The issue of indiscriminate urban expansion is not uncommon in Africa. It has created haphazard, unplanned, and unapproved development that negatively affected urban planning for cities in the Niger Delta Region in Nigeria. Using Stone's urban regime theory, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore from the perspective of developers, associations, and government agencies (referred to as stakeholders), the roots causes of indiscriminate urban development and their activities in the process in the Niger Delta Region. Data were collected through semi structured telephone interviews with 10 participants who had at least 5 years experience working in public and private organizations in the urban setting. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's procedure for thematic analysis. Findings included six themes of limited knowledge, passive role, recognition of experiencing the problem, contributing to the problem, weakness of regulatory framework, and lack of synergy in the process. The principal theme was limited knowledge of the roles and obligations of participants which impede participation in the planning process. The recommendations, if implemented, may result in positive changes and bring many benefits to city residents such as better housing and traffic systems, adequate sanitation and improved access to public services. To do so, government agencies in the urban sector should engage the stakeholders to create synergy. Following these recommendations may help resolve the issue of indiscriminate urban expansion, promote effective planning and management, and ensure good governance and sustainable development in the urban setting.

Transformation of informal housing settlements by urban renewal and redevelopment has become one of the major tasks of Turkish urban policy in the last decades. Nevertheless, in some cases urban redevelopment could not be facilitated due to low level of investments / and moreover most of the transformed settlements are still problematic with added difficulties brought out by urban transformation itself such as lower levels of physical quality, gentrification or dislocation. Understanding the sources of these implications and incompetence would be an important step for developing more successful policy and planning tools. To serve this aim, hypothesizing that there would be available regulatory tools including planning besides policy options relying on finance for local and central authorities and planning institutions on the basis of their political and regulative power and resources to overcome most of these bottlenecks / I have carried out both a theoretical and an empirical research to discuss the relevancy of this hypothesis. First, I have developed an institutional model of urban transformation to unravel the constituent shaping factors and actors of the process. Secondly, I have implemented this model for the analyses of urban transformation in informal settlements in Turkey with a case study in Sentepe and carried out surveys with households and interviews with developers to focus more on household and developer perspectives in terms of their aims and the implications they have an impact upon and are subjected to. Thus, this thesis includes an institutional analysis of urban transformation in informal settlements of Turkey, outlines the major problems of implications, discusses the links between factors, actors, events and their implications and accordingly searches for clues of efficient policies and better practices in urban transformation with a case study in Sentepe Neighbourhood. The findings of the empirical study revealed that first and foremost, the problem of disinvestment and very low levels of transformation in the area have been solved dramatically by a new &#039 / project&#039 / by the local authority in 2005, after almost twenty years passed since the first redevelopment plans were prepared. Moreover, the results indicate that the Sentepe Transformation Project could also managed to avoid the well-known unintended or undesirable social outcomes of a typical redevelopment like dislocation of residents or social integration of initial and new residents. These findings of the research suggest that local authorities and planning institutions could avoid some but not all of the bottlenecks and drawbacks of market mechanism in urban redevelopment even by making minor changes in the institutional environment such as providing information flow, easing the procedures for investors and developers, changing subdivisions and planning additional green areas for increasing the attractiveness of investments by builders in that area, and adoption of more participative approaches for developers and households. On the other hand, if the complementary housing and non-housing policies for redevelopment / such as affordable housing, employment or rent assistance are lacking, some of the outlined problems remain hard to solve. For local authorities and planners, these findings suggest the importance of accommodating policies, which are more responsive to the locality, to the needs and perceptions of local residents, local developers and local economy as well as of considering vulnerable sections of the society. For central authorities, on the other hand, the findings underline the cruciality of upper scale policies both directly and indirectly related to housing such as affordable housing and employment in the overall success of any local urban redevelopment practice. Once we have the institutional model to imply on various urban renewal processes, it would be helpful to carry out comparative studies for future research to better understand and evaluate various policy tools.

