Metropolitan regions around the world are growing rapidly and face a complex and uncertain future. Plans for metropolitan regions cover large geographic areas, address a wide range of issues, and involve governments and many other organizations. They are prepared and implemented over a long timeframe. Planning for the future of metropolitan regions involves addressing uncertainties about future trends, external events, organisational intentions, political agendas and community values. In this thesis, it is argued that traditional planning approaches that emphasise what is known or thought to be known need to be turned on their head and the focus of planning efforts aimed directly at understanding what is unknown or needs to be known, i.e. at uncertainties. It builds upon concepts of uncertainty from philosophy, economics, planning, management theory and psychology to develop a comprehensive and dynamic conceptual framework for understanding and managing uncertainties in metropolitan planning. Uncertainties are perceived in social processes. The conceptual framework developed in this thesis distinguishes between environmental uncertainties, which are perceived by all people in a community, and process uncertainties, which are perceived by people actively involved in a planning process. The framework identifies five types of uncertainties to be understood and managed in planning: external uncertainties; chance events; causal uncertainties; organisational uncertainties; and value uncertainties. Planning processes envisage and construct alternative futures and each of these alternatives raises different uncertainties. Planning is conceived as a process of exploring alternative futures by visioning and analytical methods and of agreeing on a desired/ planned future and on how to get there. The conceptual framework has been used as a basis for two case studies of the preparation of metropolitan plans: the Livable Region Strategic Plan 1996 for Greater Vancouver, Canada; and the Regional Framework for Growth Management 1995 for South East Queensland, Australia. The case studies show that all five types of uncertainties were perceived by people actively involved in metropolitan planning. The types and level of uncertainties perceived changed through the planning process according to stages in the process, activities in the process and other events. In exploring alternative futures and a desired future, the planning process raises uncertainties and these have to be addressed and dealt with in order to reach agreement about the final plan. The case studies show that uncertainties in plan preparation were dealt with in the following five ways: • Avoided by deleting these aspects or elements of the desired future; • Deferred to a later planning process; • Referred to be dealt with by a different organisation; • Resolved by additional information collection, agreements or consultation; and • Retained in the plan and reviewed with the passage of time or contingent events. The studies also show that how uncertainties are managed, and particularly how uncertainties are dealt with in reaching agreement about the planned future, directly affects the nature and contents of the metropolitan plan produced. In this process of reaching agreement, there is a tension between achieving better or achieving more certain outcomes. How agreement occurs is affected by the interests and views of powerful groups in the decision-making process. Overall, the research shows that a focus on uncertainties assists in understanding the planning process and its outputs and that metropolitan planning can be usefully conceived as a process of understanding and managing uncertainties. Based on this research, on planning theories and on risk management models, a framework for understanding and managing uncertainties in metropolitan plan-making is proposed, involving five main stages, namely: • Initiate the planning process; • Identify the uncertainties and planning approach; • Identify the Desired Future; • Agree on the Planned Future; and • Implement the plan. The management framework involves specific methods and processes for understanding and managing uncertainties in metropolitan plan-making. The aim of the framework is to agree on a better future for a metropolitan region, compared to the trend, and with more certainty of achievement. The theories or concepts that we use to represent events and their relationships determine the kinds of action we can envisage. In the quest for certainty about better future outcomes for metropolitan regions, this thesis shows that understanding and managing uncertainty provides a powerful guide to action.

Curating practices appear in various fields as a common practice of immaterial labour today. To ‘curate’ is an active verb that suggests ‘doing’ something. Seldom if ever are the implications of curating critically discussed outside the arts, and this provides a reason for this thesis to investigate. What does ‘to curate’ mean, imply or suggest in the urban context? How are urban curatorial practices legitimized and where can they contribute to urban planning? Embedded in contemporary urban challenges and the “state of crisis” often referred to, this paper introduces curating as an emerging cultural practice into this field. A vital part of the discussion this thesis opens up, is where art can become part of urban planning. Noting that the relationship between arts and urban environments is ambivalent, since the arts’ symbolic power is recognized within international competition of cities, it is about the margin between the field of arts and urban development. By laying a groundwork of contemporary curatorial understandings in the arts, the paper gives an overview on the existing notions and practices of ‘urban curation’ and highlights that there are strong positions but no existing definition as such. A look into urban planning theory pinpoints the crucial role of economic growth and its implications for the organization of urban developments under the term neoliberalism, a condition in which festivals replace urban development policies and culture becomes a structuring element. The occurrence of projects as organizational structure dominates and challenges long term developments. This constitutes the framework in which the paper discusses three very different project examples from Hamburg, Liverpool and Vienna for closer analysis. Between preservation and management, arranging and staging curating can alternatively be understood as an epistemology producing new knowledge. By cross-referencing between the arts, where the critical discussion on curating is held, and urban planning and architecture, where curatorial practice is applied, the paper suggests strengthening the critical discourse on the relevance and use of cultural practices in urban studies.

