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The rehabilitation of urban environments by giving old buildings new functions is an old practice, but policies meant for encouraging rehabilitation trace their American origins back to the 1960s with the growing criticism of urban renewal plans and the rise of historic preservation values. In the U.S., historic rehabilitation has proven to be a way of revitalizing cities which have faced deindustrialization, disinvestment and shrinking tax revenues. Built heritage is especially vulnerable in these places because of the willingness of city governors to attract investment and development at any costs. This willingness of local authorities to let developers run amock in their cities might prove to be a bad strategy in the long run, even though it can bring capital back into the city fairly quick. In a climate of toughening regional and global competition over tourism and the location of business headquarters, the images and cultures of cities have gained an increasing importance. Careful and well planned redevelopment of the built environment has an crucial role to play in the re-imaging of industrial cities. Not including the new jobs and other direct economic benefits of rehabilitation, historic structures carry a large part of a city’s character and identity, ingredients desperately sought after when cities need to get an edge and show why they are worth visiting or relocating to. This paper has argued that successful rehabilitation not only makes use of the historic built environment, but also that it has the potential of renegotiating and redefining the history of a city (or at least parts of it). In this way rehabilitation can prove to have great public benefits in making new spaces available for public access and civic intercourse. City governors should not just look at quick economic benefits. A city where the urban fabric has been destroyed through profit-oriented and shortsighted development runs the risk of having gone into a dead end. A more prosperous future for the population, not just the developers, might instead be found in democratically planned and financially scaled down solutions in which the built environment is systematically reused. American developers and cities have proven to be successful in making rehabilitation financially successful for the property owner. Considerably less interest have been shown for the public benefits of these projects, often making them into isolated enclaves lacking legitimacy among the public and causing conflicts within the neighborhood. Developers are repeatedly accused of gentrification, displacement and for ignoring the public need for affordable housing. Despite the unclear public benefits these projects are often heavily subsidized on federal, state as well as city level. After having dealt with the growing general importance of cultural policies for cities, U.S. policies on historic rehabilitation are discussed and two large redevelopment projects in Baltimore and Durham presented. After that a Swedish case of inner city redevelopment through rehabilitation is presented, showing a contrast in both national policy and local practice. Swedish redevelopment has not been subsidized in the same generous manner as in many states of the U.S., and it has been more integrated into urban planning. In the Swedish case the city governors were not interested in preserving the built environment, but due to disinvestment new construction did not occur. In the 1970s, there was a consensus between leading politicians and local developers that preservation values would not be allowed to stand in the way of development. Until the early 1980s there was also a lack of local public support for preserving industrial buildings, as in many deindustrialized cities where industry has come to symbolize unemployment and stigmatization. The unique environment of the Industrial Landscape was finally preserved not through the actions of local government, but of architectural historians and curators representing government authority. Development of the historic district needed close monitoring at a national level since the developer had a very strong influence on local politics. In Swedish preservation policies local authorities have the possibility to landmark and protect environments much in the same way as in many U.S. cities with preservation commissions. If an urban plan seems to interfer with preservation goals, however, national authorities have the possibility of intervening in a similar way to that of state preservation offices in the U.S. In the 1990s development within the Industrial Landscape went into a more mature and democratically influenced phase in which goals of public access and attractiveness became increasingly important. The lesson from Sweden shows that redevelopment through rehabilitation can be affordable and that it does not need a whole lot of public subsidy. It also shows that the historical and aesthetic values need to be stressed in order for the development project to win the public support that is needed in a democratically lead community. The political leadership in this city, paralyzed by economic crisis, was heavily influnced by the developer, who was a large property owner in the city. But through monitoring, academic research and participation in public debate by preservation professionals, the table was turned and the preservation of the Industrial Landscape gained more and more support from the city in the 1980s. Instead of giving subsidies to the developer, the government located a national museum of labor to the district at a time in which economic support was badly needed. This showed that successful rehabilitation was possible here and that it would have considerable public benefits. Finally, it is also argued that the historical experiences of the national preservation movements have influenced the way rehabilitation is carried out. In Sweden, historic preservation has largely been a task for national government, whereas in the U.S. it has to a large extent been organized through national and local non-profit organizations buying up properties and lobbying for preservation causes. In this way historic preservation has been more integrated in Swedish urban politics, whereas in the U.S. preservationists have been identified as just one interest among others.

