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This publication summarizes the outcomes and lessons learned from the Fall 2017 course titled “Emergent Urbanism: Planning and Design Visions for the City of Hermosillo, Mexico” (ADV-9146). Taught by professors Diane Davis and Felipe Vera, this course asked a group of 12 students to design a set of projects that could lay the groundwork for a sustainable future for the city of Hermosillo—an emerging city located in northwest Mexico and the capital of the state of Sonora. Part of a larger initiative funded by the Inter-American Development Bank and the North-American Development Bank in partnership with Harvard University, ideas developed for this class were the product of collaboration between faculty and students at the Graduate School of Design, the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions h

PR, IFPRI3; CRP2; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; Capacity Strengthening; ISI, DSGD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

View of the loan desk area of Vol Walker Lib. On verso: [photo. Stamp]. [engr. Instr.] Slide no. 49.31., Vol Walker Hall, originally Vol Walker Memorial Library, was built in 1935 with funding from the Public Works Administration and was named to honor James Volney Walker. After construction of Mullins Library in 1968, Vol Walker Hall became an academic home to the architecture program. In 2013, an addition of the Steven L. Anderson Design Center and major renovation of the original building allowed the landscape architecture and interior design programs to join architecture in the building.

Interior views of Vol Walker Library. On verso: Libr. [phot. Stamp]. Slide no. 49.2, 49.5, 49.9, 49.13., Vol Walker Hall, originally Vol Walker Memorial Library, was built in 1935 with funding from the Public Works Administration and was named to honor James Volney Walker. After construction of Mullins Library in 1968, Vol Walker Hall became an academic home to the architecture program. In 2013, an addition of the Steven L. Anderson Design Center and major renovation of the original building allowed the landscape architecture and interior design programs to join architecture in the building.

Interior views of Vol Walker Library. On verso: [phot. Stamp]. Libr. Slide no. 49.2, 49.5, 49.9, 49.13., Vol Walker Hall, originally Vol Walker Memorial Library, was built in 1935 with funding from the Public Works Administration and was named to honor James Volney Walker. After construction of Mullins Library in 1968, Vol Walker Hall became an academic home to the architecture program. In 2013, an addition of the Steven L. Anderson Design Center and major renovation of the original building allowed the landscape architecture and interior design programs to join architecture in the building.

The complexity of urban centers has increased. Cities have been transformed into territories that present important governance, interjurisdictional coordination, and financing challenges. Approximately 47% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean live in 180 urban centers with a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants, equivalent to about 265 million people. Metropolitan Areas are a great part of these urban centers. Considering the need to define a new way to deal with the problems derived from the growth of urban areas involving more than one municipality or district, it becomes relevant to discuss various visions and experiences to understand how metropolitan management can be approached in a coordinated and collaborative way. This publication presents a collection of experiences, voices, and territories, in order to become a document that can allow for reflection and proposals for the governance of Metropolitan Areas.

Over the course of the 20th century the worlds population grew more than during any other period in history, increasing from around 1.5 billion people in 1900 to nearly seven billion people today. Given this exponential growth, it is essential to reflect o n what we have done to house this growing populationor what residents have done to procure housing on their own. According to the numbers, we have been capable of building enough housing to compensate for the quantitative deficit; t he biggest challenge we face today is to how to make qualitative changes to the existing housing stock. Population growth continues to be strong in the emerging economies of the Global South, and exploring the potential of housing to transform the urban fabric is critical to building better cities.This project by the Housing and Urban Development Division of the IDB is an invitation to make strategic use of lessons learned, to imagine new solutions and possibilities, and to bring a renewed agenda to housing and urban development in the years to come.

