Thesis (Honors)--University of South Florida, 2009. / Title from cover. "Semester completed: spring 2009." "This thesis is a continuation of my Engineering Capstone Design. ... The initial design was completed as a group (consisting of five people) under the fabricated engineering firm Lever Engineering, LLC and was completed as if it would be submitted to the County for actual approval"--Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. [2-3] of first group).

Thesis (M.S.)--California Polytechnic State University, 2009. / Title from PDF title page; viewed on July 1, 2009. "June 2009." "In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree [of] Master of City and Regional Planning in the College of Architecture." "Presented to the faculty of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo." Major professor: Adrienne Greve, Ph.D. Includes bibliographical references (p. 17-28).

Project (M.P.P.) - Simon Fraser University, 2007. / Theses (Master of Public Policy Program) / Simon Fraser University. Senior supervisor: Kennedy Stewart -- Master of Public Policy Program. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (MEngSc)--University of Melbourne, School of Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-123)

Modern society since the 1970s has been characterised by an ongoing information revolution which has been led by innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Technological breakthroughs have pushed social organisations to constantly adjust themselves to fit new possibilities and demands. But, in spatial planning, comparing to other fields, the influences of the ICT innovations are still limited due to the ‘mismatch’ between real demands and technology supply and ‘bottlenecks’ in implementations. This research is aimed at improving the technological support practice in spatial planning decision-making by, linking the technology supply with planning demand. This is based on both theoretical debate and practical experiences, to develop a new model for a successful Planning Support System (PSS), and to test and implement it in the practice of ‘sustainable urban regeneration’. In this research, new opportunities have been created from matching the innovations of Web 2.0 internet applications and geo-semantic web services with the standing demand on gathering and exchanging knowledge in spatial planning, which facilitate the shift of decision-making towards a more communicative and collaborative mode. To do this, a new PSS framework was proposed for bridging the ICT innovations and the planning world, focusing on the common interest in the positive combination of technology, knowledge and people. A prototype system was designed, developed and implemented with local authorities in Greater Manchester in a case study of sustainable transport planning. The experiences learnt show that: 1) the contradiction between the limited expectations of the planners and the complex technological facilities that the developers offer affected the motivation to take up innovations in the first place; 2) the wider context of planning decision-making, i.e. the changing ideology of public policy-making, affects the acceptance of ICT innovations in practice, 3) the organisational structure and politics within planning institutions can also limit the diffusion of innovations. Besides, the actors (i.e. initiator, developers and targeted users) in technology implementation are often not clearly defined, which causes uncertainties and misunderstandings in the process. Furthermore, there is a dilemma in that using ICT innovations to facilitate policy innovations also means unexpected changes in daily routine or organisational culture, which most governmental departments are not fully ready and willing to accept. Therefore, it is recommended that future development in PSS should: 1) actively embrace the new technologies and interfaces, 2) find suitable ‘use-cases’ which support knowledge exchange in the multi-level and multi-agent plan-making, 3) follow a task-based approach to produce a useful tool with clearly defined purposes, 4) identify the appropriate actors and partnerships for PSS development and implementation and 5) try to institutionalise PSS development and implementation within the planning authority, to minimise resistance caused by non-technical issues and organizational obstacles.

No description available.

Thesis (M.M.A.)--University of Washington, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 26-28). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.M.A.)--University of Washington, 2009. / Title from Web page (viewed on Feb. 3, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 26-28).

