This thesis assesses sanitation realities experienced by peri-urban slum dwellers in Chennai, India, to investigate whether rapid economic growth translates into pervasive safe sanitation, otherwise a threat to human security. This is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of ‘leaving no one behind’. The empirical methodology consists of qualitative comparative case studies approached through rapid appraisal. At least 5 interviews at each of the 10 different slum settlement locations within the Chennai Metropolitan area were conducted. Both the locations and the settlers were conveniently sampled. The settlements were chosen as they mostly lay in a rapidly urbanizing area. The selection of interviewee was determined by availability, yet leaning towards women who are more vulnerable when lacking safe sanitation facilities, and who are the primary caregivers in the household. The research found that out of the 10 settlements visited, 5 habitually practiced open defecation, as no sanitation facilities were available. Hence some settlers were restricted in their freedom to be safe from emotional or physical harm: threatened by dangerous pathogens released into the environment, and insecurities due to lack of privacy. Conceptually the thesis applies an understanding of how affecting influences in individual history and living environment impact upon an individual’s conscious mind, connecting the capability approach to consciousness research. The thesis argues how settlers, overlooked by public services, and subjected to the dangerous and humiliating practice of open defecation, are faced with mental health issues and a diminished likelihood to productively engage, and exercise agency for human growth.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional + Community Planning / Mary Catherine (Katie) Kingery‐Page / The generation of diagnosed autistic children is aging, calling on needed research for what will happen to autistic adults. Cities are outfitted to non-autistic people, typically created for an idealized individual without disability or limitation. Urban environments add to sensory overload, have limited mass transit accessible to those with neurological disabilities, provide few affordable housing units, offer very little employment opportunity, and have no green spaces designed for those with autism or other differences. Typical urban design does not take into account the landscape and urban affordances needed by adults with autism. This project synthesizes a toolkit including the following needs for adults with autism: vocational training, life skills, mental and physical health support, employment, public transportation and affordable housing. Using the initial theoretical urban systems toolkit, I conducted an evaluation and synthesized proposal for Nashville, Tennessee, a large city that ranks within the nation among the lowest for cost-of-living (e.g. groceries, housing, and utilities). The outcome of the evaluation and synthesis is a diagrammatic infographic conveying existing and needed services within Nashville, as well as connectivity of needs for adults with autism. From the diagrammatic proposal, the initial theoretical urban systems toolkit is revised, reflecting upon the findings through the evaluation of Nashville, Tennessee. The final theoretical urban systems toolkit and diagrammatic proposal for Nashville, Tennessee provides exploratory research for city planners, architects, and landscape architects to design for cities inclusive of adults with autism, as well as other neurological disabilities or limitations. This additional layer of design not only contributes to the social and environmental well-being of individuals with autism, but also contributes to the entire urban community. Urban design as an approach to planning for adults with autism contributes a new disciplinary perspective to the discourse on planning for a maturing autistic population.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:27:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AlineVMN_DISSERT.pdf: 1518203 bytes, checksum: 4b70c9cdfed9ae9db58ae3d910a8232e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-07 / The reality of Latin America points out that the industrialization and urbanization are complementary processes associated each other. Thus, by consequence of the demographic growth, observes the aggravation of an urbanization completely disordered and without infrastructure capable of guaranteeing rights and basic services to the population. In parallel, the dissemination of information, the valorization of human dignity, promoted by social welfare, and expectations of consumption aggravates the tensions among social actors, leading to the Theory of the Right to Development to worry about the (re)construction of cities. Before this reality, the Federal Constitution of 1988 proposed a participatory urban policy, grounded in