Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 84-94). / In Japan, recent changes in socio-economic and political structures -- decreasing tax revenue, declining communication among community members, and privatization of public services-- have influenced existing maintenance systems initiated by the public sector. In this study, I examine maintenance systems of green spaces, identify the limits and possibilities of these practices, and conduct a literature review of US and UK cases to obtain some ideas for future practices in Japan. The current Japanese practices aim to utilize the resources which had not been fully integrated with existing maintenance systems, such as private corporations and community and volunteer groups. The case studies clarified three keys for making these practices sustainable: long-term strategies, self-sustained volunteer and community activities, and multiple funding streams. In the circumstance where the public sector suffers long-lasting financial hardship, these practices need to be developed further. To apply a model of green space maintenance in one country to other countries is not easy because cultural, social and political differences have significant impacts. Both in the UK and the US practices show the importance and difficulties of approaching multiple and sustainable funding streams. However, despite the differences of backgrounds, especially of donation culture, the approaches found in the US practices -- public and private partnerships for creating long-term strategy, helping community activities become self-sustained, developing public outreach-- would help Japanese to further its efforts to establish a sustainable system for green space maintenance. / by Wataru Nomura. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references. / Conventional wisdom in the water and sanitation sector holds that it is difficult to make simultaneous headway towards both cost recovery and serving the poor. The case of Durban, South Africa, is often held to be one of the few examples where significant progress towards both of these ends has been achieved. This thesis asks, to what extent Durban has actually been able to recover costs and meet the needs of the poor and examines how gains in these areas, if any, have been achieved. This thesis indicates that eThekwini Water Services (EWS), the Durban water and sanitation service provider, has had mixed success in achieving cost recovery. The agency's Water Department has moved towards improved cost recovery since 1994/95. Cost recovery for water supply in Durban is on par with benchmarks set by top-tier African providers but still remains well below standards established by American private sector providers. In the Wastewater Department, however, growing annual deficits have been recorded in every year from 1994/95 to 2002/03. This thesis shows that the technological and policy innovations implemented by EWS have increased water and sanitation coverage for the poor in Durban. Durban's free basic water policy, in which each household receives 6 kL of water free per month, has been in part responsible for these gains. At the same time, while connectivity has increased, the rate of service disconnections has risen over the period 1994/95 to 2002/03. As well, tariffs have risen for levels of consumption above 6 kL per month. Both of these factors negatively affect poor households, especially those that are large, and temper the gains otherwise made in connectivity. The dynamic relationship between EWS' cost recovery strategies and efforts to serve the poor is central to understanding the Durban case. The agency recognized from an early point that it was financially prudent not to charge for low volumes of water. This recognition, combined with a need to make cost recovery palatable to the public and elected representatives, made provision of the 6 kL lifeline volume an extremely attractive policy option for EWS. However, the fact that EWS' efforts to achieve cost recovery are so intimately connected with the agency's strategies for serving the poor is the primary reason that the gains EWS has achieved are contested. Furthermore, the fact that the Durban model for achieving cost recovery and serving the poor is so dependent on local administrative capacity and efficiency limits its application more widely. The case should be instructive, however, for advocates for the poor who wish to understand how the rhetoric and complex politics of cost recovery and serving the poor are becoming ever more entwined. / by Michael Craig Hooper. / M.C.P.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-168). / Financing public transport through public funds is a common practice that can be justified on different grounds: equity, natural monopoly and, particularly with the increasing motorization rate, externalities produced by private transport (congestion, pollution, road accidents) especially in urban areas. In addition, there is a belief that transport investments support economic growth, in particular transit investments because they help fostering the agglomeration effect. Whether local or national tax sources should be used for subsidizing public transport is a fairly recent question, at least in Europe where, historically, countries used to be very centralized. Several national policy reviews as well as academic papers suggest that the reforms aiming at decentralizing power and responsibility for urban public transport management lead to successful outcomes. Yet, there is no literature on the effects of decentralization of tax raising on public transport provision although an increasing number of subnational governments reports a mismatch between transferred resources and devolved responsibilities and the public finance literature indicates that