This thesis aims to enable improved urban sustainability in India and has therefore been conducted at WSP’s office in Delhi. The objective has been to chart the Indian characteristics as well as to identify difficulties regarding urban sustainability. The purpose and objective have been accomplished through the implementation of three research questions. The questions have been answered by a literary review of existing theories and a complementary document analysis. Furthermore, a case study of a new development in India with long-term sustainability in focus of the design has been conducted. For an Indian city to achieve a sustainable urban development, five pillars of sustainability have been identified; political, physical, ecological, social and economic. The ecological, social and economic are pillars from the common definition of sustainability, however they have different meaning and focus in the Indian context. The physical and political pillars are therefore characteristic for the Indian urban development. The physical pillar is added in the Indian context since short term planning and focus on profit is dominating the building industry. The demand for maintenance is because of that larger than the supply which results in a need for more emphasis on the physical built environment. The political pillar is applied because of the concerns for the value and quality of governance actions. It affects the four other pillars since the government should provide guidance, both with instructions and by executions, which is not always apparent. The Indian government has introduced several strategies in order to achieve sustainability in Indian cities. Rating tools for sustainability, such as Leed and Griha, together with the planning of spatial city forms, such as compact city form and mixed land use, which are the main procedures. Benefits in terms of lower interest rates on loans and a quicker clearance are given to developers who intend to build sustainably. Though the many theories and strategies seem ambitious, they are not always as effective when translated into practice. This is partly because of the lack of follow-up and partly the clients focus on quick profit. Thus, India is facing many challenges in order to reach a sustainable urban development. Together with urbanisation and growth in population, corruption is the main challenge since many other follows. These are lack of awareness in the field of sustainability, short term planning and the focus on profit as well as public safety and poverty. If India is serious about developing its cities sustainably, it is significant for the Indian government to take an inspiring role in using and promoting sustainability.

The world is urbanizing rapidly with more than half of the global population now living in cities. Improving urban environments for the well-being of the increasing number of urban citizens is becoming one of the most important challenges of the 21st century. Even though it is common that city planners have visions of a ’good urban milieu’, those visions are concerning visual aesthetics or practical matters. The qualitative perspective of sound, such as sonic diversity and acoustic ecology are neglected aspects in architectural design. Urban planners and politicians are therefore largely unaware of the importance of sounds for the intrinsic quality of a place. Whenever environmental acoustics is on the agenda, the topic is noise abatement or noise legislation – a quantitative attenuation of sounds. Some architects may involve acoustical aspects in their work but sound design or acoustic design has yet to develop to a distinct discipline and be incorporated in urban planning.My aim was to investigate to what extent the urban soundscape is likely to improve if modern architectural techniques merge with principles of acoustics. This is an important, yet unexplored, research area. My study explores and analyses the acoustical aspects in urban development and includes interviews with practitioners in the field of urban acoustics, situated in New York City. My conclusion is that to achieve a better understanding of the human living conditions in mega-cities, there is a need to include sonic components into the holistic sense of urban development.