the ideal of confrontation of social exclusion of a more comprehensive, represented by the principle of the social function of cities, which must be stratified into four inclusion?s central axes, namely: the social in the strict sense, the economic, the cultural and the policy. The Analysis of each of these dimensions, keeping the focus on reality and the Brazilian legal system, composes specific objectives of this work. Thus, through deductive research, with use of technique bibliographical and interdisciplinary, this dissertation aims to make connections between social function and development, proposing an analytical concept for the proposing an analytical concept for the principle of social function of cities, through the study of its basic elements. With this, purports to demonstrate how results, firstly, that the juridical study, to fully understand the process of marginalization, must maintain multidisciplinary perspective, own social sciences. Also aims to demonstrate that the dimensions of inclusion are formed by fundamental rights, individual and collective, of liberties and of social guarantees and that without respect to all of them there is no way to talk about implementation of urban development and nor, consequently, about inclusive cities. At the end, after checking the main legal instruments of urban policy that emphasize the community participation, provided for in the Statute of the Cities, and that potentiate the breakup of the circles of exclusion, the work want contribute to the clarification and the awaken to the importance of a new perspective democratic of development in the country, grounded in the appreciation of the individual for realization of modern management, decentralized and that, therefore, inserts the effective participation of urban communities in the acting of the State / A realidade dos pa?ses da Am?rica Latina aponta que a industrializa??o e a urbaniza??o s?o processos complementares, associados um ao outro. Por consequ?ncia do crescimento demogr?fico, nas ?ltimas d?cadas, observa-se de forma agravada, no Brasil, uma urbaniza??o completamente desordenada e destitu?da de infraestrutura, capaz de garantir direitos e servi?os b?sicos ? popula??o. Paralelamente, a difus?o da informa??o, a valoriza??o da dignidade humana, realizado pelo bem-estar social, e as expectativas de consumo aprofundam as tens?es entre os atores sociais, levando a Teoria do Direito ao Desenvolvimento a preocupar-se com a (re) constru??o de cidades. Perante essa realidade, a Constitui??o Federal de 1988 prop?s uma pol?tica urbana participativa, embasada no ideal de enfrentamento da exclus?o social de uma forma mais ampla, representada pelo princ?pio da fun??o social das cidades, o qual pode ser estratificado em quatro eixos centrais de inclus?o, a saber: a inclus?o social em sentido estrito, a econ?mica, a cultural e a pol?tica. A an?lise de cada uma dessas dimens?es, mantendo-se o enfoque na realidade e no ordenamento jur?dico brasileiro, comp?e os objetivos espec?ficos deste trabalho. Desse modo, por meio da pesquisa dedutiva, com uso de t?cnica bibliogr?fica e interdisciplinar, quer essa disserta??o realizar conex?es entre inclus?o e desenvolvimento, propondo um conceito anal?tico para o princ?pio da fun??o social das cidades, atrav?s do estudo de seus basilares elementos. Com isso, pretende demonstrar como resultados, primeiramente, que o estudo jur?dico, para compreender plenamente o processo de marginaliza??o, precisa manter a perspectiva pluridisciplinar, pr?pria das ci?ncias sociais. Tamb?m se almeja demonstrar que as dimens?es de inclus?o s?o formadas pelos direitos fundamentais, individuais e coletivos, de liberdades e de garantias sociais e que sem respeito a todos eles n?o h? como se falar em concretiza??o do desenvolvimento urbano e nem, por consequ?ncia, sobre cidades inclusivas. Ao final, ap?s verificar os principais instrumentos legais de pol?tica urbana que privilegiam a participa??o da comunidade, previsto no Estatuto das Cidades, e que potencializam o rompimento dos c?rculos de exclus?o, pretende o trabalho contribuir para o esclarecimento e o despertar para import?ncia de uma nova perspectiva democr?tica de desenvolvimento end?geno no pa?s, embasada na valoriza??o do indiv?duo para realiza??o de uma gest?o p?blica moderna, descentralizada e que, portanto, busque a participa??o efetiva das comunidades urbanas na atua??o estatal

While we are experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic in the world, we ask ourselves about many aspects of our lives and above all we ask ourselves if some behaviors and habits will remain the same as in the past or will undergo transformations. In this panorama we try to imagine future scenarios for our cities, for a different use of public spaces, more inclusive, which responds to the needs and desires of different urban populations: children, elderly, animals, non-human agents, etc.