The City of New Orleans (CNO) Office of Community Development approved funding to rehabilitate 81 properties (73 of which were actually used in the project) that were moved from the site of the VA/LSU Medical complex to scattered sites city-wide. These homes, which were located in a proposed historic district, were chosen to be part of a blight remediation initiative monitored by the CNO Office of Performance and Accountability “BlightSTAT” meeting. This research examines the impact of this U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sponsored affordable housing program on the New Orleans blight remediation plan. The case study on the properties moved from the site of the VA/LSU Medical complex provides a lens to examine the progress of the CNO Blight policy and analyze various pitfalls and/or successes. Although the affordable housing plan is in progress as of March, 2017, a total of 39 out of 81 properties have been renovated and 29 of those are now occupied. Focusing on the intersection of affordable housing development, historic preservation and blight remediation in this project creates a model for organizations looking to influence public policy through community development. This study examines if and how an integrated planning process, (using the intersection of affordable housing, blight remediation and historic preservation) reshapes public policy and economic development. The study further looks at the CNO BlightSTAT program and how public administration of city resources post Hurricane Katrina has contributed to economic development and neighborhood stabilization in New Orleans.

Increasing environmental and social pressure caused by human activity requires action toward a sustainable society. As our population grows and the proportion living in urban areas increases, cities are in a unique position to affect change. This has led to Circular Economy (CE) gaining momentum in municipalities as a tool for their city. Despite this momentum, there is lack of clarity about what CE is, how it can be most effectively implemented, and its relationship to strategic sustainable development (SSD). This research synthesized definitions of CE used in the field and investigated 21 cities worldwide to see how their municipalities have implemented CE practices. Using the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD), the implemented actions were critically examined for their strategic contribution toward a sustainable society. The findings suggest that CE is defined broadly, and interpreted differently by different users. In some cases, this presents challenges for its strategic use. The CE actions examined are concluded to be within the boundaries of a sustainable society, as defined by the FSSD. Their strategic approach is determined to be largely positive, with some exceptions. Depending on its application, CE is concluded to be a useful, albeit insufficient, tool for municipalities working toward SSD.

Cette thèse est consacrée à l’évolution de la notion de jardin collectif et de leur place dans la ville. Elle s’appuie tout d’abord sur une mise en perspective historico-géographique de la notion de jardin dans le bassin méditerranéen, entre orient et occident, de l’antiquité à nos jours. La notion de jardin a pris, en effet, au cours du temps des acceptions très différentes, jardins nourriciers ou jardins d’agréments, mais aussi jardins privés, jardins publics et jardins collectifs. Nous resserrons ensuite notre approche sur les jardins collectifs, jardins ouvriers, jardins familiaux et aujourd’hui jardins partagés. Pour cela nous focalisons notre recherche sur l’agglomération lyonnaise de la fin du 19ème siècle à nos jours. Cette analyse historico-géographique s’appuie à la fois sur un travail d’archives et sur une cartographie des jardins. Pour associer, profondeur historique et approche spatiale, nous interrogeons les facteurs historiques, politiques, démographiques, économiques et sociaux qui, durant cette période, se révèlent déterminants dans la localisation et les usages des jardins collectifs. Cette analyse des dynamiques spatiales de création de jardins tout au long du 20ème siècle, reflète l’évolution de leur place et de leurs fonctions dans la ville. Ceci nous permet de révéler à la fois des valeurs et des fonctions attribuées aux jardins qui ont une forte stabilité dans le temps, alors que d’autres renvoient à des conceptions et à des préoccupations historiquement comme géographiquement situées. Pour cela, nous attachons une attention particulière à resituer la question des jardins collectifs dans les transformations des politiques urbaines, avec pour la période récente la montée en puissance des préoccupations liées au développement durable et à la place de la nature en ville. / This PhD thesis deals with the evolution of the notion of collective garden and their place and functions in the city. Firstly, on the basis of an historical and geographical perspective, it provides a background of the notion of garden in the Mediterranean area, between East and West, from the ancient world to the modern day. The concept of garden has taken over time very different meanings, food-producing garden or pleasure garden, but also private gardens, public and community gardens.Then our approach focuses on collective gardens, namely workers' gardens, family gardens and community gardens. Our research focuses on the city of Lyon and its metropolitan area from the late 19th century to today. This historical and geographical analysis is based on both an archival work and a cartographic approach. To mix historical depth and spatial approach we inquire about the historical, political, demographic, economic and social factors that determine the location and the uses of collective gardens. This analysis of the spatial dynamics throughout the twentieth century reflects the evolution of their place and their functions in the city. This allows us to identify the values and functions of collective gardens that have a high stability over time, while others refer to conceptions and concerns which are historically and geographically situated. We thus pay particular attention to place the issue of community gardens in transformations of urban policies, characterized for the recent period by the increasing influence of sustainable development concerns and emerging issues on the place of nature in cities.

