In the late nineteenth century, and the first seventy years of the twentieth, municipal enterprise in utilities was one of the major functions of local authorities. The process by which Aberdeen took its tramways into municipal ownership is examined, and contrasted with experience in Glasgow Management and direction of the Transport Department by professional managers and politicans was an issue throughout its history. After the First World War, the Department had to deal with pressures of competition and renewal of assets when Aberdeen was undergoing rapid change in population distribution as central areas were cleared and new housing was constructed in outlying areas. The influence of central government became more marked through the financing and planning of these housing estates, and the local government structures in Aberdeen were placed under increasing strain. The failure to co-ordinate planning, housing and transport resulted in fragmented decision-making, and the lack of a transport strategy in particular led to serious mistakes in transport planning and investment. The direction of transport policy was also affected by external factors, including concerns about road safety and traffic congestion. The decision to abandon the tramways is examined in some depth, and it is concluded that their abandonment should have been undertaken earlier, avoiding needless fleet renewal. In the post-tramway period the difficulties facing the Transport Department, of dealing with falling demand and the need to reduce costs, are examined. Throughout the study, the influence of local politicians on decision-making, and the influence of local critics of their policies, are considered.

A personal social learning experience in itself, the thesis articulates the territory/function dialectic as an alternative, social learning paradigm of regional development planning. The current crisis affecting this activity is firstly diagnosed, the underlying problem is then traced to the prevailing orthodoxy, and, in its place, a new paradigm is offered. The story behind the thesis is told via a characterisation of the overall study process as a transition from objective empiricism to empirical subjectivism. The story features highlights of the main case study experiences as well as those insights gained during the actual creation, that is, in the writing, of the ultimate thesis. After identifying the desirable qualities in a contending paradigm, and elaborating the basic elements of the territory/function dialectic, particular attention is given to the significance of territory. This is complemented by a discussion of the fundamental change in the thinking of John Friedmann, who must be credited with originating the subject dialectic. A literature review is presented featuring a consideration of competing paradigms. A detailed contrast of the centre-periphery and territory/function conceptualisations is also presented before concluding with some critical revelations and key insights. The territory/function dialectic is seen to possess the attributes of both a substantive and methodological paradigm. The special paradigm status is bolstered by a consideration of geography's role in relation to the key concept of territory. The paradigm as a whole is seen to underpin an alternative epistemology combining critical science and social learning. The lessons from a social learning experience are elaborated in a revisitation of the original objectives-cum-working hypotheses. These lessons feature: the pursuit of more real theory; the social value of underdevelopment theory; the explicit role of the state as manifest in official practice; and the significance of learning through collective action. The territory/function dialectic is seen to provide the necessary link between theory and practice in an all encompassing manner. The thesis concludes with a review of certain basic, dialectical, dualities. There is also specific consideration of planning and social learning, entailing further distinctions between not only theory and practice, but also between scientific practice and social practice.

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The impact of road transport and road transport infrastructure on the environment is an important public issue in the United Kingdom today. Economists have suggested that the present Trunk Road appraisal process undervalues the environmental impact of road schemes because environmental impacts are not included in the monetary cost-benefit process, i.e. they are externalised. Furthermore, critics state that the present evaluation process is complicated by the number and type of qualitative and quantitative measures of environmental impact, this leads to confusion and non-standardisation in the decision-making process. In answer to these criticisms it has been suggested that monetary values of environmental impacts should be incorporated into the Trunk Road appraisal process, i.e. placing environmental benefits or losses into the cost-benefit framework and hence simplifying the decision-making process. This research identified the present methods of monetary valuation, and showed that these have insufficient institutional or public acceptability to be used for the purpose of monetary valuation in this case. This research therefore examined a new methodology for placing values on environmental impacts. i.e. Stated Preference (SP) techniques. SP determines implicit valuations by asking people to trade-off between a number of different choice situations. SP techniques are widely used throughout the transport industry for placing monetary values on factors such as journey time and ride quality. The research was successful in gaining statistically significant monetary values for Road Safety and Air Quality and respondents were able to understand the SP experiments and to trade logically between choice scenarios. However, the research identified that particular care is required when measuring and representing environmental attributes and attribute levels to respondents, as these impact on the valuations gained. Further research is also required to define the reasons for significant variation within the response data. The reasons for this variation need to be investigated further so that significant valuations can be obtained that relate to the whole population.