Die vorliegende Dissertation verbindet Aspekte der Stadtentwicklungsplanung und der Handelsbetriebslehre. Ausgangspunkte sind einerseits die aktuelle Problemlage der innerstädtischen Einzelhandelsentwicklung in Klein- und Mittelstädten sowie der Umgang damit durch die Formulierung strategischer Ziele im Rahmen der Raumordnungsplanung. Demgegenüber steht andererseits die wirtschaftlich erfolgreiche Performance des Einzelhandelsformates Shoppingcenter, welches im Bewusstsein städtischer Qualitäten zunehmend an innerstädtischen Standorten umgesetzt wird. Aus diesem Spannungsfeld resultiert die zentrale Hypothese: Die Erkenntnisse aus der Untersuchung der Erfolgsfaktoren von Shoppingcentern ermöglichen die Identifikation bislang unerschlossener Potenziale für eine wirtschaftlich tragfähige und nachhaltige innerstädtische Einzelhandels- und Stadtentwicklung. Dementsprechend erfolgt über die Analyse der Erfolgsfaktoren von Shoppingcentern, wobei die vorrangig betriebswirtschaftlich orientierte Erfolgsfaktorenforschung durch die Perspektive der Stadtentwicklungsplanung ergänzt wird, die Ableitung eines übertragbaren Zielkatalogs innerstädtische Einzelhandelsentwicklung. Dabei findet ein inhaltlicher Transfer der Anforderungen an eine wirtschaftlich tragfähige Entwicklung eines Einzelhandelsformates aus Sicht der Shoppingcenter-Projektentwicklung und -Betreibung auf den städtischen Kontext unter Berücksichtigung der Ziele der Stadtentwicklungsplanung statt. Die Prüfung der Umsetzbarkeit des Zielkatalogs erfolgt durch die Entwicklung und Diskussion eines idealtypischen Innenstadtkonzeptes Einzelhandel für Torgau. Anhand dessen konnten zwei wesentliche Aspekte resp. Herausforderungen der Entwicklung der innerstädtischen Einzelhandelslage Torgau identifiziert werden: Eine stärkere Wahrnehmung und Nutzung der Qualität der städtebaulichen, architektonischen sowie funktionalen Bezüge einer historisch gewachsenen Innenstadt als zentrales Alleinstellungsmerkmal für die Einzelhandelsfunktion ist zukünftig notwendig. Die Uneinigkeit sowie die Nicht-Organisation der involvierten Akteure vor Ort, bilden den Ausgangspunkt für Problemlagen der innerstädtischen Einzelhandelsentwicklung und stellen ein zentrales Handlungserfordernis dar. Das mit der vorliegenden Arbeit entwickelte Vorgehen zeigt, dass in Bezug auf die Komplexität lokaler Problemlagen, wesentliche Handlungsschwerpunkte identifiziert und in ihrer Bedeutung herausgestellt werden konnten.

Market land prices ignore the non-market value of ecosystem goods and services; hence, too much agricultural land may be developed. Correct land valuation must include these non-market values. Values of ecosystem services provided by the Richland-Chambers constructed wetlands are assessed through meta-analysis to derive confidence intervals for the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for wetland services. Replacement costs are also used to estimate cost savings of creating wetlands to cleanse river water instead of constructing a conventional wastewater treatment facility. Benefit transfer is used to estimate WTP for non-market agricultural land amenities. Ecosystem services of runoff in the western and recharge in the eastern part of Comal County based on hydrological models are also calculated. Finally, seemingly unrelated regression is used to quantify the effects of growth on current agricultural land values in Texas. Using two different meta-analysis transfer functions, mean WTP for the Richland-Chambers wetlands are $843 and $999 / acre / year. Estimated 95% confidence interval is $95 to $7,435 / acre / year. This confidence interval clearly indicates the uncertainty associated with valuing ecosystem goods and services. The replacement cost of the Richland?Chambers constructed wetlands is estimated to be $1,688 / acre / year. Aggregate WTP to preserve farm and ranchland non-market amenities in Comal County is estimated to be $1,566 / acre. Using hydrologic models, the runoff is valued at $79 / acre, whereas, recharge value is $1,107 / acre. Development will cause a change in recharge, runoff, and pollution which will decrease societal welfare by $1,288 / acre. Seemingly unrelated regression results show that a percentage increase in population growth in the closest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is associated with increases in land values of approximately $2 / acre. A one-mile increase in distance from the nearest MSA decreased land values by $4 / acre in 1997, $6 / acre in 2002, and $8 / acre in 2007. The diversity of studies illustrates that a cookbook type of methodology is not appropriate for valuing ecosystem goods and services. On the other hand, development contributes positively to land values through encroachment on agricultural lands.