This thesis critically examines the role of indigeneity in urban policies and planning in a context of constitutional changes that have taken place in Bolivia and Ecuador in the recent decade. It departs from previous academic and policy research which mainly studied indigenous rights in rural areas and focused on urban indigenous peoples as outlawed, excluded, or insurgent subjects. Instead, it conceptualises the translation of indigenous rights into urban policies as a complex process in which a multiplicity of social actors – including government officials and urban indigenous groups – are involved. Drawing on the practice-centric literature on urban policy and planning, it recognises that the work of government officials is influenced by multiple factors such as constitutional texts as well as their personal views, interest group demands, and the wider structural and political environment surrounding them. Government attempts to translate indigenous rights are contrasted to urban indigenous peoples’ own understandings of indigeneity and associated interests and demands. In addition, this thesis uses an asset accumulation framework as well as the concept of tactics to identify how urban indigenous peoples address and negotiate their interests and demands and try to influence decision-making processes from the bottom-up. The thesis relies on La Paz (Bolivia) and Quito (Ecuador) as ‘illustrative cases’ to study the role of indigeneity in urban policies. As both La Paz and Quito represent capital cities, it was possible to approach government officials operating at multiple scales – international, national and local – as well as ordinary urban indigenous residents. Methodologically, the thesis employs a qualitative, case study comparison and draws on information derived from semi-structured interviews, document analysis, participant observation and participatory focus groups conducted during eleven months of fieldwork. In terms of comparison, this thesis makes use of a variation-finding approach. By explaining variations between the cases through focusing on the unique processes and factors that shaped the translation of indigenous rights within each city, it intends to offer a more nuanced and context-responsive approach for studying urban indigeneity and addressing indigenous rights in cities. A central finding of this thesis is that the incorporation of indigeneity into urban policies and indigenous people’s own practices to fulfil their specific demands were characterised by a set of conflicting realities: First, for government officials the translation of indigenous rights into urban policies sometimes clashed with other priorities – such as addressing universal rights and interests of non-indigenous pressure groups – or with their own views of the city as a ‘white’, ‘western’, and ‘modern’ places. Second, urban indigenous peoples articulated multiple and contradictory identities. They mainly did this by voicing specific demands for land – an important asset which they associated with the preservation of a communal and traditional lifestyle but also with aspirations to lead a modern and capitalist life in the city. Third, the findings reveal that indigenous peoples – particularly their community leaders – had to enter in negotiations with governments to access different assets such as land, housing, or education. In these processes leaders manoeuvred between different worlds. They had to conform to political agendas and – particularly in the case of Bolivia – to official spatialized understandings of identity and rights which often conflicted with their own sense of being indigenous in the city.

