Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of History, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 4038. Adviser: John Bodnar. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 5, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-11, Section: A, page: 4821. Adviser: Bruce Hannon. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-69) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 2011. Adviser: Douglas M. Johnston. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-99) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4433. Adviser: Andrew M. Isserman. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 398-413) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, 2005. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-02, Section: A, page: 0755. Adviser: Elinor Ostrom. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 18, 2006).

This thesis examines the possibility of applying the concept of interest to public urban land use system planning, although it is not intended that the idea should be limited to urban planning. The concept is considered in detail, as is the question of who can have interests. The conclusion on that is that individuals and the public are the only true categories of interest holders, although interest groups need to be recognised for practical reasons. Corporations and governments cannot be true interest holders. The application of the concept was assessed in relation to the subject-matter of urban land use planning, and a typical land use planning process. The possibility of applying it to a hypothetical system of planning using the pragmatic method was also considered. The final part looked at the ‘institutions’ of planning, that is, law, politics, professional planning, administration, and administrative tribunals, to see how they would likely relate to a planning system based on the use of the concept of interest. The conclusion was that there would be no insurmountable difficulties even If not all of these institutions would readily embrace the concept. The idea was found to be plausible in so far as a comprehensive theory of interest-based urban land use planning was able to be worked out. By considering practical issues throughout, a strong presumption was raised that it would be feasible, although testing and further development of the idea would be necessary. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed method were reviewed. The expected benefits were ensuring that public urban land use system planning was humanistic, and providing a concept, or theme, around which a comprehensive theory of such planning could be constructed. Likely areas of difficulty were misunderstanding due to the lack of agreement on the meaning of the concept, although the meaning that should be adopted for the proposed purpose was spelt out. Secondly, a conservative attitude towards the use of concepts other than interest in planning and related disciplines could cause resistance to the adoption of the proposed method. It was shown how the idea is largely novel, but that recently there has been increasing use of the concept of interest in the land use planning literature. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Larry L. Lawhon / This report addresses the questions of whether the Birch Street Development in Brea, CA is a successful example of Smart Growth, and whether it is something that can be replicated in other cities. It is important to find the answers to both of these questions because Smart Growth may hold the key to solving the problem of sprawl, and the Birch Street Development could potentially serve as a Smart Growth implementation guide for cities everywhere.

Providing secure and reliable water supply service to major urban areas has become a considerable challenge in recent years on a global basis. Rapid population growth, urbanization and development needs put enormous pressure on water resource managers to satisfy the ever-growing demand. Climate change, in addition to the inherent variability in hydrological cycles, adds another layer of deep uncertainty to forecast surface water availability. Many major cities have observed declining reservoir storages during unprecedented droughts. The once-reliable reservoir storage systems can no longer serve its purpose. During extended period of water shortages, urban residents and businesses suffered from mandatory water restrictions, causing large economic and social welfare losses. Facing these challenges, water utilities and governments make large investments in supply augmentation infrastructure, which have long-term consequences that can shape development for decades. However, the increasing complexity of uncertainty suggests that the ability to predict the future is limited; hence, there is a need to shift from the conventional “predict-then-act” planning paradigm. This thesis presents an alternative framework to urban water investment planning, using a portfolio approach. A generalized risk-based framework for urban water supply-demand planning is proposed, and it is applied to Melbourne, Australia, to demonstrate its utility and usefulness. First of all, water shortage risk is clearly defined in two terms–frequency and severity of water shortages–of a defined planning horizon. Supply-side uncertainty is quantified based on probability distributions of precipitation and runoff to reservoirs. Demand-side uncertainty is modeled by scenarios with different combinations of population growth rate and per capita water usage. Next, the thesis presents an investment decision-making tool to identify cost-effective supply-demand portfolios that minimize water shortage severity while achieving a target level of reliable service. In addition to find the optimal portfolio composition, the model presents sequences of investments, indicating timing of implementation of each chosen measure. Using mixed integer programming, the decision-making tool yields Pareto efficient frontiers for different demand scenarios. The Pareto frontier exhibits trade-offs between cost of a water supply-demand strategy and water shortage risks facing a society in the long run. The trade-offs provide analytical insights on risk attitude towards water supply services, namely (i) what is the acceptable level of water shortage risk for a society, and (ii) how much are customers willing to pay to avoid such a risk. The results indicate that a portfolio which diversity risk of individual supply augmentation and conservation measures is robust when confronting a wide range of plausible climate and demand growth scenarios. Finally, recognizing important roles played by society and government in water-related investment decision-making process, the thesis discusses institutional barriers in adopting and implementing the proposed risk-based framework in practice. This thesis presents an alternative framework to quantitatively integrate risk in urban water resources management. Under this framework, the portfolio approach is an analytical tool for decision-makers to prioritize investments in supply augmentation infrastructure and implementation of demand management programs. It is the hope of the author that this work provides new insights and necessary tools to water sector professionals in urban water investment planning. The use of risk-based framework and portfolio approach is not limited to any specific city and could find many applications in urban areas where water scarcity and climate risk are pressing issues. / Engineering and Applied Sciences - Engineering Sciences

If capitalist cities are dense, hierarchical, and exploitative, how might socialist space be differently organized to maximize productivity, equitability, and collectivity? That question—central to early Soviet planning specialists—is the basis of this dissertation, which investigates the origins and evolution of the socialist spatial project from land nationalization to the end of the first Five-Year Plan (1917-1932). This dissertation asserts that socialist urban practices and forms emerged not by ideological edict from above, but through on-the-ground experimentation by practitioners in collaboration with local administrators—by praxis, by doing. Existing scholarship on early Soviet architecture and planning relies on paper projects of the Moscow avant-garde—radical, exciting, and yet largely unbuilt. This dissertation, based on new empirical research, uncovers the untold origins of socialist urban practice through the brick and mortar, steel and concrete projects that defined Soviet urban praxis in the 1920s and 30s. Through interweaved stories of three so-called “socialist settlements” in Baku, (Azerbaijan), Magnitogorsk (Russia), and Kharkiv (Ukraine) this study explores how Soviet physical planners and their clients addressed unprecedented socioeconomic requirements. Provisions like affordable housing near the workplace, robust municipal transportation and evenly distributed social services emerged from these experiments to affect far-flung sites in the Soviet sphere for decades to follow. Material gathered from now accessible archives—including architectural briefs, bureaucratic memos, drawings and photographs—finally permits deep inquiry into these significant years and projects. It draws the Soviet case into dialogue with scholarship on industry, urbanization, and social modernization in Europe and the United States, and highlights the contributions of Soviet designers to devise viable alternatives to the capitalist city. / Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning

Who decides which neighborhoods receive affordable housing, community gardens, or job centers? How do these organizations and agencies get a seat at the decision-making table? And what can urban redevelopment politics tell us about larger links between governance and inequality in American cities? This dissertation, based on four years of ethnographic fieldwork in Boston, addresses these questions and significantly advances our understanding of urban governance and neighborhood inequality. First, I argue that influence over community development plans depends on organizational legitimacy, not unequal access to resources. Second, I illustrate a consequential realignment of political representation, showing how private community-based organizations (CBOs)—not elected politicians—represent poor neighborhoods in community development decision-making. Finally, I reveal how subtle cultural processes—not overt elite domination—undermine resident power in public participatory processes. By focusing on the day-to-day grind of governance, this dissertation reveals overlooked actors and new political processes. It is a unique urban ethnography that takes readers off of the street corner and into the conference rooms of government agencies and private development organizations—a move forcing social scientists to rethink dynamics of power, political representation, and inequality in poor neighborhoods. / Sociology