Non-PR, IFPRI5; CRP2, DSGD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

Thesis: Ph. D. in Urban and Regional Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2014., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (pages 296-314)., This dissertation examines how three Dominican hometown associations (HTAs) define, negotiate and practice transnational community development, by carefully analyzing the processes through which state, migrants and non-migrant actors engage in "messy" local projects. I identify two interrelated factors that explain the differences and commonalities in how the three organizations under study muddle through transnational community development processes: (1) the intra organizational dynamics that take shape as HTAs engage in cross border efforts, and (2) the types of project-based engagements between the associations, the state and other development actors. I also devised some stylized analytical categories that allow for a more refined analysis of how power is negotiated and exercised in cross-border development situations, and the ways in which the transnational relationships between diverse development actors are shaped. I argue that the more promising processes of transnational community development are those characterized by the coexistence of well articulated transnational cooperation networks that allow migrant and home country HTA chapters to contribute effectively to a common development agenda, together with empowered exchanges that enable the effective coproduction of projects while allowing local community leaders to play a protagonist role. More than a mechanistic cause and effect story, what the data confirms is a co-evolving relationship between the patterns of organizational politics and project-based engagements. By unpacking projects and processes, I also document the routines and tactics that HTAs employ to achieve their goals. In general, all the organizations studied have a tendency to seek answers to complex development issues through experimentation and problem-oriented strategies. Being able to experiment and troubleshoot, these organizations sidestep the strictures of policy and programmatic "monocropping", which, in turn, provides them with in, by Deepak Lamba-Nieves., Ph. D. in Urban and Regional Studies

Thesis (Ph. D. in Urban and Regional Studies)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2013., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (pages 256-277)., Policing is widely understood, empirically and theoretically, as a core function of the state. Much of the knowledge presumes that police are the only body that may kill and arbitrate killing, routinely and without retaliation from contesting parties, as a means of establishing and maintaining a legitimate legal order. This dissertation examines an urban circumstance where killing and its regulation is not simply the realm of police. Sio Paulo, Brazil is a city with parallel normative logics of killing. Via ethnographic research with homicide detectives, I examine these two logics: homicides and police killings known as resistencias. Under democratic restructuring, with failing public security and underwritten by historic and spatial inequities inscribed via disparate processes of urbanization and planning, investigations reveal the practice of a 'normal' homicide that is a product of a system of governance in the urban periphery. Killing has become the realm of an organized crime group known as the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). Via a prison-periphery nexus, the PCC determines the moral borderlines of violence in the spaces it controls. In apparent moral contrast, police kill citizens at a rate of roughly one per day. Under the rubric of 'resisting arrest' there is a presumption of guilt for the dead and a presumption of innocence for the shooter. Homicide detectives investigate and arbitrate whether these presumptions are 'appropriate'. When not, a resistencia becomes a homicide and the offending police are arrested on the spot by detectives. I track the 'deservedness' of each logic and find that while the two appear antagonistic, there is often a confluence of imaginaries, coalescing in an implicit and obscured 'killing consensus'. This consensus is consolidated via co-orientation and everyday practices pointing towards mutually understood spatial and moral boundaries of who can be killed, why and where, underpinning a decline in homicides here by more than 7, by Graham Denyer Willis., Ph.D.in Urban and Regional Studies

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2012., "June 2012." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-84)., The history of the military police in Rio de Janeiro is a history of violence. Police violence peaked during the democratic era when they have killed more civilians annually than the total disappeared during the military dictatorship. Their violence unduly targets the urban poor, those living in favelas, where poverty intersects with informality, where insecurity manifests in unprotected spaces, from inadequate infrastructure to lack of land title; from stigmatization as territories of criminality to violence as drug traffickers and militias battle each other, and the military police, for control. The pacification police are an attempt to reverse this history. The pacification police are the most prolific and contentious public security policy in Rio de Janeiro's recent history. Their official objective is to restore security to spaces once governed by armed criminals. But while pacifying the informal settlements they are also pacifying the military police. As the state on the streets, or its most visible aspect in the informal settlements, they are the locus of community concerns and interlocutors with public authorities. The pacification police are altering perceptions of the police in the eyes of residents and reforming what it means to be a law enforcement officer in the minds of police. They are unintentionally connecting a state that was distant from the informal settlements and complicit in the violence inside them to the urban poor. The pacification police are beginning to transform urban governance across Rio de Janeiro., by Julia Tierney., M.C.P.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2011., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-214)., This dissertation bridges the fields of international development and urban studies to examine South Korea's city building and urban development processes, arguing that the interaction between urban and industrial policies has both followed and produced the country's astonishing macroeconomic development successes. The study starts by raising the question of how a Third- World city, Seoul, which served as a minor metropolis in a primarily rural country as late as 1970, rapidly became a modern megalopolis and global front-runner in terms of ambitious and pioneering urban investments. Although South Korea's successful industrialization could be a short answer to this question, the capital city's predominant growth becomes rather puzzling when considering that South Korea, in contrast to the Latin American cases, initially developed its major industrialization and spatial development policies to support regional development and decentralization instead of promoting urban concentration in the capital city. To explain this puzzle, I examine South Korea's key spatial development policies and city building projects over the course of its economic development trajectories, from the 1960s to the 2000s. In the process of re-examining South Korea's modern economic development history with an emphasis on space, I found that the South Korean state worked actively to develop synergies between spatial and economic development, thus fortifying its role as both an industrial and urban developmental state. At consecutive stages since the late 1960s, the South Korean state deployed a disciplinary, forward-looking, set of policies targeted toward creating synergy between urban investments and macroeconomic priorities, even as it worked hard to accommodate citizen concerns about consumption, property rights, and democratization. With an eye to both political stability and economic growth, the South Korean state ended up crafting a set of spatial policies that ended up produced novel int, by Yu Min Joo., Ph.D.

