Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2016. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 110-115). / In late 2013, a severe drought hit the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city and main economic center, and precipitated a water supply crisis. As water availability became increasingly strained during 2014, myriad collective action efforts by civil society actors sprung up in the city. My thesis explores this social mobilization around Sao Paulo's supply crisis as a window into water politics and governance when water supply problems and solutions are unclear but have important political and service repercussions for different stakeholders. Two interrelated questions guided the research: How and why did particular forms of social mobilization around the water supply crisis emerge and develop? How did civil society actors transform their problem definitions into action strategies? I answer these questions by tracing the mobilization process of two broad-based civil society coalitions that emerged in the context of the crisis: the Alliance for Water (Alianca pela Agua) and the Collective for Water Struggle (Coletivo de Luta pela Agua). This analysis helps uncover underlying value disputes shaping how different actors framed problems and opportunities during the crisis. At the same time, it sheds light on the ways in which maintaining flexible problem frames and fluid relationships with one another allowed the two coalitions to reach beyond ideological stances and traditional strategies. Through fluid mobilization dynamics, they were able to either carve or take advantage of spaces for participation while still advancing particular organizational goals. While it is not clear what the long-term outcomes of mobilization will be, I argue that the efforts of both coalitions served to amplify different civil society voices, facilitate knowledge sharing about water issues, and open up channels for greater participation in water governance. / by Isadora Araujo Cruxen. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2007. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-133). / This thesis explores the link between theories of accountability and the rights-based approach in nongovernmental humanitarian and development organizations. It suggests that the rights-based approach (RBA) necessitates a commitment to accountability to the beneficiaries of NGO work. It suggests how the RBA might best incorporate a duty to strengthen accountability to beneficiaries, referred to as "downward accountability." It investigates Oxfam America as a case study and assesses whether Oxfam's RBA meets criteria for strengthening downward accountability and whether this theoretical link is feasible. Overall, this research reveals that Oxfam America literature and staff do not consistently cite a duty to downward accountability as a component of the Oxfam RBA. However, in some cases a duty to downward accountability is implicitly linked to the RBA. Unanticipated findings included that (1) the RBA is vague in terms of how it is operationalized; (2) situational constraints influence the degree to which a project can adopt a rights-based approach; (3) staff expressed confusion about how to implement the RBA; (5) staff seemed motivated to describe projects as being in line with the rights-based approach, even when connection to the RBA was tenuous. / (cont.) I suggest that identified RBA impacts be reframed as guiding questions in order to direct the development, implementation, and evaluation of projects. These guiding questions should explicitly identify NGOs as duty-bearers in relation to downward accountability. I build on Rand & Watson's (2007) depiction of a rights-based continuum and suggest that projects can be actively moved along this continuum, progressing from traditional to more rights-based. I suggest that this is true as well for downward accountability, and outline how guiding questions can help frame project evaluation in order to progressively strengthen downward accountability. Suggestions of areas for further inquiry include: (1) Beneficiaries' perceptions of accountability mechanisms and the rights-based approach. (2) Whether an articulated duty to downward accountability would create incentives to adhere to this duty. (3) Longitudinal studies examining whether projects do tend to become more rights-based and/or more accountable to beneficiaries over time, and if so what are the factors that enable this progression. / by Amber S. Bradley. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-74). / by José Rafael Velásquez Betancourt. / M.S.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55). / Current models of inner city economic development overlook the social function of businesses. These models when applied to the neighborhood level are limited by the fact businesses do not serve a solely economic function. If economic development practitioners are concerned about alleviating poverty in inner cities, then practitioners should include an assessment of the social functions of business as well as the economic functions. As the literature and empirical findings show, businesses help to build social capital in the community through their relationships with customers and other organizations both inside and outside the neighborhood. Social capital generation of small businesses is a necessary but not sufficient condition for poverty alleviation. Social capital needs to be channeled towards a collective goal of community change or poverty alleviation. Community building organizations like the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative have created a resident led process and mechanism for building social capital towards the goal of enhanced quality of life in the neighborhood. Business development practitioners interested in poverty alleviation strategies can draw upon these community-building institutions to do what I refer to as "holistic development" in the neighborhood. This is a case study of how a neighborhood planning organization view businesses in the context of the community building activities. This thesis attempts to understand the possibilities of small businesses as community-building institutions. / by April Ann Veneracion. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2012. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-145). / Blight has plagued Philadelphia for the better part of a century, though the understanding of blight has changed dramatically over time. Originally used to describe neighborhood overcrowding, the term retained its currency even as once-overcrowded neighborhoods emptied out in the decades after World War II. The agenda of eradicating blight in its various forms has driven successive waves of redevelopment policy since the 1940s, and yet the problem persists to an astonishing degree in neighborhoods throughout the City. The "image" as a transformative planning tool is another concept with sustained significance in Philadelphia. This thesis defines an image as the vehicle for communicating a compelling idea about urban form that shapes broader understandings of place, and that serves as a catalyst of, and a framework for, individual and collective action. The importance of an image is best captured in longtime Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission (1949- 70) Edmund Bacon's declaration that "it is the image, not the planner, which has the power." Admittedly a slippery concept, the presence or absence of a strong image has consistently circumscribed the public reception and subsequent implementation of Philadelphia's redevelopment strategies. This thesis is an examination of Philadelphia's recent history of redevelopment through the dual lenses of blight and image. Noting a repeated vacillation between neighborhood-scaled design strategies and abstracted citywide analysis in the mid- and late-twentieth century, it posits the need for a flexible image, conceived at an intermediate scale. / by Jonah Daniel Stern. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-133). / The suburban terminus station dedicates large amounts of land for parking in order to cater to its driving riders, and causes a trade-off tension between attracting ridership through providing park-and-rides and building transit-oriented development (TOD) within station areas. I focus my research on the Millbrae Intermodal Station, a suburban terminus station in the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, which is still waiting for a large amount of TOD to occur in its station area. The predominant research question for this thesis is: What are the challenges of creating TOD at suburban terminus stations and how can mixed use, highdensity, and human-scaled environments be better facilitated to become a reality? To answer this question, I took a mixed methods approach that included (1) evaluating ridership and parking supply data of all BART stations, (2) analyzing the primary and contextual case studies by comparing TOD plan documents to the current build-out reality of each station's station area, (3) conducting focused interviews with experts to gain insight on the barriers to implementing TOD at the Millbrae Station, and (4) developing a design proposition of how the Millbrae Station Area could engage alternative uses on its station parking lots. For all of the evaluated stations, parcels immediately approximate to the station had more difficulty realizing TOD than parcels further away from the station. Issues that surfaced as barriers to TOD included weak market conditions, land assemblage, construction costs, parking replacement standards, existing parcel ownership, and existing land use. In addition, TOD plans at more mature stations took an extensive period of time to become realized. To demonstrate how this inevitable waiting period could be more productive, I conclude by proposing design interventions and a strategy for how Millbrae, in the meantime, could apply and experiment with temporary flexible uses on its station parking lots. / by Janet Wei Shih. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1987. / Bibliography: leaves 76-77. / by John Anthony Peters Jr. / M.C.P.

Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 103-110). / This thesis proposes design principles and a program for site of the Carrie Blast Furnace Plant, a National Historic Landmark in Pittsburgh's Monongahela Valley. The Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County intends to redevelop this 168-acre former industrial site in the near future. In anticipation of this regionally important redevelopment project, this thesis considers the philosophical commitments of historic preservation, weighs economic growth imperatives, explores how the Carrie Furnaces could be made to cultivate public memory of industrialism, and examines competing visions of significance, authenticity, and interpretation of heritage sites, particularly in the context of deindustrialization. Four cases studies of internationally renowned projects demonstrate best practices in the redevelopment of historic blast furnace plants, ironworks, steelworks, and collieries. The Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park and Zollverein Park in Germany, the Belval City of Science project in Luxembourg, and the Parque Fundidora in Mexico all provide lessons in the preservation and adaptive reuse of derelict industrial infrastructure. Though their contexts differ, these four cases offer a common set of best practices to guide the Carrie Furnaces project. First, through designs and programs, these projects interpret the stories of industrial heritage sites for contemporary audiences, thereby cultivating public memory. Second, these projects' adaptive reuse of historic structures and spaces creates new, contemporary relationships between the sites and their various public audiences. This, as well as the fact that the designs are inspired by site-specific characteristics and are decidedly of their places and times, imparts authenticity. Third, these projects promote local economic revitalization through mixed-use development that engages broad constituencies. Finally, the projects use elements that pay homage to the industrial forms, materials, and culture that characterize their places. This paper's proposed development program and design for the Carrie Furnaces site preserves the site's "ethos of industry" through a 21st century manufacturing and tourism program that interprets the Carrie Blast Furnace Plant as a site of historic, vertically-integrated iron and steel production for the contemporary public consciousness. This program also promotes multi-sectoral economic growth, reconnects ailing nearby communities to the site, and conserves the material and cultural aesthetics of steel production, labor, thrift, and enterprise that made industrial Pittsburgh the center of American heavy manufacturing. / by Sunny Menozzi. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-87). / To what extent does the opposition to planned demolition of New Orleans' public housing engage leadership and participation across race and class lines? In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) announced plans to demolish 5,000 of the city's 7,000 public housing units. On the surface a diverse array of activists oppose the plan; however, it is unclear how these anti-demolition forces organize themselves, what their objectives are beyond the near term, and whether they empower politically marginalized public housing residents. This thesis addresses those issues, and more broadly examines the challenges of participatory planning and decision making in a post-disaster context. I use a case study approach centered on interviews with key informants and a survey of key media coverage. I draw on a scholarly literature to ground my assessment in models of "empowered participation." First, to frame my investigation in New Orleans' distant and recent past, I explore the city's development history, the growth of public housing, and the post-Katrina struggle to save threatened units. This discussion explains some of the pre- and post-storm relationships between public housing and social stratification. Second, using informant interviews and media accounts, I analyze the current anti-demolition effort. Rather than a unitary movement, I find three coalitions intersecting in their mutual opposition to the demolition plans but not collaborating with each other; I identify a set of push/pull factors that hold the coalitions together internally but divide them externally from one another; and I find that despite appearances, leadership and decision making power are allocated along race and class lines that exclude residents from the debate. / (cont.) Third, I identify four reasons for residents' absence from the activism and its leadership: residents remain largely absent physically from the city, they have more immediate concerns than public housing advocacy, and they hold a variety of perspectives on the demolition issue, and the opposition effort is not structured to facilitate their participation. For now at least, the opposition to public housing demolition does not engage leadership and participation across race and class lines to include residents. But how much participation should we expect? I conclude by comparing the enormous and unusual constraints of the post-disaster setting to examples from the literature on participatory planning and decision-making and the literature on public housing activism and resident-led struggles. Ultimately I find that anti-demolition advocates currently fail to engage diverse perspectives and leadership, but also that any meaningful measure must evaluate not only actions but context and time as well. / by Rachel Meredith Wilch. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-113). / by Charles Langenthal Adams. / M.C.P.