No description available.

No description available.

The impact of road transport and road transport infrastructure on the environment is an important public issue in the United Kingdom today. Economists have suggested that the present Trunk Road appraisal process undervalues the environmental impact of road schemes because environmental impacts are not included in the monetary cost-benefit process, i.e. they are externalised. Furthermore, critics state that the present evaluation process is complicated by the number and type of qualitative and quantitative measures of environmental impact, this leads to confusion and non-standardisation in the decision-making process. In answer to these criticisms it has been suggested that monetary values of environmental impacts should be incorporated into the Trunk Road appraisal process, i.e. placing environmental benefits or losses into the cost-benefit framework and hence simplifying the decision-making process. This research identified the present methods of monetary valuation, and showed that these have insufficient institutional or public acceptability to be used for the purpose of monetary valuation in this case. This research therefore examined a new methodology for placing values on environmental impacts. i.e. Stated Preference (SP) techniques. SP determines implicit valuations by asking people to trade-off between a number of different choice situations. SP techniques are widely used throughout the transport industry for placing monetary values on factors such as journey time and ride quality. The research was successful in gaining statistically significant monetary values for Road Safety and Air Quality and respondents were able to understand the SP experiments and to trade logically between choice scenarios. However, the research identified that particular care is required when measuring and representing environmental attributes and attribute levels to respondents, as these impact on the valuations gained. Further research is also required to define the reasons for significant variation within the response data. The reasons for this variation need to be investigated further so that significant valuations can be obtained that relate to the whole population.

This thesis proposes five conceptual headings through which to perceive the city. They are: City as History, Spectacle, A Work of Art, Corporate Image, and Home. Each heading is a complete concept on one level and the part of a greater concept on another. A number of celebrity cities (e.g. London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, etc.) are considered at each of the headings in turn. A city is the spatial embodiment of memory and modernity. Memory and modernity are multi-facaded within a totality. Each of the five conceptions reflects one facade and their juxtaposition provides meanings to each other. A good city can embrace parts of the five conceptions; whereas an ideal city must achieve an equilibrium of them all. The second part of the thesis, The Phenomenology of A City, examines the urban experience and consciousness of citizens, through the gaze of four representational figures of the modern city (the shopper, flaneur, stranger, and transgressor). Finally, the theories were applied to an exceptional modern city, Hong Kong, in which the identity and image of the city is evaluated and explored. It is worth noting that this thesis, if not the first, will be one of the few to analyse the city of Hong Kong from an aesthetic and historical dimension. The modern city is too gigantic and erratic to grasp completely. This thesis, however, approaches it from these several historical and aesthetic viewpoints. It seeks to capture the urban experience of ordinary people with a poetic lens, and through which one glimpses what is it to experience (a very problematic word in this thesis) the modern city.

Community involvement is nowadays commonly recognised as an integral part of any successful environmental planning, development and regeneration process. Focusing on a selection of park restoration projects grant-aided by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in 1997 under the Urban Parks Programme (UPP), this research aimed primarily to investigate the involvement of local communities in the process of regenerating run-down historic urban parks. The study adopted a triangulation methodology which combined both quantitative and qualitative research approaches and employed multiple data-collecting techniques including a postal questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and on-site park user surveys. The results of the postal questionnaire survey reveal that park restoration partnerships between local authorities, private sector, voluntary organisations and local community-based groups can commonly be observed in many of the historic urban park restoration projects funded by the HLF under the UPP. Local authorities in general played the leading role in forming and running park restoration partnerships and they were the major contributors to the matched funding and the required technical support for the restoration projects. The involvement of friends groups and other local organisations in park restoration partnerships was relatively moderate, but the case studies of this research demonstrate that friends groups and other local organisations can have a more substantial influence on the overall development of the restoration project when the park restoration partnership is formally established. The study has found that local communities have been extensively involved in the restoration process of historic urban parks. The two most significant objectives of engaging local communities in regenerating run-down historic urban parks are to generate a sense of ownership of the restoration project and its outcome and to better reflect local needs. Local communities tend to be more involved at early stages of the restoration project than at later stages. The methods that have been commonly used to involve local communities are mainly for information giving and consultation. The seven in-depth case studies reveal that 'Friends of Parks' groups are in general the focus of community involvement in the UPP funded park restoration projects. 'Friends of Parks' groups can act as pressure groups, guardians and/or supporters of the park and to be the local community's voice. They can make considerable contributions to the regeneration of their local parks, mainly in the areas of publicity, park events and activities, fund raising, public consultation, project monitoring, involving school children, and the ongoing management of the restored park. The most important contributory factor to effective community involvement is a good relationship between the local authority and the 'Friends of Parks' groups, which can be achieved mainly by establishing friends groups' trust in the local authority's commitment to caring for urban parks and taking on board the friends groups' views and concerns. Project managers and other practitioners engaged in involving local communities in park restoration processes as well as executive members of 'Friends of Parks' groups are all required to have good communication skills in order to achieve effective community involvement.

A new phase of local planning began in the 1970s in the major English cities, as redevelopment of older residential areas began to give way to rehabilitation. This phase has not been intensively studied in the planning literature. This study seeks to assess the contribution of local planning to the processes of renewal in these inner residential areas, with a special interest in arrangements which may give residents of these areas better control over the outcomes. The research examines the factors which conditioned the approach to local planning in each city and each neighbourhood, with case studies of two neighbourhoods in Leeds and two in Manchester. At the citywide level Manchester council's form of Labour politics is seen as generally discouraging the use of local planning frameworks, with the retention of a more centralised council administration. Analysis of the joint operation of a wide range of factors is emphasised as necessary to understand the kinds of local planning adopted and the effects these had. In particular the variation present within each neighbourhood and in each case or episode is seen as significant in influencing local planning processes and outcomes. After 1974 there was less likelihood of even informal area frameworks being used, and greater tendencies towards ad hoc planning decisions on individual cases. It is concluded that extensive changes are needed to make local planning more responsive: changes particularly in the overall resourcing and programming context in which local planning operates, and in the procedures used within planning, above all those for involving local interests and in the way municipal administration is organised. The housing renewal system introduced in 1990 (with Renewal Areas) might, if suitably applied, help to facilitate such a form of more responsive local planning.

