published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Today, we spend various types of spaces in a day. It would be private spaces or public spaces. Public spaces have more variety function than private one. One type is for acting with public on purpose which is represented parks, public transportations, and libraries. The other is kind of waiting area, that is taken to go any public space. My project is about the creation of a familiar experience and mood in public spaces in order to enable people to feel more comfortable in unfamiliar public environments. I focus my explorations on waiting areas, like in airports or train stations, where being exposed to unfamiliar space could cause aggravation or even distress while one has to spend time in these unfamiliar spaces.  I try to transfer home feeling, one of the most private spaces, to the public spaces, by using sense of sight, hear, and smell, determinant of atmospheres in certain spaces. Among the sense, I more investigate light and shadows which are related with sense of sight. Unlike common used method in interior design, changing construction, colours, and so on, I try to make combination of real and unreal with light and shadows in one space.

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Urban renewal in Hong Kong has a long history. However, the difficulties in land acquisition and rehousing had made most of the Government's urban renewal attempts unsuccessful. Moreover, urban renewal projects often caused citizen protest resulting in years of negotiations between the Government and the affected communities. On the other hand, piecemeal urban redevelopment by individual developers has always resulted in an undesirable "pencil" urban pattern which make long term comprehensive redevelopment more difficult. The Land Development Corporation (LDC) was established in 1988 to promote and facilitate urban renewal by means of utilisation of resources in the private sector (i.e. public-private partnership approach). This dissertation conceptualises that the fundamental causes of implementation problems for LDC's urban redevelopment projects in Hong Kong relate to the Mackintosh's concept of "partnership". Problems and issues arise when there are inequalities occur in the distribution of power among partners in urban renewal partnerships. The LDC's urban redevelopment projects without addressing this critical factor would eventually fail. With the increasing accountability to the urban planning processes, the Hong Kong Government can no longer ignore the significance of "community involvement" in urban renewal. The LDC's partnerships involve different parties such as property owners, private developers and different user categories as well as the Government. Their interaction may lead to conflictual interests through three major issues of partnerships: motivation of partnership, distribution of cost and benefits among the partners and the power relations between the public and private sectors in deal making. It has been possible to address these dilemmas using urban regime theory, the approach underlying this research. In this respect, two case studies of the redevelopment partnership projects examine the difficulties and the role of the LDC in promoting and facilitating urban renewal. In particular this dissertation is revealed that the popularity of the partnership approach faded away as quickly as it had become popular. The most important explanation is that under the existing Land Development Corporation Ordinance, the Hong Kong Government used the concept as an instrument to solve the financial problems in urban redevelopment processes. The Government was not aware of the social dimension of partnership. The concept can be applied in a successful way only if the relationship with private developers and affected residents is redefined. To address the LDC's partnership problems in a comprehensive way, a fundamental redefinition of the existing relationship between different stakeholders is proposed. Firstly, has to be based on the concept of the "Government-led" approach which requires reducing limitations in the current's Land Development Corporation Ordinance, and the successful of urban redevelopment could only be achieved through Government intervention. Secondly, a new Urban Renewal Authority (URA) with much wider jurisdiction, power and resource base than the existing the Land Development Corporation is recommended Thirdly, it is recommended that urban redevelopment must embrace a wider community agenda. This needs to relate physical redevelopment in a more equitable way towards wider economic, social and community concerns. Finally, the dissertation is concluded that the inclusion of community participation in administrative and legislative processes will definitely help to balance power amongst Government, the Land Development Corporation, private developers, and the affected residents in urban redevelopment process.

A research report submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree Master of Arts in Anthropology March 2016 / This research report explores how private security is materially assembled in suburban Johannesburg. Based on ethnographic fieldwork within a private security company operating across the northern suburbs of Greater Johannesburg, it examines how the materiality of security is intimately intertwined with shaping the socio-spatial terrain of the city. Using a new materialist “assemblage” theory proposed by Jane Bennett, it contends although the materials of private security are designed to protect and exclude, they often work rather differently on the ground, resulting in strange new ways of seeing, moving, and relating in the city.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Engineering, May 2016 / The South African Private Equity Industry collects billions of Rands from investors locally and abroad and utilises this cash to purchase controlling shares in companies operating within Africa. Within 5 to 10 years of purchase, these companies are purposefully altered, upgraded and moulded prior to resale. Each Private Equity firm has different growth targets, but the generally expected result should be a multiplication of the funds invested over that time. The mechanism by which these firms accomplish such a result was of strategic importance for business people whom wish to decode the route to success and apply the same actions in their organisations, or those they wish to evaluate for purchase. This research aims to bridge a particular aspect of this process by acknowledging that the choice of company to purchase was critical to the overall ability to grow and dispose of the company in the allotted timeframe. In the run up to purchasing a company, Private Equity will contract external firms to delve into a potential Target Firm. These Service Firms will report into the Private Equity client on particular aspects of operations, finance and legality that would affect future running and risk profiles. These reports would inform the buying decision, potential pricing structures and legalities of ownership transfer right up to the point of sale. The evaluation stages are graphically modelled as three distinct but sequential Phases at the end of an extensive literature review. This Conceptual Model is tested against the results of a series of semistructured interviews held with industry experts. The opinions of local Private Equity and Service Firm respondents are sorted, refined and presented as a more detailed Modified Model at the end of the report. It was found that through substantial refinement of disconnected data, the available literature largely agreed with expert opinion in practice. The research concludes that the proposed evaluation Models constitute a useful starting platform from which to conduct future research into specific aspects of Private Equity activity. / MT2016