This thesis proposes five conceptual headings through which to perceive the city. They are: City as History, Spectacle, A Work of Art, Corporate Image, and Home. Each heading is a complete concept on one level and the part of a greater concept on another. A number of celebrity cities (e.g. London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, etc.) are considered at each of the headings in turn. A city is the spatial embodiment of memory and modernity. Memory and modernity are multi-facaded within a totality. Each of the five conceptions reflects one facade and their juxtaposition provides meanings to each other. A good city can embrace parts of the five conceptions; whereas an ideal city must achieve an equilibrium of them all. The second part of the thesis, The Phenomenology of A City, examines the urban experience and consciousness of citizens, through the gaze of four representational figures of the modern city (the shopper, flaneur, stranger, and transgressor). Finally, the theories were applied to an exceptional modern city, Hong Kong, in which the identity and image of the city is evaluated and explored. It is worth noting that this thesis, if not the first, will be one of the few to analyse the city of Hong Kong from an aesthetic and historical dimension. The modern city is too gigantic and erratic to grasp completely. This thesis, however, approaches it from these several historical and aesthetic viewpoints. It seeks to capture the urban experience of ordinary people with a poetic lens, and through which one glimpses what is it to experience (a very problematic word in this thesis) the modern city.

Community involvement is nowadays commonly recognised as an integral part of any successful environmental planning, development and regeneration process. Focusing on a selection of park restoration projects grant-aided by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in 1997 under the Urban Parks Programme (UPP), this research aimed primarily to investigate the involvement of local communities in the process of regenerating run-down historic urban parks. The study adopted a triangulation methodology which combined both quantitative and qualitative research approaches and employed multiple data-collecting techniques including a postal questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and on-site park user surveys. The results of the postal questionnaire survey reveal that park restoration partnerships between local authorities, private sector, voluntary organisations and local community-based groups can commonly be observed in many of the historic urban park restoration projects funded by the HLF under the UPP. Local authorities in general played the leading role in forming and running park restoration partnerships and they were the major contributors to the matched funding and the required technical support for the restoration projects. The involvement of friends groups and other local organisations in park restoration partnerships was relatively moderate, but the case studies of this research demonstrate that friends groups and other local organisations can have a more substantial influence on the overall development of the restoration project when the park restoration partnership is formally established. The study has found that local communities have been extensively involved in the restoration process of historic urban parks. The two most significant objectives of engaging local communities in regenerating run-down historic urban parks are to generate a sense of ownership of the restoration project and its outcome and to better reflect local needs. Local communities tend to be more involved at early stages of the restoration project than at later stages. The methods that have been commonly used to involve local communities are mainly for information giving and consultation. The seven in-depth case studies reveal that 'Friends of Parks' groups are in general the focus of community involvement in the UPP funded park restoration projects. 'Friends of Parks' groups can act as pressure groups, guardians and/or supporters of the park and to be the local community's voice. They can make considerable contributions to the regeneration of their local parks, mainly in the areas of publicity, park events and activities, fund raising, public consultation, project monitoring, involving school children, and the ongoing management of the restored park. The most important contributory factor to effective community involvement is a good relationship between the local authority and the 'Friends of Parks' groups, which can be achieved mainly by establishing friends groups' trust in the local authority's commitment to caring for urban parks and taking on board the friends groups' views and concerns. Project managers and other practitioners engaged in involving local communities in park restoration processes as well as executive members of 'Friends of Parks' groups are all required to have good communication skills in order to achieve effective community involvement.