The research project focused on studying the effectiveness of placemaking initiatives to promote social, physical and economic improvements. The case of study is the Central Park neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, named after its major public space. The research indicated placemaking initiatives were capable of contributing to increasing safety, promoting community development and enhancing opportunities for social interaction. However, the capacity of placemaking to achieve positive improvements is directly determined by the involved stakeholders. The Central Park initiatives were successful due to the emphasis on engaging the residents and neighbourhood organizations. The residents were given the opportunity to meaningfully share their experience and aspirations with external stakeholders. The collaborative approach to placemaking contributed to the development of a sense of ownership. The residents saw their input reflected in the amenities and programming offered in Central Park. The planning profession can benefit from using placemaking practices to engage in comprehensive planning.

The research project focused on studying the effectiveness of placemaking initiatives to promote social, physical and economic improvements. The case of study is the Central Park neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, named after its major public space. The research indicated placemaking initiatives were capable of contributing to increasing safety, promoting community development and enhancing opportunities for social interaction. However, the capacity of placemaking to achieve positive improvements is directly determined by the involved stakeholders. The Central Park initiatives were successful due to the emphasis on engaging the residents and neighbourhood organizations. The residents were given the opportunity to meaningfully share their experience and aspirations with external stakeholders. The collaborative approach to placemaking contributed to the development of a sense of ownership. The residents saw their input reflected in the amenities and programming offered in Central Park. The planning profession can benefit from using placemaking practices to engage in comprehensive planning.

This Major Degree Project explores the concept of “complete streets” and the framing of an appropriate “complete streets” checklist for historic districts and character neighbourhoods in downtown contexts, attempting to learn especially from the case of Winnipeg’s Warehouse District Neighbourhood. A “complete streets” checklist is considered to include a combination of infrastructure and urban design considerations, such as sidewalks, bike lanes, intersections, transit stops, curb extensions, travel lane widths, and parking needs. It proceeds from the premise that if an individual street or system of streets is ‘complete’, individuals will be more likely to reduce the time spent using automobiles, and increase the time expended on walking, biking, or using other transit alternatives, while making travel on the streets safer and more enjoyable for all users. The MDP examines the current street-related infrastructure and uses within the Warehouse District Neighbourhood of Downtown Winnipeg and discusses the relevance of current or recent City of Winnipeg plans and proposals. Taking the form of a practicum, the research sought to inform and engage local planners, engineers and public officials regarding a “complete streets” approach to their work – primarily in terms of the recommended framing of a complete streets checklist as well as recommendations for future area improvements in the Warehouse District Neighbourhood, demonstrating the usefulness of the checklist.

The main goal of this study is to investigate the spatial patterns of police-reported crime rates across select Canadian urban neighbourhoods and to explore their relationships with both neighbourhood- and city-level characteristics, as well as neighbourhood spatial dependence. Analyses were based on aggregated data from the 2001 Incident-Based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR2) and the Census of Population for six Canadian cities: Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Saskatoon, Thunder Bay and Toronto. Exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) was used to examine the spatial distribution of crime as well as to test for spatial dependence in the crime data. By using multilevel modelling and spatial regression techniques, neighbourhood violent and property crime rates were modeled respectively as a function of both city- and neighbourhood-level contextual variables while controlling for spatial dependence. The results show that crime is not distributed randomly, but tends to be concentrated in particular neighbourhoods, notably around the city centers of these cities. Neighbourhood variance in crime rates is not only dependent on local neighbourhood characteristics, but also on the characteristics of surrounding neighbourhoods, as well as the broader city environment where neighbourhoods are embedded. These findings suggest that strategies aimed at preventing or reducing crime should be developed in light of specific local neighbourhood contexts, while taking into account social forces external to the immediate neighbourhood in the wider social environment.

This dissertation examines how to evaluate a place-based poverty reduction program across different sites and scales. Unpacking urban planning’s dominant, normative construction of poverty, neighbourhoods, youth, and evaluation, this thesis presents an alternative view of evaluation, which recognizes the complexity and diversity of qualitative narratives describing the impacts of targeted human service programs on the places and peoples they serve. To answer this question, I crafted a theoretical framework linking the concept of the right to the city as presented by Lefebvre (1996), to Uri Bronfenbrenner’s (1977, 1979), 1995) understanding of the micro, macro, and meso systems in which children and youth operate. I then conducted a small-scale, qualitative case study of Pathways to Education Canada as it replicated and expanded, to examine and explore different ways of evaluating the success of a place-based poverty human service program. Using a participatory methodology, I listened to different stakeholders’ voices, particularly those of youth and staff, to examine and explore tensions in the construction of success.

Most life forms, including plants, are more or less susceptible to infection by pathogens. Whereas plant-pathogen interactions are well studied in human-managed systems they are less known in natural ecosystems. In this thesis the interactions between the sterilising anther-smut fungus Microbotryum silenes-dioicae and the host plant Silene dioica were studied in natural habitats in the Skeppsvik archipelago in northern Sweden. The purpose was to study some population characteristics that can potentially influence the colonization of anther-smut (Microbotryum silenes-dioicae) in young Silene dioica populations. Specifically, it was tested whether the population age, floral-  and total density, population size and distances to nearest diseased populations affect incidence of disease (presence of disease) and prevalence of disease (proportion of diseased individuals in populations) in younger host populations. It was found that incidence and prevalence of disease increased with host population age and size. In addition, it was seen that distances to diseased populations could not explain incidence or prevalence of disease. These results can potentially be used to predict disease risk in similar plant-pathogen systems.