The purpose of this study is to examine and elaborate on the citizen dialogue in relation to project Västlänken. To enable this purpose we completed six semi-structured qualitative interviews with relevant actors. In order to examine the empirical data gained from the interviews, the study based its analytical framework upon Sherry R. Arnstein's ladder of citizens participation. Apart from Arnstein's theory the study also presents two of the most established planning theories within the research field which are combined with the representative and deliberative democratic values. Through the material that we have gathered, the study can conclude that representative democracy has been a prominent factor when it comes to the citizen dialogue whilst deliberative democracy has played a smaller part. Furthermore we can determine that one of the steps deriving from Arnstein's participation theory has been salient.

Sustainable urban planning is becoming more and more important. Ecological sustainability holds greats opportunities for urban areas in order to avoid some of the consequences climate change might cause. In sustainable planning Grönytefaktorn (The Biotope Area Factor) is one important tool and one which Malmö Stad has used in order to increase sustainable planning in the city. Since the beginning of 2015, municipalities in Sweden are no longer required to use The Biotope Area Factor, which might threaten the development of e.g. green roofs. The aim of this study is to investigate how real estate companies experience their role as investors in sustainable planning. Planning is a political activity with multiple stakeholders and in order to try to understand the difficulties sustainable solutions face in this context, Planning theory and Theory of Planned Behavior have been used. The results show that the companies are not willing to invest in sustainable solutions like green roofs, unless the market demands it.

The Australian Federal government has well-defined guidelines for undertaking program evaluations. Advertising and Public Relations campaigns support program aims, and are subject to the same guidelines. However, an examination of actual practice in the Australian Federal government, as observed by the Office of Government Information and Advertising in Canberra, suggests that there are significant differences in the extent to which Public Relations campaigns, as opposed to advertising campaigns, are systematically evaluated. Evaluation theory, Public Relations theory, strategic planning theory, and public administration theory provide insights into methods of managing and reporting on communication campaigns designed to forward government objectives. A literature review and an assessment of existing models of Public Relations evaluation were undertaken, and a synthesis of several theoretical and practical approaches led to the construction of a model of Public Relations evaluation which could be applied to Australian government communication campaigns.

A common theme of discussion raised by contemporary scholars is the making of cities competitive internationally to become a city of world class, which is argued to be the main priority facing urban planning and policy makers in the twenty-first century. These redevelopment projects are justified through various ways, however, mainly that they will spearhead economic development and increase national income. This study explores the Kigamboni redevelopment project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It uncovers the vision and justification performed by the Government and it explores the tensions that emerged as a result of the lack of participation and transparency. When envisioning the future, the actors of the government pictures Kigamboni as very different from what it is today. It is argued that the urban visions of becoming modern are shaped without taking the different memories, stories and desires of the local residents of Kigamboni into consideration. In addition, the study illuminates the contestations by the residents, arisen in the context of the redevelopment project, with a main focus on a local organisation - the Kigamboni Committee. The community formed the Committee in order to reach an understanding of the project affecting them. The local association argues to represent the people of Kigamboni and aims to follow up on the project and undertake initiatives to highlight rights. However, the empirical findings reveals that it is questionable whether the Committee is actually representing the people of Kigamboni as they claim. The thesis further sheds lights on the importance to discuss the politics of social mobilisation.

