Thesis (M.U.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [72-74]) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

That imaginative literature can be used as a data source for geographical analysis and understanding of place seems a reasonable (and potentially rewarding) possibility, based as it is on the premise that art mirrors life. However the mode in which — and the extent to which — literature reflects the society that engenders it must be addressed and clarified. Geographers seem principally to have engaged literature for its capacity to describe landscape and render a 'sense of place,' or to depict individual experience of place. These approaches assume that literature presents a simple, straightforward, representative reflection of either reality or the experience of reality and geographers have too often neglected to specify the links that they assume between literature and geography. Some writers have however suggested more comprehensive approaches to geographical analysis of literary data and others have theoretically addressed the issue of analogical representation in everyday life, in literature and in geographical analysis. This thesis is concerned with urban imagery as it can symbolically reveal the perceptual framework through which we order and understand our world. It examines the urban imagery that permeates our fiction and that can reveal how we fundamentally view our cities as living places. Thus the focus is on imagery and symbolic depiction, rather than realistic depiction of place or experience; with the application of an ordering framework rather than intuitive interpretation of literary data; with an explicit mode of analysis that defines the links it posits between art and society. It is fundamentally concerned with the perception of urban place as it is imaginatively rendered. A preliminary survey of Canadian urban novels of the past two decades revealed two points that became the nexus of this analysis. First, the image of the city is a remarkably consistent one — and it is remarkable as well for its negative emphasis. The city is overwhelmingly characterized as a menacing presence, a landscape defined by incoherence and disorder, provoking a sense of unease and vulnerability. Second, it became apparent that a framework would be necessary to organize and systematize the urban imagery, to reveal pattern in the amorphous mass of data, and to achieve more than a mere listing or cataloging of images. Further, a definition of the relationship between art and its social context must precede and guide any probing of literature for data. The concept of garrison mentality, borrowed from Northrop Frye and the field of literary criticism, provided the basis from which to develop such a framework. The linked themes of garrison and wilderness proved a comprehensive schema within which to analyze image and reaction in the urban novels. The image of city as wilderness that pervades these works is summarized and is illustrated by examples from urban anthologies; the three types of garrison provoked by this threatening fictive environment are detailed with reference to representative novels. The literary material, organized in this way, strongly suggests themes current in the work of various urban and social theorists. Such parallels serve to substantiate the hypothesis that image and reaction in fiction correlate closely with perception and behaviour in the everyday world. This suggests that literary symbolism is a valid way to explore our elemental modes of perception and frames of reference. It also raises further questions of the role of the interpreter — creative writer or social scientist— in promulgating a perspective, and of why a particular society gives rise to a particular vision of itself. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