Casernes, ports, hôpitaux, prisons, ou encore sites ferroviaires font l'objet de nombreux projets de reconversion dans les villes européennes. Une part substantielle du renouvellement urbain s'effectue ainsi sur des ‘terrains de l'État'. Cette thèse contribue à expliquer ces restructurations urbaines qui participent également des recompositions de l'État, dans sa dimension matérielle. Elle interroge les raisons et les modalités de la réorganisation de la présence d'un type d'opérateur national, les entreprises ferroviaires, dans l'espace urbain. L'enquête comparative menée sur deux pays (Italie et France) et quatre villes (Milan, Bolzano, Paris et Nantes) identifie deux principaux facteurs explicatifs. D'une part, les gouvernements urbains mettent en cause les modes d'occupation de l'espace urbain par le réseau ferroviaire depuis les années 1970, dans le contexte de leur intervention croissante dans l'aménagement. D'autre part, des logiques et des compétences immobilières se développent au sein des firmes publiques de flux depuis le début des années 1990, dans le contexte de leur autonomisation comptable et de pressions financières accrues. La réorganisation du pouvoir logistique (la capacité à organiser les flux de choses et de personnes) de ce secteur dans les villes s'explique dès lors par l'ajustement des trois ‘conceptions' dominantes des raisons de la reconversion des sites ferroviaires, à savoir : immobilière, urbanistique et industrielle. Cet ajustement s'opère dans des projets d'aménagement et s'effectue différemment en Italie et en France. En Italie, le cadre institutionnel plus lâche qui entoure la cession du domaine ferroviaire donne lieu à des accords différenciés entre opérateurs et gouvernements urbains selon les villes, contrairement au cas français où processus et résultats sont plus homogènes d'une ville à l'autre. Par rapport aux approches existantes sur les relations entre villes et État, le double déplacement proposé dans cette thèse, vers les opérateurs et vers la dimension matérielle de l'État, éclaire de nouvelles relations entre recompositions de l'État et restructurations urbaines / Barracks, ports, hospitals, prisons, railway sites are earmarked for many redevelopment projects in European cities. A substantial part of urban regeneration therefore occurs on ‘State places'. This research contributes to explain such an urban restructuring process that reshapes the material base of the State. It questions the reasons and the modalities of the reorganisation of a specific sector, railway firms, in urban areas. The comparative enquiry carried out two countries (Italy and France) and four cities (Milan, Bolzano Paris and Nantes) distinguishes two main factors. On the one hand, urban governments question the way the railway network has occupied central and pericentral urban areas since the 1970s, in relation to their increasing strategic power in urban development. On the other hand, real estate logics and skills have expanded within theses publicly owned firms since the beginning of the 1990s, due to their greater accounting autonomy and their need to face a rising financial pressure. Since then, the reorganisation of the logistical power (i.e. the capacity to order the flows of things and people) of this sector in cities is explained by the adjustment of three main ‘conceptions' regarding the motives for the redevelopment of urban railway sites: real estate, urban planning, and industrial. This adjustment is carried out through urban redevelopment projects and follows different paths in Italy and France. In Italy, the loose institutional frame regarding railway land handover generates differentiated agreements between operators and urban governments whereas in France processes and outcomes are more homogeneous from one city to another. The double shift from conventional approaches – toward the operator and the material base of the State – sheds light on new relationships between State and urban restructuring

The notion of Strategic Fit has been and remains to be one of the most important arguements in the fields of business strategy and strategic management. This research study examines the key concept of ‘strategic fit’ and its associated theories and seeks to investigate the causes that have created ‘strategic drift’ in Abu Dhabi’s governmental agencies in the infrastructure sector with the aim of improving their performance. However, for organisations, public or private, it still remains to be the most important notion and one that cannot be ignored because it is about the success of the organisation in its external environment where all competitive activity takes place. Thus, there are many underlying factors such as organisational culture, structure and organisational history that impact, or influence, the level of fit that organisations achieve. Therefore it is imperative that research is further undertaken on a deeper and wider level to fully understand the concept and importance of strategic fit and how it can be achieved. Hence, a research study in this area, especially in developing cities such as Abu Dhabi, is well justified and needed. The lack of strategic fit that has been witnessed in the Abu Dhabi’s infrastructure sector over the past few years continues to be, and it is a clear indication of a developing mismatch between the government and its policies and the agencies that implement them. However, this is clearly a major issue for the government going forward, if polices are developed with no clear understanding of the available resources and capabilities. Similarly, the study also seeks to determine why a strategic fit has not been achievable by the Abu Dhabi government. Though the government has developed policies to better serve its people, it continuously faces issues of policies not being implemented, or being implemented too late and targets not been met according to the original brief. It has been identified that there are numerous deficiencies between the various government agencies in the infrastructure sector in terms of keeping pace with governmental policies - consequently, resulting in strategic gaps with an increasing possibility of a possible strategic drift, if these issues are not addressed effectively and in a timely manner. The study further wishes to explore if strategic gaps have occurred as a result of inherent cultural, historical, political and/or structural aspects of the Abu Dhabi government and its numerous agencies – simply because these issues can be seen as preventative to change and progress which, in turn, can lead to strategic gaps and strategic drift in the long term. The research paradigm selected for this research study is that of the pragmatist approach and subsequently the key methodology employed throughout this research is that of the mixed methods. That mixed methods research is an intellectual and practical synthesis based on qualitative and quantitative research. Also, This research provides a summary of the important findings, proved hypotheses, achieved aim and objectives, and significant contribution to the knowledge of strategic management through the development of the “Community Innovation Scheme”, the “3-Spectrums of Change”, the “4Ms Change Model”; and the resulting framework model; the “Government Strategy Model”.