European cities are becoming increasingly multicultural and diverse in terms of lifestyles and socioeconomic conditions. However, in planning for sustainable urban development, implications of this increased diversity and possibly conflicting perspectives are seldom considered. The aim of this thesis is to explore dimensions of justice and politics in sustainable urban development by studying inclusionary/exclusionary effects of discursive power of official strategies for eco-friendly living on the one hand and everyday lifestyles on the other, in ethnically and socially diverse areas. Two case studies have been conducted, one in a city district of Stockholm, Sweden, and one in an area of Sheffield, England. The empirical material consists of interviews with residents, interviews with planners and officials and an analysis of strategic planning documents. The case study in Stockholm illustrated the prevalence of a dominant discourse among residents in which Swedishness is connected with environmental responsibility in the form of tidiness, recycling and familiarity with nature. In Sheffield there are more competing and parallel environmental discourses. The mainstream British environmental discourse and sustainability strategies are being criticised from Muslim as well as green radical perspectives. The mainstream discourse is criticised for being tokenistic in its focus on gardening, tidiness, recycling and eco-consumption, and hence ignoring deeper unsustainable societal structures. This can be interpreted as a postpolitical condition, in which there is a consensus around “what needs to be done,” such as more recycling, but in which difficult societal problems and conflicting perspectives on these are not highlighted. In the thesis it is argued that the strategies for urban sustainability are underpinned by Swedish/British middle-class norms, entailing processes of (self-)disciplining and normalisation of the Other into well-behaving citizens. It is argued that an appreciation of the multiple and others’ ways of saving natural resources would make the sustainability strategies more attuned to social and cultural diversity as well as more environmentally progressive. Finally, the importance of asserting the political in sustainability strategies is stressed, highlighting the organisation of society and possible alternative socioenvironmental futures. / QC 20100421

In den letzten 20 Jahren sind Evaluationen Schritt für Schritt zu einem festen und gleichzeitig kontrovers diskutierten Bestandteil politischer Förderung geworden. Auf der Basis langjähriger Beobachtungen der Evaluationspraxis des Förderprogramms „Soziale Stadt“ zeigt dieses Buch zunächst, dass Evaluationstätigkeiten in Ministerien, Kommunalverwaltungen und Planungsbüros mit ganz unterschiedlichen Erwartungen, Herausforderungen, Widersprüchen und Irritationen verknüpft werden. Evaluationen werden dabei sowohl als Hoffnungsträger, als auch als Schreckgespenst gesehen. Der Autor nimmt diese Beobachtungen zum Anlass, den Umgang mit Evaluationen in politischen Organisationen kritisch zu hinterfragen und systematisch zu erklären. Reduziert auf die Frage „Wozu Evaluation?“ wird auf der Basis eines systemtheoretischen Zugangs erklärt, welche unterschiedlichen Funktionen Evaluationen in Organisationen erfüllen können. Vertiefend wird dabei auf organisationales Lernen, auf politische Steuerungslogik und auf die Notwendigkeit von Symbolisierungen eingegangen. / The neighborhood development program “Social City” aims to discontinue the downward tendency of so-called disadvantaged neighborhoods by funding numerous projects. In the course of the program implementation, the method of evaluation – as a target-performance analysis – becomes more and more relevant. But whether something can be called a successful neighborhood management or a successful measure of integration strongly depends on its context and the point of view. For this reason evaluation research says that the effects of programs are usually only indicated unsatisfactorily. These observations lead to the research aim, to explain the function of evaluations for the constitution of development programs beyond usual arguments of effectiveness and efficiency. Using a system theoretical approach Wilhelm analyzed the explicit and implicit norms and observation schemes of a successful program implementation. The following theses on the role of evaluations in program implementations can be derived: a) Evaluations lay down the change in the distinctions of political intervention and facilitate communication about success,b) Evaluations manifest the differentiation between underprivileged and privileged neighborhoods in the program and help to legitimate it, c) evaluations actualize the funding programs’ ability to absorb insecurity and finally d) evaluations take the “illusion of control” inherent to every political strategy of intervention as a basis and thus contribute to its manifestation.

