Provincial borders and metropolitan theories are insufficient to explain the scale and dynamics of İstanbul’s contemporary urban development. The mega projects of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) such as the İzmit Bay Bridge, the Northern Projects, the Marmaray Project and the İstanbul-Ankara High Speed Train point to a scalar shift. Triggered by mega projects, these emerging spatio-temporal relations transcend İstanbul’s administrative borders. In the light of these developments, this study will use the term “region” to explain the emerging scale in and around İstanbul; and therefore will propose a new terminology and method to represent this new scale. The study will begin with an introduction to urban theories and concepts that explain contemporary “planetary urbanization” (Lefebvre, 2003; Brenner 2014) beyond fixed-monocentric models and constructed dichotomies such as urban-rural or built environment-nature. This theoretical framework will be followed by a discussion on the method and will then continue with a summary of the urban governance structure in Turkey and the urban planning history of the Marmara Region. Subsequently, the land-use-based analyses which enabled the researcher to demonstrate the transformation of the Marmara Region between 1990 and 2015 from different angles will be discussed. The dissertation will conclude with an overall evaluation of the findings.

The goal of this thesis is to establish if the dynamic model of ecological organization at a distance reflect the same influence or different influences than the ones which acted upon the areas in the vicinity of the city. In order to accomplish this, existing studies of Phipps, Baudry and Burel measuring the ecological organization of a rural landscape in two segments submitted to a low urban pressure (between 1 Km and 10 Km from the city) and high urban pressure (less than 1 Km to the city) will be used. The problem is seen from a landscape point of view, from the organization measured in time and from the variable effect of the urban pressure. With the results of this study, we should be able to complete the picture of the study of the dynamic of the ecological organization of a landscape in view of the distance to the urban center. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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The problem of urban sprawl challenges the management of built-up areas for some decades. Increased population growth following the Second World War, coupled with the growing preference for, and emphasis on, single-family dwellings, were seen to "justify" this type of urbanization. However, in addition to the environmental consequences of urban sprawl (including the destruction of valuable agricultural land), urban sprawl has also entailed costs in terms of urban infrastructure, as has been suggested in several studies. One noticeable gap in the literature, however, concerns school infrastructure. This research aims to fill that gap by analyzing the effects of urban sprawl on the supply of, and demand for, educational services at the primary and secondary school levels in the Montreal area, through a case study. Due to their relevance and direct link to urbanization, three variables (through ten indicators) have been selected to measure this phenomenon. The school demography, symbolizing the demand for educational services, was selected because of its essential role in justifying the supply of such services. Educational buildings (i.e., schools) and grounds represent the supply of educational services. These three measures, to which the school transportation has been joined, are explored in this study from the late 1970s to the 1990s to reveal the diverse degrees by which urban sprawl produces additional costs in the supply of educational services. It has been demonstrated that following the dispersion of the population in space, the demand for educational services in older sections of the city is negative, while it is positive in the more recently established suburban neighbourhoods. Consequently, the supply of educational services exceeds the demand in central localities but is deficient in the suburbs, a situation that requires a reduction in educational facilities in the center, and a significant increase in student-spaces at the periphery. The costs of immobilization respond to the characteristic pattern of urban sprawl, and are proportional to the distance from the city center. Situated at the junction of urban geography and the geography of services, the present study touches on an aspect of the management of space in the Montreal metropolitan region. The costs of urban sprawl in the network of educational services reflect the absence of consultation and collaboration between municipalities and school boards. Those responsible for infrastructure planning and urban planning are themselves at the mercy of the population. The individual short- and medium-term residential needs, often revolved around the availability of inexpensive land for development and adequate financing, are rarely confronted to the long-term collective costs of this type of urban development. The autonomy of municipalities and of school boards, the differences in their respective missions, and the lack of consistency in their own territories, contribute greatly to the absence of coordination and collaboration with respect to the planning of educational facilities. Such an absence, associated with the declining birth rates and, moreover related as well to the growing popularity of secondary residences, has encouraged urban development beyond existing urban borders, with a consequent increase in the costs of educational services.

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This thesis focuses upon the context of change: change in water demand relating to population fluctuations and climatic change affecting the supply and demand of the water resource. This ultimately leads to the understanding of the challenges encountered by Eastern Ontario communities in water management. To do so, it is necessary to study supply and demand relations on water and their impacts upon the changes mentioned above. A literary review has been conducted to identify sustainable water indicators. These indicators will be used to evaluate available information to rural communities with which they can make enlightened decisions regarding these changes. These indicators have also been presented to the decision makers through a questionnaire, allowing them to evaluate their usefulness. In doing so, the decision makers are involved in the identification of environmental, economical and social concerns that could affect their communities. These concerns are further analyzed and explained in making a statement of the current conditions of water management in the area. This will further help to identify challenges that decision makers will face in the future.

Quality of place (QOP) is essential for building a "competitive and livable city" and the competitiveness is determined by the opportunities that the city can provide. Therefore not only physical characteristics of the neighborhoods but also social structure and personal satisfaction about a place are significant in the assessment of QOP. This thesis discusses how to measure the performance of places from different perspectives. Measuring the QOP is a hard task since it involves both objective and subjective dimensions. Most of the research on QOP have focused on either subjective or objective measures and a limited number of efforts have been made in recent years to collect both types of indicators. Hence, the main objective of this research has been to offer a new definition for QOP where both dimensions are integrated and to introduce a new methodology where information technologies such as geographical information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) can be applied to understand the contribution of these two dimensions of QOP. The proposed methodological approach is tested for Montreal as a study case where social, physical and experiential community structural information are analyzed using different sources of data (census, survey, GIS based ancillary data and satellite images). Social structural information is analyzed using census data which help to understand the link between the socio-demographic/economic characteristics and QOP in census tract (CT) at city-wide scale. Then, physical structural information through accessibility to public services and urban land use is analyzed with the help of RS and GIS techniques. In the subjective dimension, survey data are used to explore the experiential community structural information that helps to understand the individual's own perceptions about the QOP where they live. Finally, both of the objective and subjective dimensions are integrated through multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) in a GIS environment. The results indicate that a place may be explained through some objective criteria; however, the situation may be different when the personal evaluations of people living in that area are considered. Thus, the results support that both dimensions are necessary to evaluate the complete picture of QOP. Key words. Quality of Place, Objective and Subjective Dimensions, Community Structures, Remote Sensing, Geographical Information Systems, Transformed Difference Vegetation Index, Spatial Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Multi-Criteria Evaluation, Montreal.

Rapidly rising cultural levels give the Public Library, as an institution, public services. a social significance comparable with most other Strongly linked on the one hand with vital educational institutions but providing also for the recreational needs of increasing millions of people on the other public library services are now claiming the attention not only of those closely concerned, such as professional librarians and city administrators, but also of a growing spectrum of social scientists, planners and urbanists. The importance of a widespread and efficient library system to a relatively advanced and progressive urban centre such as Cape Town therefore needs little emphasis.