Urban governance under neoliberalism:New Labour and the restructuring of state-space

In the UK there has been a proliferation of agencies at differing regulatory scales as part of the rescaling and restructuring of the state by New Labour, following the neoliberal policies of previous Conservative governments. This raises questions concerning the extent to which New Labour's urban state restructuring is embedded within neoliberalism, and the local tensions and contradictions arising from emergent New Labour urban state restructuring. This paper examines these questions through the analysis of key policy features of New Labour, and the in-depth exploration of two programmes that are reshaping urban governance arrangements, namely Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and New Deal for Communities (NDC) programmes. We conclude that New Labour's restructuring is best understood in terms of the extended reproduction (roll-out) of neoliberalism. While these “new institutional fixes” are only weakly established and exhibit internal contradictions and tensions, these have not led to a broader contestation of neoliberalism.

The role of neighborhood organizations in the production of gentrifiable urban space: The case of Wynwood, Miami's Puerto Rican barrio

Partnerships between government and community-based actors and organizations are considered the hallmark of contemporary governance arrangements for the revitalization and gentrification of economically distressed, inner city areas. This dissertation uses historical, narrative analysis and ethnographic methods to examine the formation, evolution and operation of community-based governance partnerships in the production of gentrifiable urban space in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, FL between 1970 and 2010. This research is based on more than four years of participant observation, 60 in-depth interviews with respondents recruited through a purposive snowball sample, review of secondary and archival sources, and descriptive, statistical and GIS analysis. This study examines how different organizations formed in the neighborhood since the 1970s have facilitated the recent gentrification of Wynwood. It reveals specifically how partnerships between neighborhood-based government agencies, nonprofit organizations and real estate developers were constructed to be exclusionary and lead to inequitable economic development outcomes for Wynwood residents. The key factors conditioning these inequalities include both the rationalities of action of the organizations involved and the historical contexts in which their leaders’ thinking and actions were shaped. The historical contexts included the ethnic politics of organizational funding in the 1970s and the “entrepreneurial” turn of community-based economic development and Miami urban politics since the 1980s. Over time neighborhood organizations adopted highly pragmatic rationalities and repertoires of action. By the 2000s when Wynwood experienced unprecedented investment and redevelopment, the pragmatism of community-based organizations led them to become junior partners in governance arrangements and neighborhood activists were unable to directly challenge the inequitable processes and outcomes of gentrification.

Redefining Urban Alleywalls: Urban Design for Active Public Space in Maynard Alley, Chinatown-International District, Seattle

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Design Guidelines and Development Policies for an Adaptable Historic Urban Street: The Case of West Street in Quanzhou, Fujian, China

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Consumerism in urban Russia in the 1880s and 90s: Exploring conceptions of time, space, and modernity through bicycle and watch advertisements

This paper discusses the urban consumer culture in Moscow and Petersburg during the 1880s and 1890s and uses the consumption of bicycles and watches as a lens through which to explore changing perceptions of time and space within the experience of modernity at the end of the nineteenth century. Specifically, I argue that the way in which consumers and merchants constructed a dialogue of meaning around particular objects; the way in which objects are consumed by a culture gives insight into the values, morals, and tenure of that culture. The paper preferences newspaper ads and photographs as the mouthpieces of merchants and consumers respectively as they constructed a dialogue in the language of consumerism, and explores the ways in which both parties sought to assign meaning to objects during the experience of modernity. I am particularly interested in the way consumers perform elements of cultural modernity in photographs and how these instances of performance relate to their negotiation of modernity. The paper takes as its focus large section of the urban Russian population, much of whom can traditionally be called “middle class” but whose diversity has led me to the adoption of the term “consumer community,” and whose makeup is described in detail. The paper contributes to the continuing scholarly discourse on the makeup of the middle class in Russia and the social boundaries of late tsarist society. It speaks to the the developing sensibilities and values of a generation struggling to define itself in a rapidly changing world, to the ways in which conceptualizations of public and private space, as well as feminine and masculine space were redefined, and to the developing visual culture of the Russian consumer society, largely predicated on the display of objects to signify socially desirable traits. Whereas other explorations of consumer culture and advertisements have portrayed the relationship between merchants and consumers as a one-sided monologue in which merchants convince consumers that certain objects have cultural value, I emphasis the dialogue between merchants and consumers, and their mutual negotiation of cultural meaning through objects.

Design of mobility infrastructures to promote sustainability and accessibility of urban areas

This doctoral dissertation represents a cluster of research activities carried out at the DICAM Department of the University of Bologna during a three-year Ph.D. course. The goal of this research is to show how the development of an interconnected infrastructure network, aimed at promoting accessibility and sustainability of places, is fundamental in a framework of deep urban regeneration. Sustainable urban mobility plays an important role in improving the quality of life of citizens. From an environmental point of view, a sustainable mobility system means reducing fuel discharges and energy waste and, in general, aims to promote low carbon emissions. At the same time, a socially and economically sustainable mobility system should be accessible to everybody and create more job opportunities through better connectivity and mobility. Environmentally friendly means of transport such as non-motorized transport, electric vehicles, and hybrid vehicles play an important role in achieving sustainability but require a planned approach at the local policy level. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that, through a targeted reconnection of road and cycle-pedestrian routes, the quality of life of an urban area subject to degradation can be significantly improved just by increasing its accessibility and sustainability. Starting from a detailed study of the European policies and from the comparison with real similar cases, the case study of the Canal Port of Rimini (Italy) has been analysed within the European project FRAMESPORT. The analysis allowed the elaboration of a multicriterial methodology to get to the definition of a project proposal and of a priority scale of interventions. The applied methodology is a valuable tool that may be used in the future in similar urban contexts. Finally, the whole project was represented by using virtual reality to visually show the difference between the before and after the regeneration intervention.