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att analysera hur begreppet social hållbar stadsutveckling fylls med innehåll inom en lokal stadsplaneringskontext. I de södra delarna av Norrköping arbetar nu anställda vid kommunens stadsplaneringskontor med att skapa en ny stadsdel, som givits namnet Kneippen syd. Ambitionen är att skapa en socialt hållbar stadsdel. Empirisk data är hämtad genom sex kvalitativa intervjuer, observationer vid platsen för Kneippen syd, och efter deltagande vid fyra seminarier med stadsutveckling som övergripande tema. Resultaten från studien visar att återkommande teman vad gäller socialt hållbar stadsutveckling utgjordes av visionen om en blandad stad med stärkta samband inom staden. De bakomliggande motiven till dessa teman grundar sig i förståelsen av staden som segregerad. Modernistisk stadsplanering bestående av rumsligt separerade stadsdelar framställs som en orsak till varför staden är segregerad. I planerna för Kneippen syd betonas motsatsen till modernistisk stadsplanering som lösningen på problemet med den segregerade staden då blandning beträffande boendeformer, service och fritidsaktiviteter betonas. Skapandet av denna nya stadsdel framstod i hög utsträckning som grundad på definitioner och konstruerade bilder av hur staden bör vara. Detta föranleder ett behov av att reflektera över frågan varför specifika definitioner och bilder av staden väljs framför andra och vilka bilder som väljs bort i denna process. / The purpose of this study is to analyze how the term socially sustainable development is conceptualized within a local city planning context. In the southern parts of Norrköping employees within the municipality’s city planning office are working on the creation of a new neighborhood, given the name Kneippen syd. The aim is to create a socially sustainable neighborhood. The empirical data for this study is collected through six qualitative interviews, observations at the planned location for Kneippen syd and after attendance at four seminars with urban development as the main themes. The results of this study show that the reoccurring themes of socially sustainable development are consisting of visions of an urban mixture and improved connections within the city. The motives behind the themes have its foundation in the understanding of the city as segregated. Modernistic city planning consisting of spatially separated neighborhoods are understood as part of the cause to why segregation within the city is existing. In the plans of Kneippen syd the opposite characteristics of modernistic urban planning are found as the solution to the problems with the segregated city, were mixture in housing, services and recreation opportunities are emphasized. To a large extent the creation of this new urban area are based on definitions and constructed images of how the city should. This raises the need to reflect upon the question why certain definitions and images are chosen instead of others and what images of the city that are neglected in this process.

This thesis analyzes the inherent informal political relations embedded in urban planning process in the city of Ankara between 1985 and 2005. It has been argued that, urban planning process is -by nature- a political process and micro level political interactions in urban political sphere can be observed by looking at it. The urban planning process, as a political process interacts with existing political mobilization mechanisms and their spatial reflections. Such an interaction may cause emergence of informal political networks interested in derivation of urban land rent. The emergence, sustenance and persistence of these networks are related with the opportunities and legitimization potential of urban planning process. For the verification of hypothesis of the research the city of Ankara was taken as the subject of case study. A methodology consisting of a two phase research is devised to analyze the nature and the dynamics of these networks In the first phase a conventional statistical analysis the research universe consisting of all the all urban development plans and modifications realized in Ankara between 1985 and 2005 was realized. Then, in the second phase based on the patterns explored in the research universe, a specific example of urban planning process was chosen, which represents the patterns of the research universe. This example, &Ccedil / ayyolu 907 Parcel, then subjected to social network analysis. The results of the research has shown that, when the structure of the local political structure changes altogether as a result of for example local elections, the structure of existing informal political networks and the way they exploit urban land rent changes. In these periods the number of urban development plans and urban development plan modifications increase, while the size of the area covered by these plans tends to decrease and mostly confined to prospective areas in central business district and residential areas. Yet, by the time passes, new and diverse political relations are established congruent with the existing political mobilization mechanisms. This time, although the number of plans decreases, the size of the area covered by plans increase and mostly, vacant land in the fringe of the urban macro form become the target of these networks. Although these networks involve a hierarchy in it, extensive brokerage and patron client relations sustain them.

