Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-248).

After half a century of neglect and disinvestment, pub lic, private, and nonprofit developers are beginning to realize the potential of inner city retail. Accordingly, there have been tremendous redevelopment efforts in low income inner city neighborhoods over the last 15 years. While this development physically revitalizes commercial strips, it sometimes contributes to gentrification, driving out long-time neighborhood residents. However, redevelopment is not synonymous with displacement and when revitalization efforts seek to address community needs and concerns, neighborhoods and their residents benefit from positive change. / text

As the world advances and communications keep improving, most people understandably are looking for better living qualities instead of merely a 'shelter'. These include not only the middle or upper classes but also those residing in government subsidized public housing such as the ones in Hong Kong. Although public housing estates are only meant to offer a very low-cost environment meeting basic accommodation needs, people still wants to enjoy daily living in terms of community harmony, friendly and helpful neighborhood, mutual interaction, and common social activities. Thus, in Hong Kong, research studies have since been proposed to determine the possible factors that can increase the life quality for public housing, given that these budgeted estates do not carry much commercial values and are limited in space, location, and architectural merits. The term "tenant participation", introduced by Linneman and Megbolugbe, refers to the active participation of tenants in well-organized manner to influence and improve their own living conditions. Tenants will be able to seek more rights and involvement in the healthy and pleasant development for their own estates. In 1995, the Housing Authority launched the Estate Management Advisory Committee (EMAC) Scheme to address the rising aspiration of tenant participation. An EMAC estate allow tenants to participate in local management matters, design of housing units, provision of facilities, and partnering arrangements. Consequently, it is expected that tenants there will develop a stronger sense of belongings, foster a more harmony neighborhood, and enhance neighborly interaction. For non-EMAC estates, tenant participation would be weak due to lack of resources in organizing interesting activities, relatively less community attachment, and shorter length of resident period. The purpose of this research work aims to qualify and quantify the degree of tenant participation for EMAC estates, versus the non-EMAC ones. And hence we will be able to make recommendations to enhance neighborly interaction. Our research approach first depends on a survey exercise in three selected public rental housing estates. The survey is specially-designed to serve two purposes: 1) identifying the factors affecting neighborly interaction for both EMAC and non-EMAC estates; and 2) evaluating the degree of tenant participation in affecting neighborly interaction in three categories – EMAC with members taking active involvement, EMAC with less active involvement, and finally the non-EMAC. Approach next is to substantiate the survey findings with explanation by considering three orthogonal aspects: 1) the change of policy on EMAC Scheme, on EMAC funding arrangement, and on the enhanced partnering arrangement among EMACs and NGOs; 2) the design of housing blocks and community facilities provided in EMAC and non-EMAC estates; and 3) the sociological impact which considers the residents' aspiration and feeling on living environment as well as their desire on community building activities. Applying the above statistical approach on our targeted population, we have obtained reasonable sample sizes of normal distribution spanning working and non-working classes, genders, and various age groups. By analyzing the results, we have confirmed our hypothesis and further been able to make recommendations to strengthen neighborly interaction for our public rental housing estates. In concluding the research, we are putting forward three specific recommendations: 1) on top of establishing EMACs, we should extensively promote and facilitate the enhanced partnering arrangements jointly with NGOs, Voluntary Agencies (VA), and Residents Associations (RA); 2) for an estate which is still not EMAC-ready, we should help and fund to establish a local community service and activity task force to build up effective and attractive tenant participation; and 3) we should allow higher flexibility in the use of EMAC funding according to specific needs of an estate as some may demand more improvement works while some may want more partnering functions and activities due to dynamic population fluctuation. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Aging is a universal problem that has to be recognized and formally addressed. The investigating of innovative opportunities and ideas in the building of a community that could cater the needs of elderly community is in immediate need. Planning for the aged, not just quantitatively, but qualitatively, is therefore on the top of the political agenda. Hong Kong is facing challenges resulted from an aging demographic population structure. Rapid rate of aging of the population implies addressing retirement needs is going to be a big challenge for government to tackle. Government needs to prepare and plan to provide sufficient service for the growing elderly population. The assessment of the current policies is in need now in order to formulate a strategic and comprehensive plan to allow aging in place. Aging in place requires policies and programs provided on the ground of comprehensive understanding of the aging processes and contexts. While existing programs tends to focus on physical aspect, it is important to evaluate aging within the context of neighborhood as an important place of aging. To break through from the current planning framework to provide for the aged, there is a need to rethink the possibility of employing community planning framework to better engage different stakeholders through local planning initiatives. This study attempts at brainstorming and suggesting possibility in amending existing planning and policies to cater for the changing demography. The interest of the study is to explore the role of public life in facilitating healthy aging. In addition, evaluate the role of neighborhood as important physical and social places which contributes to well being of older people. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