decentralization of finance authority can improve the results of decentralization reforms . / (cont.) The objective of this thesis, thus, is to test if the theoretical benefits of fiscal decentralization (i.e. decentralization of taxing power in addition to management responsibilities) apply to the urban public transport sector and to what extent. Using a sample of five European cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Milan and Stockholm) in decentralized countries as case studies, the thesis identifies three major outcomes of fiscal decentralization. First it increases the expenditure in public transport infrastructure. Second it increases the entrepreneurship of the local policy-makers. Third it generally improves the predictability of the revenues and therefore helps planning in the medium to long term. On the other hand, the research also shows that there is no increased willingness to tax at the local level therefore the stability of funding and its adequacy to the needs is not guaranteed by local fiscal autonomy. The thesis moreover suggests that a mixed system of national dedicated taxation and local capacity to incrementally adapt the tax rates is an optimal scheme for financing local public transport. Finally, in light of the case studies, the thesis provides some recommendations to Transport for London (TfL), in order to guide the ongoing debate on the necessity of increased fiscal autonomy for the local authorities in the UK to solutions that are likely to improve TfL's situation. / by Giorgia Favero. / S.M.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-88). / Despite the presence of numerous urban and regional planning commISSIons in the Mexico City region, they are noticeably absent from the national decision to site a new airport. If regional and local interests do not have a say in national decision-making, what does this mean for democracy? These issues are particularly relevant in Mexico, the next-door neighbor to the world's hegemonic leader, that for 71 years lived under de facto one party rule. With a new President, from a different political party, there has been a movement towards democracy. At the turn of the century with the signing of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) there is the promise of free trade that will help bolster Mexico's national economy. For Mexico, the benefits of international economic integration are closer than ever. However, in the case of the siting of the new airport in the Mexico City region, this process went terribly wrong. Increasingly there is a tension between the need for developing countries to democratize their institutions at the same time that they pursue massive infrastructure projects that modernize infrastructure and bolster the national economy. This thesis explores the tension between international economic integration and democratization and how it is played out in national infrastructure decisions that have local and regional impacts. / by Christina Davis Rosan. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-93). / Each year, twenty thousand youth are emancipated from our nation's foster care system with insufficient preparation for the responsibilities and realities that await them, and little or no support from family or government. Youth aging out of foster care at 18 experience significantly higher rates of homelessness, incarceration, incomplete education, unemployment, and substance abuse. Outcomes are bleak both in Massachusetts and nationally. This thesis studies the foster care system and the resources, programs and policies surrounding the transition from care in light of their implications for aging out. It posits that these elements surrounding the transition from care do not adequately address the needs of most youth in foster care. The incentive system and allocation of resources is geared to meet the needs of the youth who are in the best position to take advantage of these resources rather than those most in need of them. It is argued that the foster care system's singular pursuit of permanency through reunification and subsequently through adoption or independent living can come at the cost of providing the stability required for successful youth development. Additionally, the educational requirements tied to accessing transition services work to the disadvantage of many of the system's neediest youth. Further, the system does not demonstrate the value of education to foster youth until they are ready old enough to leave. At that point, it becomes a requirement for youth to stay in the system. / by Catherine D. Simmons. / M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-67). / by Ruth H. Wade. / M.C.P.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. Thesis. 1972. B.S. / Bibliography: leaf 85. / B.S.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, February 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 310-323). / The existing research has confirmed that the implementation of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) requires management support. The content and process of this management support is not yet fully known. This dissertation addresses the latter gap through five (5) detailed case studies of local government jurisdictions that have implemented enterprise-wide GIS. The research framework is based on the diffusion of innovations model. However, it goes beyond the "adopt/not adopt" characterization of the implementation process. The recognition of this process complexity during implementation is based on three potential distinct characteristics of enterprise-wide GIS projects: (a) existence of a series of management actions and activities during implementation which are observed in practice and go beyond the "adopt/not adopt" formulation; (b) management