The content of this thesis is the analysis of the Integrated Urban Development Plans in the Czech Republic, which is then particulary demonstrated on the example of Ustí nad Labem. The regional capital has now initiated the creation of three Integrated Urban Development Plans, two of them have a zone character -- IUDP Center and IUDP Nestemice -- Mojzir settlement, and one with a thematic orientation on the transportation -- IUDP Mobility. In the theoretical part is the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy discussed, followed by its form and metodology in the Czech Republic. The specific IUDPs of Usti nad Labem are subsequently summarized in the practical part which is focused on the application of the documents, the evaluation of the actual interconnection of projects and find new starting points for the next programming period

Kap. 1 schätzt den Effekt sozial gemischten Wohnens auf Resilienz gegenüber epidemischen Schocks. Anhand von Gesundheitsberichten und Berufsdaten aus Stadtverzeichnissen assoziiere ich die Verbreitung der Cholera während der 1866er Epidemie mit einem Maß für soziale Diversität für ca. 12200 Häuser Berlins. Diversere Häuser erleben mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit mindestens einen Fall, sind aber auch erfolgreicher bei der Eindämmung weiterer Fälle. Zur kausalem Interpretation nutze ich exogene Variation, die sich aus den geometrischen Eigenschaften der Gebäude ergibt. Ich zeige, dass Exposition gegenüber Außenkontakten und gemeinsamer Zugang zu Leitungswasser in gemischten Mietergemeinschaften die Inzidenzeffekte teilweise erklären. Kap. 2 evaluiert, ob die Cholera als Katalysator für städtische Was¬ser-infrastrukturreformen fungierte. In einer Fallstudie Berlins im 19. Jahrhundert zeige ich, dass die Interpretation der Cholera durch Miasma- und proto-epidemiologische Theorien der prä-bakteriologischen Ära ineffiziente, kontraproduktive Wasserwirtschaftsreformen inspirierten, was die Sterblichkeit für einige Zeit erhöhte. Das gängige Narrativ eines durch epidemische Schocks „erzwungenen“ sanitären Aufbruchs vermittelt ein irreführendes Bild der westlichen Volksgesundheitsgeschichte. Kap. 3 zeigt, dass Leitungswassernetze ohne Kanalisation geringen gesundheitlichen Nutzen stiften. Mittels Wasserspülung schwemmen Individuen Krankheitserreger in Rinnsteine, Grundwasserleiter, Straßen und offene Gewässer. Entlang dieser Abwasserströme lebende Nachbarn werden zusätzlichen Gesundheitsrisiken ausgesetzt, die durch den Anschluss der Abfallverursacher an eine Kanalisation neutralisiert werden. Mittels eines Flussrichtungsmodells schätze ich die Abwasser-Exposition für alle Gebäude Berlins in 1875/1880. In einer Differenz-in-Differenzen-Regression zeige ich, dass die negativen externen Effekte der Leitungswassernutzung dessen direkte Vorteile im Aggregat teilweise aufheben. / Chapter 1 estimates the causal effect of mixed-income housing on resilience to epidemic shocks. Using detailed health reports and occupational data from town directories, I relate cholera incidence to a social diversity measure at the level of Berlin’s roughly 12,200 buildings during the 1866 pandemic. Mixed tenant communities are more likely to experience an initial case, but also more successful in containing further in-house spread. To establish causality, I exploit exogenous variation from building lots’ geometric properties in an instrumental variable approach. I find that increased exposure to outside contacts and shared tap water access partly explain the effects. Chapter 2 evaluates whether cholera functioned as catalysts for the efficient reform of urban water infrastructure. Studying 19th century Berlin, I find that cholera’s conception through miasmatist frameworks and the proto-epidemiological tools of the pre-bacteriological era inspired inefficient and counterproductive approaches to water management and potentially deepened the mortality penalty for a certain time. This suggests that the popular interpretation of a sanitary awakening enforced by epidemic shocks paints a misleading picture of Western public health history. Chapter 3 tests a mechanism explaining why cities yield little health benefits from tap water if they do not simultaneously construct sewers. Individuals use the pressurized water supply to flush pathogens from their local environment, thus feeding additional waste to gutters, groundwater acquirers, streets and open water bodies. Neighbors living along the resulting waste flows bear indirect costs, only neutralized once waste emitters connect to sewers. Using a flow direction model based on Berlin’s elevation profile, I estimate waste flow trajectories and exposure for all buildings in Berlin in 1875/1880. In a difference-in- differences approach, I find that tap water’s negative external effects partly offset its direct benefits.