This study seeks to determine whether the process of mortgage finance liberalization, manifested in concurrent activities of securitization, deregulation, and neo-liberal policy, have resulted in changes to the tenure of residents in neighborhoods in Tampa Bay. It makes use of existing literature on gentrification and mortgage finance and compares those findings with three sample neighborhoods in and around the city of Tampa. To do so the thesis employs data collected from lenders pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, court records of sales and mortgages filed with the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Hillsborough County, and interviews with stakeholders such as community leaders, activists, residents and those involved in the lending industry. It was discovered that the sample neighborhoods largely conform to expectations about the general pattern of investment of mortgage dollars in core, peripheral, and semi-peripheral neighborhoods. Close analysis indicates that the liberalization of the mortgage process clearly increased the frequency of resident turnover, thus reducing the tenure of residents in each neighborhood to varying degrees. Neighborhoods where traditional, deposit oriented, banks and thrifts dominated the lending market saw a lower tendency for the rapid churning of housing and thus can be expected to possess a lower turnover in residents, fewer examples of foreclosure, and a greater level of wealth accumulation for the homeowner.

Access to health care is an important resource for sexually experienced adolescent females in the prevention of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. However, a paucity of research exists regarding the extent to which social disparities in access to health care exist among this vulnerable population of adolescents, including the potential contribution of the neighborhood context. Therefore, the primary aims of this dissertation were to examine (1) the extent to which racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to health care exist among sexually experienced adolescent females, (2) the extent to which access to health care among sexually experienced adolescent females varies across neighborhoods, and (3) the extent to which the neighborhood racial and socioeconomic context contribute to racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to health care among sexually experienced adolescent females. A multilevel design was employed for this dissertation utilizing secondary data from Wave I of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Analyses included hierarchical generalized linear modeling to examine the receipt of a routine physical, the receipt of contraceptive services, and reported unmet health needs among the dissertation sample of 1,526 sexually experienced Non-Hispanic Black and Non-Hispanic White adolescent females between 15 years to 19 years of age who were dispersed across 546 neighborhoods. After adjusting for a variety of factors that may influence access to health care, the findings revealed no racial disparities and few socioeconomic disparities in access to health care among this sample of adolescents. No significant relationship was noted between the neighborhood racial and socioeconomic context and access to health care or social disparities in access to health care among this sample of adolescents. However, the findings revealed that access to health care among this sample of sexually experienced adolescent females varied across neighborhoods, above and beyond the individual composition of the neighborhood. Further studies are indicated to explore the underlying factors that contribute to socioeconomic disparities in access to health care among sexually experienced adolescent females, and the potential neighborhood characteristics that may contribute to differential access to health care across neighborhoods among this vulnerable population of adolescents.

This dissertation considers the impact of the U.S. civil rights movement on postwar urban design and urban policy, looking specifically at the case of urban renewal, a federal program of urban reconstruction intended to help central cities modernize and compete with the growing suburbs. Tracing the history of three renewal projects from planning through design and implementation, it argues that these projects were shaped by public debates on civil rights and desegregation and the growing ability of community groups to organize and advocate on their own behalf. This dissertation also revisits the usual critique of urban renewal as a program of social and physical destruction and describes these years as a tumultuous period of construction and community building defined by new expectations for community participation and racial justice. Conceived in the 1950s, as the impact of postwar suburbanization began to be felt in older urban neighborhoods, renewal projects aimed to revitalize declining areas through targeted interventions in the built environment, including the construction of modern housing, shopping centers, and community facilities, as well as the rehabilitation of existing housing. During the turbulent 1960s, these physical design strategies took on political significance, as city officials, planners, and residents considered urban change alongside the social issues of the period, such the racial integration of the housing market, de facto school segregation, and community control over neighborhood resources. Although these projects often began as idealized experiments in racial and economic integration, they quickly became battlegrounds on which communities struggled to balance their desire for federal investment and modernization against the costs of displacement and gentrification. Ultimately, as the civil rights and Black Power movements gathered strength, racial identity and community control were privileged over integration and assimilation, and the buildings and spaces that represented postwar liberalism became targets of anger and protest. While many of these spaces now seem ill-conceived or poorly designed, the collapse of urban renewal is no mere failure of design or planning policy—it is the result of a profound shift in social and political relationships that played out through the negotiation of change in the urban built environment.