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. 104-109)., Many cities the world round are known as sites of conflict. They have historically excluded portions of their populations through modification of the physical form of the city, among other mechanisms. These physical forms remain after the policies that formalized the conflict are overwritten, creating a residue of conflict. This thesis seeks to determine how the exclusion perpetuated by urban form alters the experience of the city through examination of individual perceptions of Jerusalem and Johannesburg. The two case studies have vastly different histories and current conditions, but each provides a window into a different portion of the process of shaping a city through exclusion. Cognitive mapping is the main mechanism for analysis, and it illuminates subtle differences in conceptualizations and perceptions of the two cities among different demographics. By examining conflict through the lens of the individual, finite recommendations can be made for organizations wishing to bring together multiple demographics in such a context of exclusion., by Anna E. Premo., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2012., "June 2012." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-84)., The history of the military police in Rio de Janeiro is a history of violence. Police violence peaked during the democratic era when they have killed more civilians annually than the total disappeared during the military dictatorship. Their violence unduly targets the urban poor, those living in favelas, where poverty intersects with informality, where insecurity manifests in unprotected spaces, from inadequate infrastructure to lack of land title; from stigmatization as territories of criminality to violence as drug traffickers and militias battle each other, and the military police, for control. The pacification police are an attempt to reverse this history. The pacification police are the most prolific and contentious public security policy in Rio de Janeiro's recent history. Their official objective is to restore security to spaces once governed by armed criminals. But while pacifying the informal settlements they are also pacifying the military police. As the state on the streets, or its most visible aspect in the informal settlements, they are the locus of community concerns and interlocutors with public authorities. The pacification police are altering perceptions of the police in the eyes of residents and reforming what it means to be a law enforcement officer in the minds of police. They are unintentionally connecting a state that was distant from the informal settlements and complicit in the violence inside them to the urban poor. The pacification police are beginning to transform urban governance across Rio de Janeiro., by Julia Tierney., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2012., "June 2012." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-84)., The history of the military police in Rio de Janeiro is a history of violence. Police violence peaked during the democratic era when they have killed more civilians annually than the total disappeared during the military dictatorship. Their violence unduly targets the urban poor, those living in favelas, where poverty intersects with informality, where insecurity manifests in unprotected spaces, from inadequate infrastructure to lack of land title; from stigmatization as territories of criminality to violence as drug traffickers and militias battle each other, and the military police, for control. The pacification police are an attempt to reverse this history. The pacification police are the most prolific and contentious public security policy in Rio de Janeiro's recent history. Their official objective is to restore security to spaces once governed by armed criminals. But while pacifying the informal settlements they are also pacifying the military police. As the state on the streets, or its most visible aspect in the informal settlements, they are the locus of community concerns and interlocutors with public authorities. The pacification police are altering perceptions of the police in the eyes of residents and reforming what it means to be a law enforcement officer in the minds of police. They are unintentionally connecting a state that was distant from the informal settlements and complicit in the violence inside them to the urban poor. The pacification police are beginning to transform urban governance across Rio de Janeiro., by Julia Tierney., 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. 104-109)., Many cities the world round are known as sites of conflict. They have historically excluded portions of their populations through modification of the physical form of the city, among other mechanisms. These physical forms remain after the policies that formalized the conflict are overwritten, creating a residue of conflict. This thesis seeks to determine how the exclusion perpetuated by urban form alters the experience of the city through examination of individual perceptions of Jerusalem and Johannesburg. The two case studies have vastly different histories and current conditions, but each provides a window into a different portion of the process of shaping a city through exclusion. Cognitive mapping is the main mechanism for analysis, and it illuminates subtle differences in conceptualizations and perceptions of the two cities among different demographics. By examining conflict through the lens of the individual, finite recommendations can be made for organizations wishing to bring together multiple demographics in such a context of exclusion., by Anna E. Premo., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2012., "June 2012." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-84)., The history of the military police in Rio de Janeiro is a history of violence. Police violence peaked during the democratic era when they have killed more civilians annually than the total disappeared during the military dictatorship. Their violence unduly targets the urban poor, those living in favelas, where poverty intersects with informality, where insecurity manifests in unprotected spaces, from inadequate infrastructure to lack of land title; from stigmatization as territories of criminality to violence as drug traffickers and militias battle each other, and the military police, for control. The pacification police are an attempt to reverse this history. The pacification police are the most prolific and contentious public security policy in Rio de Janeiro's recent history. Their official objective is to restore security to spaces once governed by armed criminals. But while pacifying the informal settlements they are also pacifying the military police. As the state on the streets, or its most visible aspect in the informal settlements, they are the locus of community concerns and interlocutors with public authorities. The pacification police are altering perceptions of the police in the eyes of residents and reforming what it means to be a law enforcement officer in the minds of police. They are unintentionally connecting a state that was distant from the informal settlements and complicit in the violence inside them to the urban poor. The pacification police are beginning to transform urban governance across Rio de Janeiro., by Julia Tierney., M.C.P.