Urban development planning efforts are challenged to enhance coevolving spatial and socioeconomic systems that exist and interact at multiple scales. While network and simulation sciences have created new tools and theories suitable for urban studies, models of development are not yet suitable for local and regional development planning. A case study of the City of Roanoke, Virginia, grounded network development theories of scaling, engagement, and collective perception function, as well as network forms. By advancing urban development network theory, frameworks for urban simulation like agent-based models take more coherent shape. This in turn better positions decision-making and planning practitioners to adapt, transform, or renew local network-oriented development systems, and conceptualize a framework for computational urban development planning for regions and localities. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to explore what knowledge dementia caregivers have about advance care planning (ACP), how they learn to execute formal advance directives (ADs) or have engaged in an informal ACP process, and how they understand their roles as decision makers for the patients. Factors that contribute to the completion of an ACP process such as demographic, psychosocial, and situational factors are identified. From the grounded theory data analysis, a theory emerged about how ACP is accomplished and used by caregivers. Findings reveal that caregivers understand ACP as having the power to shape the dying process for dementia patients. It is not just about executing formal written ADs but how caregivers exercise that power. Caregivers’ knowledge and beliefs are reflected in their behavior regarding ACP in both how they do the ACP process and how they use ACP. For the caregivers in this study, the process of ACP occurs along a trajectory from: years before dementia to dementia diagnosis to end stage and death. At each of these stages, actions taken by the caregivers and their motivation are identified. Three key features of the ACP process in all three stages are examined: conversations within the family and with trusted others, gaining knowledge of ACP, and keeping ACP documents. How caregivers use ACP is based on how they define their roles as decision makers for their patients by: accepting responsibility for making difficult decisions regarding treatment for the patients, using ACP as an effective tool to shape the dying process for their patients, and doing battle with health care professionals to honor patients’ wishes. This definition is shaped by the meaning caregivers give to ACP, how caregivers understand life sustaining measures, and caregivers’ knowledge of patients’ end-of-life wishes. This new theory, the Dementia Caregiver Advance Care Planning Theory, adds new knowledge as the first model specific to dementia caregivers and adds dimension and depth to the current existing ACP models by detailing an ACP process, demonstrating the impact of conversations on the process, and identifying both the most important influences and the primary relationship in the decision making process.