This dissertation explores the symbolic structure of the metropolis, probing how neutral spaces may be imbued with meaning to become places, and tracing the processes through which the image of the city can come to be - and carry real consequences. The centrality of the image of the city to a broad array of urban research is established by injecting the question of image into two different research areas: crime and real estate in Washington, DC and the spatial structure of grassroots visual art production in Boston, Massachusetts. By pursuing such widely diverging areas of research, I seek to show the essential linkage between art and crime as they related to the image of the city and general urban processes of definition, distinction, and change. And yet, the research pursued here offers a mixed appraisal of strategies that pin urban prospects to image and image manipulation, from the great crime decline of the past two decades to the rise of the creative economy and application of urban branding campaigns. Across the analyses, I highlight tension between expectations of change and the essentially conservative forces of image. Far from rebranding the city, culture is shown to play a key role in locking in inequalities, undermining revitalization efforts, and generally explaining the reproduction and persistence of place over time, following the logic of the "looking glass neighborhood." Thus, culture is not nearly the tool to revalorize, relabel, and transform place so well depicted in studies nor do the buzz of cultural events shape markets and communities as effectively in "offcenter" cities. Place is not fixed for good, and can be "re-accomplished," albeit through decades-long demographic, cultural, and political processes. / Sociology

The development of affordable housing often involves a contentious siting process. Proposed housing developments frequently trigger concern among neighbors and community groups about potential negative impacts on neighborhood quality of life and property values. Advocates, developers, and researchers have long suspected that some of these concerns stem from racial or class prejudice, yet, to date, these assumptions lack empirical evidence. My research seeks to examine the roles that perceptions of race and class play in shaping opinions that underlie public opposition to affordable housing. Such opposition often earns the label "Not in my Backyard" (NIMBY). The application of a mixed-methods approach helps determine why the public opposes the development of affordable housing in their neighborhoods and towns. The focus group and survey results provide a rich understanding of the underlying attitudes that trigger opposition to affordable housing when proposed nearby. This study demonstrates that stereotypes and perceptions of the poor and minorities are particularly strong determinants of affordable housing opposition. This research improves our understanding of public attitudes toward affordable housing attitudes, leading to a more focused and effective policies and plans for the siting of affordable housing. The results provide advocates, planners, developers, and researchers with a more accurate portrayal of affordable housing opposition, thereby allowing the response to be shaped in a more appropriate manner. / text

Sketching is an important part of creativity process and is used in the design disciplines, concerned with making physical form: mechanical and civil engineering, graphic design, and architecture and physical planning. Almost all designers still begin the design process by sketching their ideas before transferring them to the computer. This helps designers to express nascent ideas fast and naturally and to speed up visual problem solving. Moreover, the importance of sketching in design has been recognized emphasizing that initial drawing allows creative freedom. The sketches represent a rough semblance and functionality of the system and can be essential to understanding the reasoning behind a design. Furthermore, sketching activity makes designers to interact with their sketches, examine all alternative possibilities and explore design solutions in their minds during drawing. This important part of design, which supports ambiguity, imprecision and incremental formalization of ideas as well as rapid exploration of alternatives, is still performed by engineers with the help of paper and pencil. Despite praxis and fondness of natural interface provided by paper, sketching on paper has its own limitations. The main disadvantage of sketching on paper is that you can easily draw the sketch, but editing and improving of design is more problematic. If designer wants to make changes in the sketch, usually he has to take another sheet of paper and basically redraw the sketch... [to full text]