Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-72). / In 2000, the Beijing Municipal Planning Commission drew up a conservation plan for the 25 historic areas in Beijing's Old City. The main principles for the conservation plan were as follows: 1) To preserve the traditional cityscape and hutongs, 2) To ensure the authenticity of the preserved heritage, 3) To implement preservation using a gradual and measured method, 4) To improve the infrastructure and living conditions of the local residents, and 5) To encourage public participation. The residential district of Nanchizi was one of the 25 designated historic areas. In 2001, the area became the pilot site for the implementation of the conservation plan. In June 2002, demolition crews arrived at Nanchizi ready to destroy the courtyard homes. The resulting transformation of Nanchizi reveals that the plan did not succeed in preserving the historic area. This thesis explains why this initial implementation of the historic conservation plan failed to achieve the principles of the plan and examines the causes of this disparity between the vision and the reality of conservation planning in Beijing. It argues that the cause of the disparity between vision and reality lies in the competing visions of those involved in the planning process and that certain visions are valued over others. This cause stems from the inability of planning institutions and processes to respond to the political and economic transitions of China in the past decade. The thesis concludes that in order to succeed in conservation, the function and process of planning must be reconsidered. In addition, the discourse on conservation should also be reexamined in order to ensure that other designated conservation districts of Beijing do not suffer the same fate as the Nanchizi historic area. / by Beatrice B. Chen. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Elizabeth Lauren Gotterer. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. / Discourses about the construction of identity, the politics of identity, and the role of design in controlling human behavior and expressing power have thus far been confined to separate realms of inquiry. This thesis will examine where these discourses intersect and how their intersection plays out in society as old conceptions of race and identity are challenged by demographic shifts and new immigrant populations. Festivals, as spatial expressions of identity that image city spaces, provide an important perspective on this topic. Philadelphia, as a former capital city that continues to struggle with race and identity in its politics, acts as a compelling backdrop for my case studies. The Mummers Parade and the Odunde Festival are two New Year's celebrations that mediate racial/political and ethnic/cultural identities for the city's white and black populations respectively. This thesis considers both festivals from their historical context and compares their current form in terms of spatial and non-spatial indicators (route, demographics, funding, and organizational structure). From this analytic framework emerges a picture of how political identities are constructed spatially, how the process of identity construction both challenges and reinforces the dominant political structure, and how the process can bridge political differences and maintain them. / by Annis Whitlow. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-177). / Command and control environmental regulation has been under attack from all sides for some time. In Wisconsin, the Department of Natural Resources is experimenting with an alternative form of environmental governance. This new program uses cooperative agreements to provide flexibility to firms in exchange for "superior environmental performance." The program attempts to change norms of adversarial and rule driven regulation, to norms of cooperative and flexible regulation. To maintain democratic accountability, firms that take part in the program are required to create a group of interested community participants. This thesis explores regulatory relationships within this program and under command and control through three case studies. These case studies reveal that flexibility can provide opportunity for greater environmental performance and that bottom up participation can provide a measure of democratic accountability. However, this democratic accountability was compromised by lack of access to expertise among participants, lack of clarity in roles, and difficulty handling conflict. The difficulties faced in this program highlight the need for the state to take a proactive role even when moving away from command and control. Nevertheless, these cases show potential for a shift towards cooperation in regulation through opening spaces for firms, regulators, and communities, to engage in deliberation. / by Matthew Amengual. / M.C.P.

Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 120-130). / Human reliance on fossil fuels has led to a wide range of adverse environmental and health effects. As our understanding of these impacts has grown, so has the search for other, more sustainable sources of energy. One such source is solar power, and the federal and state governments in the United States have created various policies and financial incentives to encourage adoption of solar energy technologies. While solar energy offers tremendous potential benefits, siting utility-scale ground-mounted photovoltaic arrays can give rise to strong public reaction. With this in mind, this thesis explores the controversy, or lack thereof, surrounding the siting of utility-scale solar energy facilities in New York by examining two case studies - the Skidmore College Denton Road solar array and the Cornell University Snyder Road solar array. While these two solar energy facilities share many commonalities, there is one key difference - the Skidmore College array created a much greater level of controversy than the Cornell University array. Analysis of this divergence indicates that choice of site is a crucial determinant of the extent of controversy. While local impacts are an important concern, this thesis demonstrates that the reasons for controversy go well beyond those impacts. Issues related to information, equity, and trust were other key sources of controversy. In addition to analyzing the sources of controversy, this thesis also offers some recommendations that may be helpful for entities involved in the development of solar power facilities. It is hoped that these recommendations will help to eliminate or mitigate future solar power siting controversies. / by Casey R. Stein. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Ann Claire Greiner. / M.C.P.

Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2017. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 71-75). / Until recently, prisons were considered an economic development strategy particularly in rural communities struggling with the loss of manufacturing jobs. However, many studies have shown that prisons often have weak linkages to the host community, and sometimes have negligible or even negative impacts on rural economies. A combination of factors including changing sentencing laws, inadequate conditions in older facilities, fiscal conservatism, and increasing reliance on community based alternatives to incarceration are now leading to prison closures all around the country. In this changing context, this thesis explores: (i) What are the real and perceived impacts of prison closures on local economies in small rural counties?; and (ii) Where communities are redeveloping old prisons to boost their economies, how are local needs, politics, and project constraints (related to design and finance) shaping the transformation of these sites? By focusing on two cases where former prisons are being reused for community and economic development, this thesis explores how rural communities might transition to new ways of employing people and generating wealth after a local prison closes. / by Insiyah Mohammad Bergeron. / M.C.P.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. Thesis. 1974. B.S. / Bibliography: leaves 108-109. / B.S.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-65). / This thesis explores potential employment opportunities in energy efficiency construction and aquaculture for Vietnamese American fisherfolk significantly impacted by the BP oil spill in Louisiana. First, the thesis explains the history of the Vietnamese American community in Louisiana and the affects of Hurricane Katrina as well as the BP oil spill on the community. This is done in order to build the case for the need to look for alternative employment for dislocated Vietnamese American fisherfolk. Second, it assesses the skills and job suitability for Vietnamese American dislocated fisherfolk. It then explores the potential growth of the energy efficiency construction and aquaculture industries in Louisiana. Finally, the thesis concludes with recommendations for how Vietnamese American fisherfolk can enter these industries and how Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation can further explore future employment opportunities for dislocated Vietnamese American fisherfolk. / by Mai T. Dang. / M.C.P.

Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 53-55). / Although we are now well into the twenty first century, the possibility of achieving equitable, universal access to water and sanitation is still out of reach for most cities. According to a progress report by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program, in 2015, 844 million people lacked even the most basic access to safe drinking water (WHO/UNICEF, 2017). The case for sanitation is even more dire, as about 2.3 billion people have no access to the most basic sanitation service (WHO/UNICEF, 2017). Moreover, an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five die each year as a result of water and sanitation related diseases. This harsh reality is consistently reflected in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where much like many other cities in the global south, water shutoffs are a norm and access to safe sanitation services is unfortunately minimal. Caught between the influences of the normative recognition of water and sanitation as a right and a national development agenda that sees Addis Ababa as the driver for economic progress, the city's utility is struggling to provide adequate access to its inhabitants. This thesis uses the Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority's recent, ambitious plan to transition Addis on to the country's first sewage grid as a sight for investigating how these influences play out on the ground and understand how residents are being serviced or excluded from accessing safe sanitation services. Drawing on multiple interviews, close readings of policy documents, and physical analysis of the distribution of services, I conclude that both normative and growth-centric approaches fail to reach their goals of achieving equitable, universal access to safe sanitation services for the city's residents. This is in large part because these approaches are not adequately responding to the realities of Addis Ababa, which is as much a city of informality and poverty as it is the capital of Africa's fastest growing economy. / by Fitsum Anley Gelaye. / M.C.P.