constitute the process of making-the-world, together with the text, interventions on site, understanding the design as one of those elements, not as the final output of my work. This project is a reaction to the impact that the recent and on-going changes in society have in public space, or in other words: a reaction to changes in public life such as individualization being opposite to the commonality and ability to share in relationship with the effects those changes have had on public space, such as an overwhelming and growing privatization of those spaces and an increasing threat to their very existence. First, I explore existing public spaces and their construction through analysis and involvement in the city. I continue my explorations being in the spaces and interacting with different actors and react on the discovered aspects (potentialities, failures) by virtue of interventions. This leads to the discovery of features such as playfulness, openness, common ownership, voluntariness, equality, freedom and other as conditions that emerge from the different experiences and situations in which I have intervened. Combinations of them give opportunities for other forms of togetherness to be thought and discussed, but also for them to appear in space. Finally, those features become also an input for speculative proposals that allowed me to test my reflections: an imaginary projection onto the current situation of intuitions, ideas and ideals, which are integral for what I call Urban Commons. The Urban Commons I propose are connected to public life and social behaviour in public spaces and reflect on the possibilities of new ways of commonality. I will consider one intervention, its process and current state closer as I relate it to the making of the Urban Common. This imaginary projection also allows to criticise existing construction of public spaces and society in common.

Arising out of widespread concerns that incidents of street violence amongst young people in the UK were spiralling out of control, this research draws on feminist deconstructions of the public-private space divide to emphasise the importance of a social constructionist perspective on street violence; street violence as it is experienced, understood and constructed by young people. Methodologically this research combines ethnography with Critical Discourse Analysis in what has been referred to as critical ethnography (Fairclough, 2001). Adopting a practitioner research approach within a primarily street based youth work setting, accounts were drawn from a range of sources, including interviews and participant observation with youth workers, young people and local public figures. This study draws out the implications for young men’s subjective experiences of the inner city streets near where they live, focusing on the construction of masculinities in the context of political pressures and institutionalised discourses of young people. The young men in this research experienced uncertain and often fearful public spaces in which the ability to construct a credible propensity for violence was an essential part of a successful masculine identity. It is suggested that a significantly greater focus is required on critical gender identity work with young men, specifically in relation to their identity constructions in public space.

This Master’s Report explores how the social geography of Buenos Aires transformed between 1887 and 1910 and how these changes affected the city’s development. It argues that despite the state’s purported willingness to provide security and sanitation services to its citizenry, changing settlement patterns and expanding democratic participation led to the unequal distribution of public resources and the decay of neighborhoods in the south and west of the city. It argues that as public works removed inexpensive housing in the city’s downtown and transportation networks linked the city’s peripheries closer to the nucleus, members of the middle class and elites increasingly congregated in center and north of the city. Buenos Aires’ neighborhoods became segregated increasingly along class lines and patronage networks broke down. Members of the working class, now concentrated in their own neighborhoods, were unable gain the same resources. Inequality in the allocation of government benefits created clear physical and cultural barriers between rich and poor segments of the city. Unequal access to security forces played an especially important role in stigmatizing poor regions. While the police department vigilantly protected safety, private property and order in some parts of the city, they did not provide enough officers to complete the same tasks in others. Crime went unchecked in poorer regions. The municipal government published statistics and commentary on crime in the southern and western districts of the capital. This imagery cast the area’s residents as threats to public safety and sanitation that the state should control and maintain segregated rather than aid. By casting them as a threatening “other,” city officials denied inhabitants of poor neighborhoods’ future claims to public resources. / text

Leisure time, leisure activities, and leisure spaces largely surround matters of consumption. However, the role consumption plays in the reproduction and performance of community is a necessarily contested topic among leisure scholars. For their part, leisure scholars have tended to regard consumption and places of consumption with a great deal of trepidation, skepticism, and even contempt (e.g., Arai & Pedlar, 2003; Hemingway, 1996; Reid, 1995; Stormann, 2000). Implications for and about community appear to be at the forefront of anxiety about consumption as it relates to leisure. As a result, a focus on “community” has become a practical response to assumptions about pervasive individualism, consumption, and the loss of community, in general. Following calls for the incorporation of community in leisure studies (Arai & Pedlar, 2003; Glover & Stewart, 2006) and drawing on Cook’s (2006a) call to move leisure studies “beyond individualism” (p. 464), this study sought to empirically examine the significance local residents attribute to everyday places of consumption. Furthermore, this study aimed to challenge the idea that leisure time, activities, places, and spaces based on consumption serve only to further alienate individuals from communities, thus weakening the social relevance of leisure, in general (Arai & Pedlar, 2003). The purpose of this research, therefore, was to challenge the essentialist conceptualization of consumption by exploring the relationship between places of consumption and the everyday lived experience of community. To do so, I engaged patrons at the Kitchener Market, a venue that encourages consumptive acts, yet serves as a focal point for everyday engagement in community. The primary research question providing focus for this study was: What roles, if any, do places of consumption, particularly third places, play in the everyday lived experience of community? Results of this research suggest there are new ways for understanding leisure and community as they relate to consumption. Rather than considering consumption places as points of exchange with little or no emotional sentiment attached, this research suggests these places have to potential to develop and create community as well as incorporate consumer values, ideals, ethics, and sentiments. Third places, as everyday places of consumption, should be examined for their potential to create, enact, and build community. Consumption is not separate from society, community and leisure; rather, consumption constitutes a salient aspect of everyday living and should be considered an important component of community.

A living city must exist at every scale - from the urban to the pedestrian; the development of the 21st century Instant City, however, does not allow for this multiplicity of scales. These cities emerge instead in a type of hyper-reality, driven by the pursuit of capital and power. In the frenzy to grow, the resulting urban condition is alienating - one devoid of human scale. Looking to modern Dubai as an example of the dehumanized city, this thesis explores the reinterpretation of a traditional bazaar as a tool to challenge this existing form of urbanism. By way of an intervention that exploits the connective potential of pedestrian infrastructure, the project seeks to add a layer of social and physical complexity to a ‘dead’ city.

Participatory design is often linked to community development, but studies seldom explore the ongoing effects the built design can have on a community. This study examined whether a participatory design process and the resulting public space acted as catalysts of community development. A case study was conducted in Barrio Grenada, Nicaragua, where a park was designed and built with community participation in 2010. The study explored participation in the design process, use of the park, and perceptions of subsequent development in Barrio Grenada. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews of external agents and local residents who participated in the park design and construction. Results suggest the design process and park each catalyzed development in distinct ways. Contacts made through the design process aided infrastructure development through financial and logistical support, while use of the park enabled social development through increased communication among neighbours, and recreation opportunities for children and youth. / Estate of Richard and Sophia Hungerford

The aim of this thesis is to study public space and how tourism has influenced the provision ofpublic space in Stone Town, Zanzibar. In order to achieve the aim, theory of public space andgovernmentality has been used. The thesis is a qualitative case study and the empiricalmaterial has been gathered through interviews and observations. The result of this studyshows that tourists are somewhat prioritised in the planning of public space. Furthermore bydeveloping the parks in a particular way the planners try to create a certain conduct in theparks. This coupled with pressure from the large tourism industry on Zanzibar has led to thepublicness of the parks being somewhat diminished.