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is faced with the rapid rate of urban deterioration. With the unique and densely populated nature of the city, the road to urban revitalisation can be envisaged to be a long and painful one. The government is determined to expedite the urban renewal work by establishing of the Urban Renewal Authority in May 2001 to replace Land Development Corporation that was established in 1988 to tackle the issue. The new set up is to operate with more public accountability and transparency as demanded by the community at large. It is also commissioned with the task of completing 225 projects in the next 25 years involving an estimated cost of over A$75 billion. The government has also decided to make Hong Kong Special Administrative Region a truly sustainable city by incorporating both urban sustainability and quality in urban renewal. Thus, a re-thinking of the project management application to enhance urban renewal project implementation is necessary and is beneficial in terms of finance, public confidence and maintenance of the sustainable competitive advantage of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. This research is therefore justified. The research question formulated is:How can the project management body of knowledge and practice be applied to enable effective and efficient implementation of urban renewal projects in Hong Kong SAR?.Investigation of the extant literature in chapter 2 identified gaps in the body of knowledge and practice of applying professional project management principles and practices to urban renewal projects. A project management application model was formulated with five research issues that need to be resolved before the research question could be answered. These five research issues covered:• project organisational structure• team structure• attributes of team members• stakeholder management• communication and information technology enablersThe five research issues considered were:• Research Issue 1: What are the effects of projectised type organisational structure with integrated and multidisciplinary teams, corporate communication team, social services teams and informal project management community for each targeted district on urban renewal projects implementation?• Research Issue 2: What are the effects of a headquarters organisational structure with formal project management community, project auditing team, project support group and functional specialist advisory group on supporting the projectised organisational structure for each targeted district?• Research Issue 3: What are the effects of a flattened hierarchical structure with team members possessing sustainability knowledge and project managerial leaders being generalising specialists on the project team performance?• Research Issue 4: What are the effects of involving stakeholders at the outset of and throughout the projects with partnering relationship and formation of district advisory committee/community on urban renewal project implementation? • Research Issue 5: What are the effects of adopting information technology enablers by establishing computerised project management information system interlinked to Web site accessible to the public on communication to stakeholders?The case study research methodology was adopted to answer each of the research issues. In depth studies of Urban Renewal Authority with functional departments as embedded subunits were designed. Less in-depth case studies were also conducted for overseas cases in developed countries like Australia, United State of America, United Kingdom, Singapore, Denmark, Austria, Ireland and Spain for cross-case analysis. A total of 13 personal interviews with different levels of staff were conducted for seven embedded sub-units in the Urban Renewal Authority case. Information was obtained from ten overseas cases from their Web site and also via e-mail correspondence with the appropriate staff in the organisations.The data obtained were then analysed to show the patterns of the results for each of the five research issues developed in the literature review and also for the new findings that were not planned from the literature review. The findings were then compared with the extant literature to identify the contributions that this research makes to understanding how the project management body of knowledge and practice can be applied to enable effective and efficient implementation of urban renewal projects in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The application model for effective and efficient implementation of urban renewal projects modified to take into account the resolution of the research issues and the new findings is subsequently concluded.This research has contributed to both the knowledge of project management and urban renewal. The project management body of knowledge may need to put more emphasis on aspects of sustainability, multi-disciplinary and integrated approach, team hierarchical structure, team member attributes, stakeholder involvement and information technology enablers. Government support in both policy and implementation levels are of paramount importance in urban renewal work and needs more attention and focus. This research also provides some suggestions on the practice and policy especially on change management for introducing the application model in the existing organisation and the need of new legislation to supplement the existing one, on which the operation of Urban Renewal Authority is based.Finally, suggestions for further research are presented. These include quantitative research to test the application model built, generalisation of the research to other places with different operating environments for both governmental and non-governmental organisations, strategy for urban renewal, attributes of top management for managing urban renewal organisation, and cultural risk in managing urban renewal projects.

This thesis develops and applies a number of methods for systems analysis and assessment within the field of sustainable urban water. These focus on the evaluation of distributed strategies. In line with arguments made within the thesis, the methods developed assess urban water on a whole-system basis, with the system defined in terms of the services provided. Further, the thesis argues for sustainable urban water planning to take a pluralist stance; both in the conception of sustainable urban water and the strategies considered. The challenges of sustainability and sustainable development are fundamentally problems of complex systems. Planning and assessment of sustainable urban water therefore require a systems-approach. Systems-thinking is not, however, a unified body of knowledge and this thesis develops a unique perspective on systems-thinking which is used to critically review the fields of sustainable urban water and its assessment. Within these reviews, the thesis develops a framework for understanding sustainable urban water in terms of a number of varied approaches, and describes a feasible theoretical basis for assessing sustainable urban water. Many, so called, sustainable strategies are small-scale and distributed in nature. Distributed strategies include decentralised systems, embedded technologies, and local measures for conservation. Traditional systems analysis methods have failed to account for distributed strategies. To adequately include distributed strategies, this thesis argues that assessment methods will need to be based on whole-system modelling, utilise end-use models of service provision, and include - in the form of a demand forecast - a time dimension in relation to service provision. This thesis proposes new methods for microbial risk assessment on a whole-system basis and Least cost planning for (urban water) Sustainable Scenarios (LeSS). A novel evaluation framework for least cost planning for water supply, which provides an equivalent comparison of demand- and supply-side options, is also developed. These methods are illustrated through case studies. These case studies illustrate the potential of distributed strategies. When assessed on an equivalent basis, in various examples, distributed strategies are shown to be particularly cost effective. Decentralised wastewater reuse systems are also shown to impose a theoretically lower level of pathogen risk on the community than equivalent centralised reuse schemes. Despite the advances in assessment methodologies made within the thesis, further development of practical tools for assessing and planning sustainable urban water remains an urgent goal.