The main aim of the thesis is to analyse the recent socio-spatial patterns of Istanbul, in which squatter areas on publicly-owned land (gecekondu) and old historical centre of the city are subjected to regeneration projects, under the impact of making Istanbul a purified place for the significant social classes via exclusion of the others. The formulations of Henri Lefebvre for analysing the production of (social) space are used as the conceptual framework of the thesis. To reveal the case study, the recent urban regeneration projects in Istanbul, a wide range of qualitative data collection techniques and methodology, documentary analysis, in-depth interviews, participant observations, which will pave a way to understand the complex relations among social and spatial formations, are used. According to the analysis on the acceleration of urban regeneration projects in the city of Istanbul, the thesis argues two main points: Firstly, the specificity of urbanisation period in Istanbul after 2000 is characterised with the strong role of the central state, mainly MHA. Secondly, the people, who are living in the gecekondu areas and old historical centres in the inner city are not only evicted from their living spaces, they are also socially and spatially excluded from the city centres.

With the emergence of urban transformation concept in 1980s, the concept of eligibility has also started to be discussed as a new term in Turkey. However, the absence of a sustainable urban transformation law which defines the criteria of eligibility of stakeholders has undoubtedly brought about violations and disagreements between stakeholders. Especially the uncertified gecekondu possessors who are not determined as eligible stakeholders have been subjected to forced and arbitrary evictions. This study aims to clarify the problem of eligibility of uncertified gecekondu possessors in urban transformation and attempts to determine the criteria for the eligibility of this particular group. It argues that since the claims of uncertified gecekondu possessors like right to adequate housing, labor and possession have moral characters which do not depend upon legal acts, they can not be criteria of eligibility. The legal property ownership must be the criteria of eligibility in urban transformation practices in the law. On the other hand, this study urges that no matter living in a legal or illegal housing, the vulnerable families who lack of basic economic security and living in the project area must be determined as eligible stakeholders. In the first part of this master study, the problem of eligibility was discussed from theoretical perspective. In the second part, this problem was discussed in the case of Dikmen Valley 4th and 5th phases Urban Transformation Project. The knowledge obtained from the case can be useful for the local governments to develop sustainable policies on this particular problem.

This thesis investigates in deindustrialization process, its decline impacts and restructuring process in socio-spatial context. Both deindustrialization and restructuring processes are evaluated regarding a muti-layer conceptualization of the problem. Zonguldak Case is chosen to investigate in the deindustrialization process taken place in the mono-centric local economy dependent on coal mining, the decline impacts of this process on the whole urban set-up including labour households, the city, other economic activities and industrial, regional and urban restructuring process in response to these impacts. The study discusses diverse restructuring attempts concerning local dynamics and local characteristics of Zonguldak.

Turkey is one of the leading tourism countries of the world. Tourism contributes to not only national economy but also regional development. Turkey has adhered to several international conventions regarding economic, socio-cultural and environmental sustainability. Nonetheless, since the onset of the 1980s, Tourism Encouragement Law&rsquo / s main policies, along with the globalization and privatization, have developed mass tourism in Turkey, and led to continuous damage on the natural environment. Over the last thirty years, forest lands along the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts have been eradicated and over-exploited to a greater degree through the development of large-scale, inward-oriented and exclusive tourism investments, and second-home developments. This thesis investigates the extent to which forest lands in Turkey are allocated regarding &lsquo / sustainability&rsquo / measures. It first makes a literature review on the notions of &lsquo / sustainability&rsquo / , &lsquo / sustainable development&rsquo / , &lsquo / sustainable forest management&rsquo / and &lsquo / sustainable tourism planning&rsquo / , and examines institutional, stakeholder, policy and legal dimensions of tourism planning on forest lands in Canada and Australia, widely accepted with their advanced practices in the world to draw a theoretical framework and identify main components of &lsquo / sustainability&rsquo / . Second, it analyzes how far institutional, stakeholder, policy and legal structures in Turkey have accommodated the sustainability approach, while allocating forest lands to tourism. Then, it examines the recent development story of Belek Tourism Center (BTC) in Antalya by assessing &lsquo / economic&rsquo / , &lsquo / socio-cultural&rsquo / and &lsquo / environmental&rsquo / sustainability indicators. In the final part, the thesis underlines the major shortcomings and seeks to identify main policies for &lsquo / sustainable&rsquo / allocation and use of forests for tourism in Turkey.