Subject of this thesis is an urban development study of the former brownfield in Vítkovice - Moravská Ostrava. The initiative came from the new spatial plan of the Ostrava city, where this area was designated for further study. The goal was to design a quality connection to surrounding city parts and to create an independent, functionally diverse city district, which will embrace the past but also provide new inspiration near the city centre. The goal was also to enable further continuity in case of further industry downturn in the area.

More than 3,5 billion people currently lives in cities, a number that is expected to increase further. The densification of cities makes it increasingly difficult for people to access natural areas, at the same time as biological diversity is threatened. In this study, we highlight the importance of urban ecosystem services through social and ecological aspects. This study presents a summary of different evidence-based solutions that contribute with urban ecosystem services. It moreover uses a case of urban development in Slakthusområdet (Meatpacking district), Stockholm, in order to describe contemporary processes that integrate solutions that contribute to urban ecosystem services. The results show that there are challenges in implementing these solutions with respect to political, economic, and market factors. The study thereby identifies how examining authorities and policy demands on a green factor tool enable ecosystem service solutions. By studying ecosystem services as part of a social-ecological system, this study ultimately contributes with knowledge on the execution of multifunctional solutions, which are becoming ever more important with the densification of cities around the globe. / Över 3,5 miljarder människor är idag bosatta i städer, och i framtiden förväntas den siffran öka. Förtätningen av städer försvårar människornas tillgång till naturområden samtidigt som den biologiska mångfalden hotas. I den här studien understryker vi de urbana ekosystemtjänsternas roll utifrån sociala och ekologiska aspekter. Härigenom presenterar den här studien en sammanställning över olika evidensbaserade gröna lösningar som bidrar med urbana ekosystemtjänster. Vidare tar den här studien avstamp i stadsutvecklingen av Slakthusområdet i Stockholm i syfte om att studera samtida processer kopplat till implementeringen av lösningar som bidrar med ekosystemtjänster. Resultatet pekar på att det finns utmaningar för implementering av lösningar som bidrar med ekosystemtjänster kopplade till ekonomi, politik och marknadslösningar. Därigenom identifieras kravet för grönytefaktor (GYF) och de granskande myndigheternas arbete med möjligheter för implementering av gröna lösningar. Genom att studera ekosystemtjänster som en del av ett social-ekologiska system bidrar den här studien med kunskap om tillämpningen av mångfunktionella lösningar, vilka blir allt viktigare i och med den ökade förtätningen av städer.