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2011., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-182)., Over the next quarter century the U.S. population will expand by 25 percent, an unprecedented steep and rapid increase that has already begun. The urban and suburban land area has been expanding to create a sprawling landscape of housing developments, shopping centers, and industrial parks. Sprawl has created a sense of disorientation as the spatial growth has blurred the boundaries between the rural landscape and urban/suburban cities and towns, leading to the creation of amorphous regions. This disorientation and the rapid increase in population are generating undesirable environmental consequences. This thesis proposes a new way of approaching the development of cities and towns so as to create clearly defined communities within the amorphous sprawl of development that is consuming the landscape and resources. I proposed the middle-ground, a term I use to suggest a place found between the rural and suburban/urban boundaries as a new landscape for development. Using U.S. Census data, GIS information, site visit and interviews I assess the impact of growth and sprawl in the Interstate 75 corridor region between Atlanta Georgia and Chattanooga Tennessee. I offer a new direction in smart growth in the design of a new town located between the sprawl of Chattanooga, Tennessee and Dalton, Georgia, to house 100,000 residents. In addition, I propose a new train station as a central transportation link between the Chattanooga and Atlanta airports as a means of creating a well-defined, well-populated node that is a counterpoint to those regions with blurred boundaries., by Nathaniel J. Prevendar., S.M.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-106)., In June 1996, the US and Mexican press announced a unique partnership that sought to address the dramatic housing shortage in Ciudad JuAirez, Mexico. This public-private partnership involved construction companies, a major US multinational corporation, and the national Mexican housing agency. General Motors and its subsidiary, Delphi Automotive, formed a partnership with INFONAVIT, the Mexican worker-housing agency, that would provide 7000 housing credits to Delphi employees in 7 Mexican cities. Grupo Condak, a Mexican construction company, would build the homes with the financial backing of Pulte Mortgage Company, the largest US homebuilder at the time. The Mexican government has attracted foreign direct investment through the maquiladora program because of low labor costs due not only to low wages, but also because of low levels of employee benefits. Why then, would a foreign company voluntarily choose to increase employee benefits, implicitly as a substitute for increasing wages? This thesis will analyze the underlying incentive structure that brought about this unique housing partnership, and ultimately examine if this program is a desirable way of mitigating worker housing shortages in Mexico. Analyzing how the benefits of the program accrue to different actors sheds some light on the motives for starting the program. Although an evaluation of the program is not the main purpose of this thesis, this study will examine the benefits of housing program from the perspective of all participants. In particular, this research examines the incentives that prompted General Motors to offer housing benefits. If Employer-assisted housing is to be replicable, and if there is a future for other public-private partnerships in social interest housing, then understanding the firm's motives for participating in such a program is of critical importance. There are two mainstream hypotheses of why a private firm like Delphi might offer housing benefits. The reduction of employee tu, by Rossana Dudziak., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-118)., In September 1991, the Massachusetts State Legislature passed an Act that placed the city of Chelsea, Massachusetts under state receivership. Though the State justified receivership as a response to the City's bankruptcy, they acknowledged that the fiscal problems could not be solved without overcoming a corrupt local political structure. A staff of state-appointed receivers took control of the City for an ensuing five-year period with the charge of regaining fiscal solvency and writing a new city charter. During this time, the receivers initiated a consensus process with the residents to engage them in rewriting their city charter. The receivers were offering a unique opportunity for a state intervention to facilitate a local bottom up process to consider new possibilities for a local government structure. This held the potential to institutionalize greater public participation in local governance and redevelopment. However, I argue that the receivership primarily facilitated metropolitan planning agendas at the expense of public participation in local planning. Chelsea, less than two miles from both downtown Boston and the Logan International Airport, is geographically critical to metropolitan growth and transportation planning. In Chelsea, the tensions between local and metropolitan planning are critical. Given the City's value in the Boston metropolitan area, a significant portion of Chelsea's land is allocated to uses that serve metropolitan needs. The formulation of planning processes that allow the local community to reconcile their demands with the metropolitan authorities remains critical. In this thesis I explore the receivership and redevelopment of Chelsea, Massachusetts, during the early 1990's. I consider the similarities between the "reform" of Chelsea and the reforms advocated during the Progressive Era (1890-1920). I turn to the literature regarding the Progressive movement to understand the implications of the reform initiatives on planning outcome, by Asha Ghosh