Os contrastes do ambiente urbano : espaço vazio e espaço de lazer

Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Faculdade de Educação Física

Association Between Physical Activity in Parks and Perceived Environment: A Study With Adolescents

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between adolescents' physical activity practice and their perception about the environment of urban parks. Methods: A school-based representative sample (n = 1,718; boys = 40.4%) of teenagers of Curitiba, Southern region of Brazil. A questionnaire was employed to identify perceived parks environmental features as well as physical activity practice in the parks (PAP), habitual physical activity (HPA) and demographics. The relationship between PAP and parks environments was analyzed through multivariate logistic regression controlling for age and socioeconomic status, HPA and parks distance. Results: After controlling for confounders PAP was associated with lack of space to be physically active, activities to choose from and equipments for both boys and girls, (odds ratio (OR)-ranging from 1.5 to 1.8). Among boys, having people of same age (OR = 1.5) and accessibility (OR = 2.0) showed association with PAP only in crude analysis. However, among girls, to be bulled or teased (OR = 1.4) and accessibility (OR = 1.7) were associated with PAP after confounding control. Conclusions: The results showed that specific attributes in parks may be considered and offered to increase the likelihood of physical activity practice among adolescents in such locations.

Living Our Lives on the Edge: Power, Space and Sexual Orientation in Cape Town Townships, South Africa

Much of social science literature about South African cities fails to represent its complex spectrum of sexual practices and associated identities. The unintended effects of such representations are that a compulsory heterosexuality is naturalised in, and reiterative with, dominant constructions of blackness in townships. In this paper, we argue that the assertion of discreet lesbian and gay identities in black townships of a South African city such as Cape Town is influenced by the historical racial and socio-economic divides that have marked urban landscape. In their efforts to recoup a positive sense of gendered personhood, residents have constructed a moral economy anchored in reproductive heterosexuality. We draw upon ethnographic data to show how sexual minorities live their lives vicariously in spaces they have prised open within the extant sex/gender binary. They are able to assert the identities of moffie and man-vrou (mannish woman) without threatening the dominant ideology of heterosexuality.

Novel reports of glands in Neotropical species of Indigofera L. (Leguminosae, Papilionoideae)

By considering controversial discussions in the literature with regard to gland denomination in Indigofera species, as well as the taxonomic value of secretory structures in Leguminosae, we aim to morphologically detail glands that had been previously observed in I. microcarpa and I. sabulicola, and to investigate the occurrence of glands in vegetative and reproductive organs of other six Neotropical species that belong to the genus. Glands analyzed through scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) in combination with anatomic analyses correspond to secretory trichomes that Lire classified into seven types. Main variations in relation to types occurred with regard to head shape and peduncle size. Trichome heads were multicellular, with a thin cuticle. Hollow heads with conspicuous inner space characterized only one type (type I); the other trichome types had massive heads. Peduncles, which varied from biseriate to multiseriate, had thick, pecto-cellulosic cell walls. Trichomes were found on sterns, stipules, petioles, rachis, petiolules, leaflets, bracteoles, sepals, standards and fruits, more commonly along the margins. Each of the eight Indigofera species analyzed had at least two different trichome types out of the seven types that occurred in reproductive and vegetative organs of these taxa. Various types of secretory trichomes were found in I. campestris, I. lespedezioides, I. microcarpa, I. spicata. I. Suffruticosa and I. truxillensis. Stems and rachis were the vegetative organs in which a greater variety of trichomes occurred, and sepals were parts of reproductive organs with the same status. Five out of the seven secretory trichome types occurred on both vegetative and reproductive organs. Distribution and gland types differed between species and these gland distribution patterns can be used as diagnostic characters. Reports of glands in Indigofera campestris, I. hirsuta, I. lepedezioides, I. suffruticosa, I. spicata and I. truxillensis, their recognition as secretory trichomes. and the morphological variety of types found for such trichomes are novel data for Indigofera. (C) 2008 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Metal embryotoxicity from urban particles in Sao Paulo city: An experimental study in chicken embryos

Chicken eggs were inoculated with suspensions of ambient air particles (<= 10 mu m, PM(10)) from Sao Paulo city in 3, 0.3 or 0.03 mu g doses on one of the four early days of embryo development. On the eleventh day of development alterations were observed on embryos inoculated with PM(10) 3 mu g on the third day. Particles analysis showed high content of metals. Hence, embryos were also inoculated with PM(10) (3 mu g) combined with metal chelating EDTA. PM(10) (3 mu g) embryos presented underdevelopment (stage 29.44 +/- 11.4) compared to vehicle and positive controls (stage 36.44 +/- 0.51 Saline and stage 31.20 +/- 9.7 Cyclophosphamide, p <= 0.05); higher (47%) mortality rate (23% Saline and 42% Cyclophosphamide) and low (68%) viability (100% Saline and 70% Cyclophosphamide, p = 0.04). Effects were attenuated when embryos received PM(10) + EDTA (stage 33.63 +/- 0.94, 18.9% mortality rate and 82% viability). PM(10) from Sao Paulo city is embryotoxic and metal may be implicated in the toxic mechanism. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.