No description available.

The main purpose of this research is to develop a set of econometric Air-Rail competition models which are sufficiently sensitive to measure the effects upon demand of policy decisions, with regard to such variables as frequency of services and fares. Existing Modal Competition Models have, rather uncritically, applied Multiple Regression analysis in considering only one aspect of the market, namely the demand for travel, ignoring therefore the effects of the supply upon the demand. The emergence of the so called "Simultaneous Equations Bias", due to the two-way dependency between the demand and the level of service factor expressing the supply, renders the application of the 015 (Ordinary Least Squares) inappropriate, and hence, yields biased, inconsistent, and inefficient OLS coefficients. The models, developed in this study, depart from all existing Modal Competition Models, and overcome some of their drawbacks. They are formulated as Multi-equation Supply/Demand Modal Competition Models. They introduce the frequency of services variable not only in the demand, but also in the supply equation expressing the level of supply in response to changes in other variables. In order to derive unbiased, more conSistent, and more efficient coefficients, sophisticated statistical techniques, such as 2315 and JSLS (Two-Stage Least Squares and Three-Stage Least Squares) • are applied as a means of calibration. The elasticities obtained are consistent with the Supply and demand Microeconomic Theory. The frequency of services appears as the most powerful explanatory variable in Air demand; whereas fare and income are the most powerful variables in Rail demand equation. This leads to the conclusion that Air mode is mainly higher income groups and/or business oriented market; and Rail mode lower income groups and/or personal oriented market. Furthermore, Air and Rail are competing on a fare basis in short routes; while they do not show close substitutes for each other in longer ones. The high significance of the frequency of services, in Air demand, outlines its importance as a factor influencing the demand, and therefore, provides the Airlines management with the capability of improving the demand by acting upon the endogenous factor. This is of great interest in the scheduling fleet process. Similarly, the significance of Rail fare variable offers the Railways management the possibility of acting upon the demand through this controlable variable, for an efficient pricing policy. Rail journey time elasticities, derived from these models, are very close to the elasticities assumed by British Railways Board, in their Passenger Traffic Model, 1980. The statistical results indicate that the elasticities derived are useful for both analysis and forecasting purposes.

The effectiveness of the strategies employed by the Urban Wildlife Group (a voluntary conservation organisation) to provide and manage three urban nature parks has been evaluated, using a multiple methods methodology. Where the level of community interest and commitment to a project is high, the utilisation of the community nature park strategy (to maximise benefits to UWG and the community) is warranted. Where the level of interest and commitment of the local community is low, a strategy designed to encourage limited involvement of the community is most effective and efficient. The campaign strategy, whereby the community and UWG take direct action to oppose a threat of undesirable development on a nature park, is assessed to be a sub-strategy, rather than a strategy in its own right. Questionnaire surveys and observations studies have revealed that urban people appreciate and indeed demand access to nature parks in urban areas, which have similar amenity value to that provided by countryside recreation sites. Urban nature parks are valued for their natural character, natural features (trees, wild flowers) peace and quiet, wildlife and openness. People use these sites for a mixture of informal and mainly passive activities, such as walking and dog walking. They appear to be of particular value to children for physical and imaginative play. The exact input of time and resources that UWG has committed to the projects has depended on the level of input of the local authority. The evidence indicates that the necessary technical expertise needed to produce and manage urban nature parks, using a user-oriented approach is not adequately provided by local authorities. The methods used in this research are presented as an `evaluation kit' that may be used by practitioners and researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of a wide range of different open spaces and the strategies employed to provide and manage them.

Arrangements within the UK to enhance recreational opportunities in the countryside are currently implemented in a somewhat <I>ad hoc</I> manner. The result of this is that current arrangements for recreation provision may be ineffective in terms of institutional arrangements, efficiency of spending on access enhancement and equity of benefit distribution. It is these issues which are addressed in this thesis. To analyse the effectiveness of recreation provision, the current research develops and applies a number of economic and political science techniques to a case study of Grampian Region, Scotland. First, the research evaluates the economic effectiveness of current arrangements for recreation provision and identifies where additional investment may be required. It achieves this by evaluating the costs and benefits associated with recreation improvements in Grampian Region and analyses these using a cost-benefit framework. The economic benefits accrued from recreational enhancements are measured using the Contingent Valuation method, whereas the costs are elicited from a survey of the actual expenditures of countryside organisations. The findings from this analysis allow the identification of those improvements to recreation opportunities which generate the greatest gains in social welfare. In turn, the effectiveness of current arrangements is further analysed in terms of the distribution of benefits across individuals and locations. The second component of the research addresses the adequacy of current provision using political science methodologies to the analysis of the roles and responsibilities of the public and voluntary sector organisations involved in recreation provision. The application of political science models to interpret the processes involved in recreation decision-making provided clarity to the nature of the interactions between countryside organisations. The application of both economic and political science methodologies ensures a theoretical diverse and policy relevant analysis of current recreation provision. The combination of both approaches results in comprehensive review of priorities for improvement to recreation policy.