Rao., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-106)., In June 1996, the US and Mexican press announced a unique partnership that sought to address the dramatic housing shortage in Ciudad JuAirez, Mexico. This public-private partnership involved construction companies, a major US multinational corporation, and the national Mexican housing agency. General Motors and its subsidiary, Delphi Automotive, formed a partnership with INFONAVIT, the Mexican worker-housing agency, that would provide 7000 housing credits to Delphi employees in 7 Mexican cities. Grupo Condak, a Mexican construction company, would build the homes with the financial backing of Pulte Mortgage Company, the largest US homebuilder at the time. The Mexican government has attracted foreign direct investment through the maquiladora program because of low labor costs due not only to low wages, but also because of low levels of employee benefits. Why then, would a foreign company voluntarily choose to increase employee benefits, implicitly as a substitute for increasing wages? This thesis will analyze the underlying incentive structure that brought about this unique housing partnership, and ultimately examine if this program is a desirable way of mitigating worker housing shortages in Mexico. Analyzing how the benefits of the program accrue to different actors sheds some light on the motives for starting the program. Although an evaluation of the program is not the main purpose of this thesis, this study will examine the benefits of housing program from the perspective of all participants. In particular, this research examines the incentives that prompted General Motors to offer housing benefits. If Employer-assisted housing is to be replicable, and if there is a future for other public-private partnerships in social interest housing, then understanding the firm's motives for participating in such a program is of critical importance. There are two mainstream hypotheses of why a private firm like Delphi might offer housing benefits. The reduction of employee tu, by Rossana Dudziak., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-118)., In September 1991, the Massachusetts State Legislature passed an Act that placed the city of Chelsea, Massachusetts under state receivership. Though the State justified receivership as a response to the City's bankruptcy, they acknowledged that the fiscal problems could not be solved without overcoming a corrupt local political structure. A staff of state-appointed receivers took control of the City for an ensuing five-year period with the charge of regaining fiscal solvency and writing a new city charter. During this time, the receivers initiated a consensus process with the residents to engage them in rewriting their city charter. The receivers were offering a unique opportunity for a state intervention to facilitate a local bottom up process to consider new possibilities for a local government structure. This held the potential to institutionalize greater public participation in local governance and redevelopment. However, I argue that the receivership primarily facilitated metropolitan planning agendas at the expense of public participation in local planning. Chelsea, less than two miles from both downtown Boston and the Logan International Airport, is geographically critical to metropolitan growth and transportation planning. In Chelsea, the tensions between local and metropolitan planning are critical. Given the City's value in the Boston metropolitan area, a significant portion of Chelsea's land is allocated to uses that serve metropolitan needs. The formulation of planning processes that allow the local community to reconcile their demands with the metropolitan authorities remains critical. In this thesis I explore the receivership and redevelopment of Chelsea, Massachusetts, during the early 1990's. I consider the similarities between the "reform" of Chelsea and the reforms advocated during the Progressive Era (1890-1920). I turn to the literature regarding the Progressive movement to understand the implications of the reform initiatives on planning outcome, by Asha Ghosh Rao., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-118)., In September 1991, the Massachusetts State Legislature passed an Act that placed the city of Chelsea, Massachusetts under state receivership. Though the State justified receivership as a response to the City's bankruptcy, they acknowledged that the fiscal problems could not be solved without overcoming a corrupt local political structure. A staff of state-appointed receivers took control of the City for an ensuing five-year period with the charge of regaining fiscal solvency and writing a new city charter. During this time, the receivers initiated a consensus process with the residents to engage them in rewriting their city charter. The receivers were offering a unique opportunity for a state intervention to facilitate a local bottom up process to consider new possibilities for a local government structure. This held the potential to institutionalize greater public participation in local governance and redevelopment. However, I argue that the receivership primarily facilitated metropolitan planning agendas at the expense of public participation in local planning. Chelsea, less than two miles from both downtown Boston and the Logan International Airport, is geographically critical to metropolitan growth and transportation planning. In Chelsea, the tensions between local and metropolitan planning are critical. Given the City's value in the Boston metropolitan area, a significant portion of Chelsea's land is allocated to uses that serve metropolitan needs. The formulation of planning processes that allow the local community to reconcile their demands with the metropolitan authorities remains critical. In this thesis I explore the receivership and redevelopment of Chelsea, Massachusetts, during the early 1990's. I consider the similarities between the "reform" of Chelsea and the reforms advocated during the Progressive Era (1890-1920). I turn to the literature regarding the Progressive movement to understand the implications of the reform initiatives on planning outcome, by Asha Ghosh Rao., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P. in International Development and Regional Planning)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-130)., This study explores the dynamics of firm relocation in Johannesburg, South Africa, by analyzing the mass exodus of firms out of the city's Central Business District (CBD) over the past two decades. Using a historical approach, this study examines