complexities of enterprise-wide GIS which are distinct from single-project GIS: and (c) certainty of problems and setbacks occurring given the inevitable organizational and technological challenges of enterprise-wide GIS. It is proposed that these characteristics can be better understood and captured through a model of GIS implementation which incorporates the following five (5) management processes: (i) the influence of organizational environment and context; (ii) the emergent process of planning; (iii) the vision building process; (iv) the process of acquiring and managing resources; and (v) the process of coping with setbacks and problems. The empiric,/ data to analyze these processes was based on five (5) cases. The selected cases, although presumed to be from a pool of successful cites, proved otherwise. This shortcoming, however, was turned into a useful analytical device by performing comparative analysis of the five (5) processes across the five cases on the basis of different levels of success. The analysis provided preliminary confirmation of the existence of the five (5) processes. It also gave insights in terms of details of what, how and why certain management actions and activities were taken in support of GIS implementation. However, conclusive confirmatory test remains a task of further research. Most significantly, the quality of the management process regarding "coping with setbacks and problems" during implementation appeared to be higher in the cases that were assessed to be experiencing a higher level of success with enterprise-wide GIS. The recommendations for further research include further refinements of the process of "coping with setbacks and problems'' as well as its testing through more case studies and survey research. / by Bizhan Azad. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2004. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-130). / Lawrence, Massachusetts is one of a number of post-industrial cities in the northeastern United States that has the potential to convert underutilized industrial buildings into a valuable community asset, namely housing. Yet, despite a plentiful supply of historical industrial buildings, the increasing popularity of residential mill conversions, and a strong housing market in eastern Massachusetts, no mill has been converted for the purpose of housing in Lawrence in the last decade. This thesis argues that if mill owners take action and partner with developers to undertake redevelopment, and partner with community development organizations and the local government, key barriers to development in Lawrence could be dismantled in order to prepare the mill district for redevelopment. Targeted primarily at mill owners and community development organizations in Lawrence and similar cities, this thesis identifies key barriers to residential redevelopment that exist in untested residential conversion markets like Lawrence. It then provides recommended solutions to overcome those barriers, learned from other conversion projects within a 50 mile radius of Boston. In doing so, this thesis demystifies the development process to help mill owners and community development organizations acquire a more realistic vision for the redevelopment of the mill district. In the process, it also gives mill owners a better understanding of their options in terms of whether to sell or partner with a developer and describes how community development organizations may contribute to the mill district's redevelopment. From this research, two main conclusions are drawn. First, development in the mill district must be approached with cautious optimism -- the prospect for success is high due to current market conditions and grassroots efforts, yet so is the risk. Professional developers will likely need to be involved in redevelopment, either on their own or as partners with mill owners. This is because the risk of residential redevelopment in the mill district is high in comparison to similar projects in other cities, and the margin between achievable prices and costs is tight. An experienced developer with significant financial resources and a proven track record needs to participate to increase the probability of success, and to magnify the benefits of redevelopment for mill owners, the community, and future residents of the mill district. The second and final conclusion is that mill owners, developers, local government, and community development organizations need to continue the precedent for collaboration set forth by participatory planning efforts like the Reviviendo Gateway Initiative, a community development coalition. In doing so, Lawrence's mill district will distinguish itself from mill conversions in other cities. Collaboration should be directed to marketing to cultural creatives, a marketing term that includes people who may be interested in such areas as the arts, co-housing, green building, and social activism. Marketing to these groups will generate demand for housing in the mill district, and ensure that the mills become home to residents who will become socially and financially invested in the city. Collaborative efforts should also continue to follow the path established by other Lawrence efforts, which is one of resident involvement. By involving residents in the planning process, as well as by helping current residents purchase or rent in the mill district, current Lawrence residents will be prepared to enjoy the success of the mill district's redevelopment. In the long term, this approach could create a major turnaround in Lawrence and build an initiative that helps the city emerge again as a regional cultural center. / by Heather Clark. / S.M.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-92). / by Sandra Beatriz Zarur. / M.C.P.