A constituição da idéia de meio ambiente urbano é aqui avaliada sob a perspectiva das concepções que, historicamente, tentam enquadrar as cidades em categorias biológicas, tais como “corpo", “organismo" e, contemporaneamente, “(ecos)sistema". Essa tendência de naturalização ou biologização das cidades é característica do pensamento social pelo menos desde o século XIX: seus antecedentes são certamente ainda mais remotos, mas as origens de seus aspectos contemporâneos mais característicos podem ser encontradas em meados do século XVIII. Este trabalho visa resgatar alguns dos aspectos mais importantes dessa história, pondo em questão a validade de tais categorias para compreensão e intervenção sobre a cidade real. Para tanto, o trabalho dedica-se a investigar os sentidos atribuídos à idéia de natureza e a conseqüente apreciação da agência humana, e da cidade em particular, feita por essas concepções. Qualifica-se o processo de naturalização como parte de um esforço mais amplo de negação ou disciplinamento do artifício (a ação humana) e do acaso (a ausência de causalidade ou finalidade) na constituição do mundo – negação esta que resultaria em um conjunto de categorias de estase para interpretação da realidade e, afinal, em apologia do status quo. Desde o sanitarismo do século XIX até a Ecologia do pós-2ª. Guerra Mundial, passando pelo caso particularmente controverso da Eugenia, as tentativas de biologização das cidades, tanto por parte das ciências biomédicas quanto do próprio Urbanismo em constituição, apontam para uma tendência de dominação pelo conhecimento técnico que permeia de forma recorrente a modernidade capitalista. Nela, tanto a “natureza" quanto os seres humanos comuns (não “escolhidos") são concebidos como recursos naturalmente passivos e sujeitados, incapazes de criar, cabendo-lhes apenas o papel de “resistir" ou “reagir", ou ainda serem “protegidos". Esse “paradigma da dominação" é que requer reconhecimento e enfrentamento, indicando a necessidade de politizar e historicizar a questão ambiental, principalmente em relação às cidades. / In this dissertation the formulation of a concept of ‘urban environment’ is based on the perspective of ideas which have historically attempted to understand cites in biological terms, such as “body", “organism" or more recently “eco-system". This tendency to ‘naturalize’ or conceive cities in biological terms has been a characteristic of social thinking especially since the 19th century. The roots of this tendency are certainly much more remote but this perspective did receive an important impulse from the mid-18th century ideas of the enlightenment. The following dissertation attempts to recuperate some of the more important aspects of this history, questioning the validity of this tendency for the comprehension of and intervention in contemporary cities. Because of this, the study is dedicated to the investigation of the various understandings attributed to the idea of nature with their peculiar appreciation of human agency and of the city. Qualifying this process of naturalization is seen as part of a wider preoccupation of negating or disciplining notions of ‘the artificial’ seen as the product of human agency, and of ‘chance’ when seen as the absence of causality or finality, in our constitution and interpretation of the world which in very many cases becomes an apology in favor of the ‘status quo’. Since the influence of ideas based on hygiene and sanitary conditions in the 19th century and the Darwinian twin conceptions of ecology and the controversial idea of eugenics (up to the mid 20th century) urban history has accepted the expanding role of biological metaphors. This has been expressive both in the biomedical sciences and also in the evolving science of urbanism. In many senses this has been part of the wider tendency towards domination by technical knowledge which is a recurrent feature of capitalist modernity. In this interpretation the dissertation attempts to show that ‘nature’, just as much as ordinary common people are conceived as resources, ‘naturally’ passive, without any capacity to create and with a mere capacity to ‘resist’, to ‘react’ or to ‘conform’ to their eventual ‘protection’. It is this academic paradigm of domination which needs to be recognized and confronted. In this sense the dissertation is an attempt to historically politicize the environmental question, especially in its urban dimension.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-04T18:22:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carlos Francisco Signorelli.pdf: 2904899 bytes, checksum: 7d3f4a49bc1efaf8f3fd16e433778eef (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-06-30 / The city will seek to demonstrate a cause and effect of modernity. The city is the space, while built and designed, the construction of a project, a vision of the world, built during the second millennium AD. The vision of the emerging world is embodied in modernity, that is, in essence, the freedom of man as a rational subject, which will target, the paradise on earth. But the city is also shaped by modernity, that is, it builds, or is shaped by capital, as its content. When the paradigm of modernity no longer provides answers to the advancement of social and historical forces, when no longer able to provide answers to new questions, when it goes away the credibility and faith in human rationality, he goes into crisis, the crisis also led the city itself And the world as the oikos of Man. Crisis not only ideological, but palpable, both in the de-structuring of the built-in possibility of extinction as the man himself. Built in space, urban development has become the capital of the arm as the concretization of a hegemonic project of class. The city, from town planning process, puts himself at the service of such a project. The other, the faceless masses, understood as the non-urban, as the non-legal, insist on doing this now not as object but as a guy who wants to build their own history. We therefore propose that the planning should leave its false neutrality and driving it to life, oikos, exceeding the individual and re-entering the community and its concrete and symbolic values. We must make a choice, and this just may be in the direction of the other s not. This will not only be an ideological choice, but necessary to the very continuity of life in the city. / A cidade, procuraremos demonstrar, ? causa e efeito da modernidade. A cidade ? o espa?o, ao mesmo tempo constru?do e pensado, da constru??o de um projeto, de uma vis?o de mundo, constru?da ao longo do segundo mil?nio da Era Crist?. A vis?o de mundo da burguesia nascente se consubstancia na modernidade, que ?, em ess?ncia, a liberdade do homem, como sujeito racional, que ter? como meta, o para?so na Terra. Mas tamb?m a cidade ? moldada pela modernidade, ou seja, ela se constr?i, ou ? modelada pelo capital, como o seu conte?do. Entretanto, no momento hist?rico que vivemos est? se dando, pretendemos mostrar, o esgotamento da modernidade. E quando o paradigma da modernidade n?o mais d? respostas ao avan?o das for?as sociais e hist?ricas, quando n?o mais consegue dar respostas ?s novas perguntas, quando se desfaz a credibilidade e a f? na racionalidade humana, ele entra em crise, levando tamb?m ? crise a pr?pria cidade, e o mundo como o oikos do homem. Crise n?o s? ideol?gica, mas palp?vel, tanto na desestrutura??o do espa?o constru?do, como na possibilidade da extin??o do pr?prio homem. No espa?o constru?do, o urbanismo tem se constitu?do como o bra?o do capital, como a concretiza??o de um projeto hegem?nico de classe. A cidade, a partir do processo urban?stico, coloca-se a servi?o de tal projeto. O outro, as massas sem rosto, entendidas como o n?o-urbano, como o n?o-legal, teimam em se fazer presente agora n?o mais como objeto, mas como sujeito que quer construir a pr?pria hist?ria. Propomos, pois, que se deva colocar o urbanismo no centro de um necess?rio debate. De nossa parte assumimos que o urbanismo se reveste de uma falsa neutralidade que deve ser eliminada, e direcionar-se ? vida, ao oikos, ultrapassando o indiv?duo e reentrando na coletividade e seus valores concretos e simb?licos. H? que se fazer uma op??o, e esta s? poder? se dar na dire??o do outro, do n?o. Esta n?o ser? apenas uma op??o ideol?gica, mas necess?ria para a pr?pria continuidade da vida na cidade.