the interplay between urban form and firm behavior. We typically understand urban form to be a function of firm behavior-that is, firms choose their locations and thus dictate which areas are developed. This study finds that the inverse is true. Firm behavior is a function of urban form. Firms are location-takers. Forces endogenous to the urban form act on firms to determine which areas of a city are favorable for firm location. The following chapters probe the way changes in the Johannesburg CBD's form, itself a function of political, economic, and social transition, push individual firms to disperse to new locales throughout the city. Exogenous factors like crime, state failure, and skewed property markets biased firms against the CBD as a viable location. Their predominance in the range of factors that affect firm behavior suggests that a focus on extra-firm institutions (rather than the firms themselves) more adequately explains the relationship between firm behavior and urban forms., by Christine Erickson., M.C.P.in International Development and Regional Planning

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2011., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-182)., Over the next quarter century the U.S. population will expand by 25 percent, an unprecedented steep and rapid increase that has already begun. The urban and suburban land area has been expanding to create a sprawling landscape of housing developments, shopping centers, and industrial parks. Sprawl has created a sense of disorientation as the spatial growth has blurred the boundaries between the rural landscape and urban/suburban cities and towns, leading to the creation of amorphous regions. This disorientation and the rapid increase in population are generating undesirable environmental consequences. This thesis proposes a new way of approaching the development of cities and towns so as to create clearly defined communities within the amorphous sprawl of development that is consuming the landscape and resources. I proposed the middle-ground, a term I use to suggest a place found between the rural and suburban/urban boundaries as a new landscape for development. Using U.S. Census data, GIS information, site visit and interviews I assess the impact of growth and sprawl in the Interstate 75 corridor region between Atlanta Georgia and Chattanooga Tennessee. I offer a new direction in smart growth in the design of a new town located between the sprawl of Chattanooga, Tennessee and Dalton, Georgia, to house 100,000 residents. In addition, I propose a new train station as a central transportation link between the Chattanooga and Atlanta airports as a means of creating a well-defined, well-populated node that is a counterpoint to those regions with blurred boundaries., by Nathaniel J. Prevendar., S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2011., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-182)., Over the next quarter century the U.S. population will expand by 25 percent, an unprecedented steep and rapid increase that has already begun. The urban and suburban land area has been expanding to create a sprawling landscape of housing developments, shopping centers, and industrial parks. Sprawl has created a sense of disorientation as the spatial growth has blurred the boundaries between the rural landscape and urban/suburban cities and towns, leading to the creation of amorphous regions. This disorientation and the rapid increase in population are generating undesirable environmental consequences. This thesis proposes a new way of approaching the development of cities and towns so as to create clearly defined communities within the amorphous sprawl of development that is consuming the landscape and resources. I proposed the middle-ground, a term I use to suggest a place found between the rural and suburban/urban boundaries as a new landscape for development. Using U.S. Census data, GIS information, site visit and interviews I assess the impact of growth and sprawl in the Interstate 75 corridor region between Atlanta Georgia and Chattanooga Tennessee. I offer a new direction in smart growth in the design of a new town located between the sprawl of Chattanooga, Tennessee and Dalton, Georgia, to house 100,000 residents. In addition, I propose a new train station as a central transportation link between the Chattanooga and Atlanta airports as a means of creating a well-defined, well-populated node that is a counterpoint to those regions with blurred boundaries., by Nathaniel J. Prevendar., S.M.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-118)., In September 1991, the Massachusetts State Legislature passed an Act that placed the city of Chelsea, Massachusetts under state receivership. Though the State justified receivership as a response to the City's bankruptcy, they acknowledged that the fiscal problems could not be solved without overcoming a corrupt local political structure. A staff of state-appointed receivers took control of the City for an ensuing five-year period with the charge of regaining fiscal solvency and writing a new city charter. During this time, the receivers initiated a consensus process with the residents to engage them in rewriting their city charter. The receivers were offering a unique opportunity for a state intervention to facilitate a local bottom up process to consider new possibilities for a local government structure. This held the potential to institutionalize greater public participation in local governance and redevelopment. However, I argue that the receivership primarily facilitated metropolitan planning agendas at the expense of public participation in local planning. Chelsea, less than two miles from both downtown Boston and the Logan International Airport, is geographically critical to metropolitan growth and transportation planning. In Chelsea, the tensions between local and metropolitan planning are critical. Given the City's value in the Boston metropolitan area, a significant portion of Chelsea's land is allocated to uses that serve metropolitan needs. The formulation of planning processes that allow the local community to reconcile their demands with the metropolitan authorities remains critical. In this thesis I explore the receivership and redevelopment of Chelsea, Massachusetts, during the early 1990's. I consider the similarities between the "reform" of Chelsea and the reforms advocated during the Progressive Era (1890-1920). I turn to the literature regarding the Progressive movement to understand the implications of the reform initiatives on planning outcome, by Asha Ghosh