The city of Suzhou boasts a history that begins in 514 B.C. The development of this city's urban form in the imperial era (221 B.C.-A.D. 1911) is regarded as a continuation of its construction as the state capital of Wu in the sixth century B.C. This thesis presents a study of two aspects of the history of this very important city. It deals firstly with the cosmological symbolism of the earliest city as systematised by authors of mainly Eastern Han (A.D. 25-220) documents to express the historical struggle for survival between Wu and the state of Yue, and secondly, with how the city of Suzhou, as a physical structure, developed both in reality and in theory in the subsequent two millennia. The main purpose of the study is not to produce a comprehensive historiography of this city. Instead, by taking Suzhou as a specific case, it aims at addressing a number of important characteristics of city building and development in pre-modern China, upon which an appropriate approach to studies of the traditional Chinese cities can be based. Two ideas have informed this study. The first is that the city was given form not only by the practices and ideas that derived from its social, economic, and political circumstances, but also by a set of changing values and beliefs that were an integral part of a world view - a characteristic way of both looking at and shaping the world. The pragmatic examination of the city in its various contexts is therefore frequently accompanied by an inquiry into the conceptual realms of the Chinese; and, for the purpose of this study, the way in which the city was perceived by the Chinese in history is taken as no less important than what the city really looked like. The second idea is that cities in pre-modern China were profoundly differentiated in space and time, and no one ideal construct can suffice to explain their varied and complex urban histories. On the other hand, it has been taken in this thesis as axiomatic that common elements existed in these cities so that they were culturally Chinese. Thus, Suzhou is treated as a Chinese city in the sense that it was firmly embedded in the urban context of pre-modern China. This study begins with a description of the historic and cultural background against which Suzhou rose and declined. The main body of the thesis is composed of three parts. First, it demonstrates in what specific way the city was believed to have been built as a cosmic centre, as perceived by Eastern Han scholars. This is a symbolic theme that may have combined elements drawn from the local traditions and the culture of Central China at the time of the building, involving the cosmological synthesis of the Han. It later came to be viewed as a source of historical authority and continued to inform the city's further development. Second, since a fundamental change in the nature of China's city system occurred from the Qin (221-206 B.C.) unification on, the thesis discusses a number of general, disputable issues concerning city building and development in the imperial era. These issues arise from three areas, namely the nature of regional and local cities, the transformation of urban space in time, and the urban-rural relationship. This part provides a larger historic and theoretical context of urban development, in which the investigation of the transformation of the city of Suzhou is placed The third part concentrates on the development of Suzhou in the imperial era, especially from the late ninth century on, when its important growth started. A number of issues are discussed in this part. It demonstrates that the form and size of the city, physically defined by the city walls that had been reconstructed many times, remained basically unchanged at least from 1229 throughout subsequent history, whereas remarkable urban expansion during the late imperial period was not confined by the city walls. It illustrates that the network of city canals functioned as a framework for the spatial organisation of city structures on the one hand, and that its partial decay and the efforts to maintain it in the first half of the Qing period (1644-1911), reflect the enormous economic and demographic pressure on the existing water system on the other. This part shows how the geometrical centre of the city was demoted from being the location of the prefectural offices to a state of dereliction, and how urban space was thereafter transformed into three major districts. It also shows how the form of public urban space was organised, and suggests that the distinctiveness of a few types of buildings in the city was essentially associated with the city walls or wall-like structures, whereas the lack of discernible difference between the forms and styles of Chinese urban and rural buildings was determined by an absence of formal bond between building types and social institutions in the tradition of Chinese architecture. Finally, this part of the thesis describes the manners in which fengshui ideas operated in urban construction. It is argued that the application of fengshui to the city was characteristic of retrospective interpretation at urban level and was probably influential on the physical outcome of building activities at the level of local corporate groups; more complex and volatile situations are likely to have affected the construction projects that fell between these two levels. Some of these features of the city were particular to its own historic development, while others were directly or indirectly determined by, and at the same time, reflected, the factors characteristic of China's urban history in general, such as the nature and traditional Chinese concept of cities, the role of the imperial government, the symbolic meanings of the city walls, and the distinctive urban-rural relationship.

published_or_final_version / Geography and Geology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

No description available.

No description available.

This study evaluates, by means of face to face interviews and a postal survey, aspects of the Market Towns Initiative (MTI), the Beacon Towns Programme (BTP), and related programmes of community-led work, the majority of which arose from the British Government’s Rural White Paper of 2000. Particular emphasis is placed on: participants’ experiences, achievements and opinions about the programmes; their understanding of rural poverty; the extent to which they thought that the programmes should have had poverty alleviation as an aim, and to which they believed that the programmes had helped to identify and address rural poverty. A review of the literature relating to rural policy reveals that political interest (and, therefore, policymakers’ interest) in the functions of England’s country – “market” - towns, and their place in the settlement hierarchy, has waxed and waned since the Second World War. During this period the nature of government, in particular the balance between the various tiers, has tilted in favour of central government. Consequently, the powers available to County and District/Borough Councils, if not Town/Parish Councils, have reduced. Central government has increasingly looked to partnerships formed from public, voluntary, and private sector organizations to implement policy. It is governance, therefore, rather than government, that has grown in importance in recent years. The MTI/BT programmes were both designed for implementation by broad-based partnerships of professionals and volunteers. The literature also reveals that the post-war period has seen research into poverty become increasingly nuanced and sophisticated, with definitions moving away from the relatively simple to understand (eg lack of money) to more complicated notions of disadvantage, deprivation, and social exclusion. The factors that affect rural poverty have, since the 1970s, been remarkably constant (eg access to services, affordable housing, low income self-employment). The problems of rural poverty have not been solved. It is argued, based on the results of the data acquired from this research, that community-led development programmes such as the MTI/BTP, have the potential to inform the development of policy and practice relating to community-led development and poverty alleviation, to add to the body of knowledge about rural poverty, and to improve the overall understanding of the functions of England’s small towns. Despite the potential of partnerships to effect change, the important role of local authorities as democratically accountable organizations, and contributors to partnerships’ success and effectiveness, is noted.