This research critically analyses the use of community intelligence in the delivery of local neighbourhood policing in South Wales and the police service in general. It examines in detail the development of policing and intelligence, particularly neighbourhood policing and community intelligence from its early beginnings and evaluates the contemporary definitions and police officer and staff perceptions of neighbourhood policing and community intelligence. This research also proposes a new definition of community intelligence and analyses how community intelligence is gathered, recorded and processed, and its relationship to the Intelligence Cycle and the National Intelligence Model. It further examines the operational application of community intelligence, including in counter terrorism and tackling organised crime, and the competing priorities, tensions and contradictions between performance management, neighbourhood policing, problem-oriented policing and intelligence-led policing. This research also evaluates the decision making process and how that may be affected by organisational issues such as, organisational culture, behaviour, management, leadership, information and knowledge. It examines the importance of community engagement in developing community intelligence and providing cohesive policing services to the public. Furthermore, this research considers the future directions of community intelligence and research on policing. The findings from this research indicate that some community intelligence is used to direct policing patrols and operations. However, there is some confusion by police officers and staff as to what constitutes community information and intelligence and thus it is not always recorded correctly limiting its use in the delivery of local neighbourhood policing and resulting in the loss of intelligence. This serves to highlight some of the areas for improvement in the policies, procedures, systems and management of intelligence. The findings also indicate the potential use of community intelligence in counter terrorism and in the provision of improved policing services to the public.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / Although the interior operators correspond to a special class of neighbourhood operators, the closure operators are not nicely related to the latter. We introduce and study the notion of topogenous orders on a category which provides a basis for categorical study of topology. We show that they are equivalent to the categorical neighbourhood operators and house the closure and interior operators. The natural notion of strict morphism with respect to a topogenous order is shown to capture the known ones in the settings of closure, interior and neighbourhood operators.

Magister Artium - MA / The study explored and examined new forms of social relations at the interpersonal, community and institutional levels that have emerged in the social organisation of Neighbourhood Watch Organisations in Parow West, Parow East, Ravensmead and Cravenby, in the Western Cape. The objective of the research was to understand how social solidarities generated through participation in neighbourhood watch organisations, institutional partnerships and working principles influenced and fostered the development of social solidarity, social integration and social cohesion of local communities and a new sense of nationhood. Towards the above end the study made use of a Functionalist perspective based on Durkheim’s concepts of mechanical and organic social solidarity. These functionalist concepts were used to identify and to examine the new forms of social cooperation and associations that emerged in the context of local neighbourhoods, and formally in neighbourhood watch organisations and partnerships engaged in residential property crime preventive measures. The study design which was employed to probe social solidarities in neighbourhoods and local communities made use of qualitative research methodologies. The empirical data was collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews, as well as focus group discussions with all respondents belonging either to the neighbourhood watch organisations. Alternatively respondents were also drawn from related institutions involved in residential property crime prevention, such as the SAPS. And finally, the data was interpreted within a Durkheimean framework of social solidarity in order to reflect on the extent to which Neighbourhood Watch Organisations have played a significant role in building social solidarity, integration and cohesion in Parow West, Parow East, Ravensmead and Cravenby. This was ultimately done in order to establish an empirical basis to consider the extent to which South African society has moved from apartheid to liberal democratic values and practices from the ground up in Neighbourhood Watch Organisations.

This thesis determines the extent to which internal migration affects the socioeconomic composition of neighbourhoods in England and how its impact compares with that of other components of area change. It is hypothesised that the selective character of internal migration contributes to increased concentration of poverty in the most deprived neighbourhoods. The focus of the analysis at this small spatial scale will interest policy makers who have sought to reverse the spiral of socioeconomic decline in selected neighbourhoods through area-based regeneration initiatives. It will also add to neighbourhood change theory that assumes internal migration is widening spatial inequalities, which has rarely been empirically tested. The analysis is conducted using an administrative dataset called the School Census. The School Census enables detailed geographical analysis that is not possible with existing datasets used to measure internal migration in the UK. The thesis demonstrates the potential of the School Census for migration research and its usefulness in shaping policy. Change in the socioeconomic composition of a neighbourhood can be measured using the proportion of pupils claiming Free School Meals (FSM), which is widely used as a measure of poverty in educational research. The change in the concentration of FSM pupils is uniquely analysed at varying spatial scales to determine an appropriate neighbourhood level at which to conduct further analysis. The effect of internal migration on neighbourhood socioeconomic change is analysed using a growth model for Lower Super Output Areas. It shows that internal migration contributes to increased concentration of FSM pupils in the most deprived neighbourhoods. However, the effect is small. The effect of pupils changing their FSM status but not moving (in-situ change) is more dominant and reduced the concentration of FSM pupils in the most deprived neighbourhoods during the period 2002-2007. These findings contribute to a small but growing literature that suggests the effect of internal migration is minor when compared with in-situ change. Factors related to internal migration at the neighbourhood level are modelled using linear and spatial regression. A number of characteristics are found to be similarly associated with net migration of FSM and non-FSM pupils. This suggests there is an element of choice exercised by all families with school children when they move. However, there are discriminating effects, including school quality, that are related to higher net migration of non-FSM pupils but not FSM pupils. Moreover, the effects of some neighbourhood characteristics on migration including worklessness are shown to vary across different parts of the country. These findings suggest policy makers should be sensitive to local contexts when planning public service provision.