Rao., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P. in International Development and Regional Planning)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-130)., This study explores the dynamics of firm relocation in Johannesburg, South Africa, by analyzing the mass exodus of firms out of the city's Central Business District (CBD) over the past two decades. Using a historical approach, this study examines the interplay between urban form and firm behavior. We typically understand urban form to be a function of firm behavior-that is, firms choose their locations and thus dictate which areas are developed. This study finds that the inverse is true. Firm behavior is a function of urban form. Firms are location-takers. Forces endogenous to the urban form act on firms to determine which areas of a city are favorable for firm location. The following chapters probe the way changes in the Johannesburg CBD's form, itself a function of political, economic, and social transition, push individual firms to disperse to new locales throughout the city. Exogenous factors like crime, state failure, and skewed property markets biased firms against the CBD as a viable location. Their predominance in the range of factors that affect firm behavior suggests that a focus on extra-firm institutions (rather than the firms themselves) more adequately explains the relationship between firm behavior and urban forms., by Christine Erickson., M.C.P.in International Development and Regional Planning

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2011., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-182)., Over the next quarter century the U.S. population will expand by 25 percent, an unprecedented steep and rapid increase that has already begun. The urban and suburban land area has been expanding to create a sprawling landscape of housing developments, shopping centers, and industrial parks. Sprawl has created a sense of disorientation as the spatial growth has blurred the boundaries between the rural landscape and urban/suburban cities and towns, leading to the creation of amorphous regions. This disorientation and the rapid increase in population are generating undesirable environmental consequences. This thesis proposes a new way of approaching the development of cities and towns so as to create clearly defined communities within the amorphous sprawl of development that is consuming the landscape and resources. I proposed the middle-ground, a term I use to suggest a place found between the rural and suburban/urban boundaries as a new landscape for development. Using U.S. Census data, GIS information, site visit and interviews I assess the impact of growth and sprawl in the Interstate 75 corridor region between Atlanta Georgia and Chattanooga Tennessee. I offer a new direction in smart growth in the design of a new town located between the sprawl of Chattanooga, Tennessee and Dalton, Georgia, to house 100,000 residents. In addition, I propose a new train station as a central transportation link between the Chattanooga and Atlanta airports as a means of creating a well-defined, well-populated node that is a counterpoint to those regions with blurred boundaries., by Nathaniel J. Prevendar., S.M.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-106)., In June 1996, the US and Mexican press announced a unique partnership that sought to address the dramatic housing shortage in Ciudad JuAirez, Mexico. This public-private partnership involved construction companies, a major US multinational corporation, and the national Mexican housing agency. General Motors and its subsidiary, Delphi Automotive, formed a partnership with INFONAVIT, the Mexican worker-housing agency, that would provide 7000 housing credits to Delphi employees in 7 Mexican cities. Grupo Condak, a Mexican construction company, would build the homes with the financial backing of Pulte Mortgage Company, the largest US homebuilder at the time. The Mexican government has attracted foreign direct investment through the maquiladora program because of low labor costs due not only to low wages, but also because of low levels of employee benefits. Why then, would a foreign company voluntarily choose to increase employee benefits, implicitly as a substitute for increasing wages? This thesis will analyze the underlying incentive structure that brought about this unique housing partnership, and ultimately examine if this program is a desirable way of mitigating worker housing shortages in Mexico. Analyzing how the benefits of the program accrue to different actors sheds some light on the motives for starting the program. Although an evaluation of the program is not the main purpose of this thesis, this study will examine the benefits of housing program from the perspective of all participants. In particular, this research examines the incentives that prompted General Motors to offer housing benefits. If Employer-assisted housing is to be replicable, and if there is a future for other public-private partnerships in social interest housing, then understanding the firm's motives for participating in such a program is of critical importance. There are two mainstream hypotheses of why a private firm like Delphi might offer housing benefits. The reduction of employee tu, by Rossana Dudziak., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P. in International Development and Regional Planning)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-130)., This study explores the dynamics of firm relocation in Johannesburg, South Africa, by analyzing the mass exodus of firms out of the city's Central Business District (CBD) over the past two decades. Using a historical approach, this study examines the interplay between urban form and firm behavior. We typically understand urban form to be a function of firm behavior-that is, firms choose their locations and thus dictate which areas are developed. This study finds that the inverse is true. Firm behavior is a function of urban form. Firms are location-takers. Forces endogenous to the urban form act on firms to determine which areas of a city are favorable for firm location. The following chapters probe the way changes in the Johannesburg CBD's form, itself a function of political, economic, and social transition, push individual firms to disperse to new locales throughout the city. Exogenous factors like crime, state failure, and skewed property markets biased firms against the CBD as a viable location. Their predominance in the range of factors that affect firm behavior suggests that a focus on extra-firm institutions (rather than the firms themselves) more adequately explains the relationship between firm behavior and urban forms., by Christine Erickson., M.C.P.in International Development and Regional Planning