Urban transformation initiatives are interventions that aim to manage urban change. Evolving from slum clearance and renewal, these initiatives took different forms throughout the century, in accordance with their social, economic and spatial contexts. The dominant urban context of the late 20th and early 21st century being deindustrialization and decentralization, urban redevelopment and regeneration initiatives became the highlights of urban policy. Alongside the ever-transforming residential neighborhoods and city centers, deindustrialization brought about change in some other parts of the city that had incredible value: Docklands. These areas were slowly being abandoned in this period / creating serious socio-economic and spatial problems while also creating unique opportunities for cities in their adaptation to the postindustrial economy. The fall of production as the basis of urban economies was followed by the rise of consumption, which cherished these vast and publicly owned spaces abandoned by production related uses. Turkish cities are, and have been, transforming with a pace which policy intervention can barely catch up with. Turkish docklands are under real estate investment pressure in a similar way to the vacant docklands of postindustrial cities around the world, but with one significant difference. Dockland transformation has not been the condition, but is the desired situation in our port cities / HaydarpaSa port constituting one of the best examples. While still fully functional, this important port and its surroundings, including the HaydarpaSa train station, has been subject to transformation proposals throughout the last decade. Following a number of unsuccessful initiatives, the latest proposal for the area has been HaydarpaSa World Trade Center and Cruiser Project. This thesis aims to understand the actual forces behind transformation of a dockland area in Turkey, and to determine if the proposals have been addressing these forces and factors. The study involves examination of the conditions of urban development in the postindustrial era and some cases of dockland transformation schemes launched in this period. The aim is to compare these cases and their backgrounds to the context of the HaydarpaSa area, in order to determine the relevance of the utilized policy models to transform this extremely valuable part of the Bosphorus.

This thesis is the study of the 19th century arcades in Beyoglu. The aim is to explore the interrelation between the arcades of Beyoglu and their surrounding urban structure in both of their formation and transformation processes, and to find out the possible contributions of arcades to the transformation and recentralization process of &amp / #272 / stanbul. The individual stories of the arcades as well as the socio-economic and political conditions are studied to find out the formation and transformation processes. Therefore the study is constructed by historical and spatial analysis. The history of arcades gives important clues about the development and transformation processes of the cities. Apart from the changes in surrounding urban structure and functioning, individual attempts in existing socio-economic environment determines the transformation. Therefore, changes in ownership along with changes in building have been taken as the basis for the study. At the end of the study, possible contributions of arcades to the urban space, derived from the tendencies and spatial opportunities were discussed and the role of arcade in redeveloping the central areas was pointed out. And this thesis showed that arcades may be the alternative to the peripheral shopping centers with their spatial possibilities and social facilities.

Public space has been an important social and political space throughout the history. Although there are various definitions of the term public space in the literature, it can be defined as a place of interaction and social contact among different groups and individuals. Besides, the meaning, form and function of public spaces differ due to different socio-cultural structures of societies. The form of a public space is an essential urban design issue. Moreover, the meaning and function of a space have been also considered as the urban spatial form through the urban design processes. Since the period when Ankara has been conceived and designed as a spatial project of the Turkish Republic in 1924, Hacibayram Square has been transformed within the historical meaning, urban function and spatial form. Through changing contradictions and actors, these transformations have been experienced. Hacibayram Square with its meaning, function and form in the 1930s shows differences from Hacibayram Square in the first map of Ankara (1839), which is drawn by Von Vincke. However, although the meaning, function and form of the Square have been transformed with the effects of every urban project, the political character of the square transformed but protected itself. Through this study, it is aimed to analyze how the historical meaning, urban function and spatial form of Hacibayram Square have been transformed within a historical perspective.

Urbanisation and suburban housing development are the foci subjects of this thesis. The process of urbanisation may differ from one country to another in terms of socio-economic and political structures, environmental characteristics and also local features. In this context, housing areas at the urban fringe of Ankara were found to have been developed highly compatible with urban land use theories / but different from the process experienced in developed countries. In this thesis, a different dimension of suburbanisation has been discussed with regards to middle and lower-middle income groups&rsquo / suburban movement. The reasons why lower-middle and lower income residents prefer to live at the urban fringe have been found out. Suburban developments have various opportunities for the households such as larger housing unit due to cheap and available land, better urban services, quiet and clean environment and privacy. However, households living in urban fringe who are relatively from middle and lower-middle income are subject to high transportation cost. It is expected that they make a trade off between lower housing units and greater commuting distances and also many opportunities of living in such a suburb. With regard to these, the process of suburbanisation of middle and lower-middle income groups in Ankara within the boundaries of Sincan and Etimesgut Quarters in terms of their social characters and the features of using their urban space and house is discussed according to plan decisions, house builder and households&rsquo / characteristics, urban development pattern of Turkey and Ankara and then Etimesgut and Sincan, considering the theoretical basis and historical process.