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-96)., This thesis examines the role of International Development in the United Kingdom during its transition from a colonial ruler to a neo-liberal capitalist state. Starting with the inter-war period, it looks at the changing position adopted by the British state vis-a-vis development aid to its colonies up to the formation of the Department for International Development in the late 1990s. The study argues that during this period, the nature of state-sponsored international development aid has transformed significantly to a point of self-redundancy. At the same time, the British state's insistence to continue its colonial bilateral ties has made it an insignificant and obsolete player in the game. Faced with the choice to embrace this obsolescence brought about by the market, the British State could transform its foreign aid policies and explore new ways bring change in developing nations. However, trapped between the disciplinary limitations imposed by "Planning" and its own recurring economic crises, the British state has been unable to seize this opportunity, leading to an anachronistic foreign development policy., by Ninad Pandit., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-88)., This thesis examines how an NGO can function and create change within the shifting domains of Palestinian stability and conflict through the case study of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committee (UPMRC). Palestinian society today heavily relies on NGO's for an array of service provisions. However, Palestinian NGO's continue to face various challenges since their inception. The long history of Israeli occupation has forced NGO's to focus their efforts on relief work and caused them to negate long term development issues. This has also led to a very fragmented NGO sector in Palestine. The creation of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in 1994 brought with it further impediments to the NGO sector in Palestine. The authoritarian political nature of the PNA meant that a number of NGO's were marginalized from the national development agenda. The shift of international aid during this period from NGO's to the Palestinian government led to a decline in NGO funds. As a result of these factors, and despite the plethora of NGO's in Palestine, many of the NGO's have failed to promote sustainable development. An exception to the overall picture of NGO's in Palestine is the UPMRC. Despite facing similar challenges as the rest of the NGO sector, the UPMRC has been successful in fostering its grassroots ties, implementing effective development projects, building horizontal linkages with other NGO's, as well as creating vertical linkages with the PNA and influencing national policy. The success of the UPMRC has significant implications for other NGO's in Palestine as well as NGO's in other post-conflict areas., by Dana Erekat., M.C.P.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Vita. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-69)., This paper is based on ethnographic field research undertaken in a public health clinic in the periphery of São Paulo, as well as an examination of the "Humanisation of Childbirth Campaign". The Humanisation Campaign is a Brazilian public health initiative targeted at low-income women that aims to drastically lower country-wide caesarean rates. This paper will consider how pregnant women actively seek to be labeled 'at risk' during ante-natal care by doctors, nurses and health care technicians in order to ensure access to caesarean technology during their birthing process, in order to avoid the discrimination and physical abuse often associated with a vaginal delivery. I suggest that experiences of riscos, or riskiness, bear heavily on women's pragmatic adoption of interventionist birthing. Riscos, as it has been explained to me, is experienced both bodily and socially, as a physical threat to bodies that is experienced via physical and social violence within the clinic. In this paper, I plan to explore the phenomenology of risk, and how, for women from the periphery, risk to body and health is an embodied experience, and situated within the social and political context within which individual experience occurs. Ethnographic work suggests that women seek inclusion into 'expert' biomedical risk assessments and categories that ordinarily exclude or overlook them. This paper will be situated in an examination of the Humanisation of Birth Campaign, it will explore the conflicting meanings about what 'natural, normal and tradtional' means in Brazil, and the ongoing debate over birthing that is currently encapsulated in the narratives surrounding the Humanisation Campaign., (cont.) This pragmatic desire to adopt risk labels offers a window into understanding a new range of questions about how public health narratives have direct implications for women's reproductive health, while at the same time reconfigure women's conceptions of, and negotiations with, bodily risk and flexibility., by Laurie Michelle Denyer., S.M.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-96)., This thesis examines the role of International Development in the United Kingdom during its transition from a colonial ruler to a neo-liberal capitalist state. Starting with the inter-war period, it looks at the changing position adopted by the British state vis-a-vis development aid to its colonies up to the formation of the Department for International Development in the late 1990s. The study argues that during this period, the nature of state-sponsored international development aid has transformed significantly to a point of self-redundancy. At the same time, the British state's insistence to continue its colonial bilateral ties has made it an insignificant and obsolete player in the game. Faced with the choice to embrace this obsolescence brought about by the market, the British State could transform its foreign aid policies and explore new ways bring change in developing nations. However, trapped between the disciplinary limitations imposed by "Planning" and its own recurring economic crises, the British state has been unable to seize this opportunity, leading to an anachronistic foreign development policy., by Ninad Pandit., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2010., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-125)., This thesis explores the difference in adoption patterns of water recharge well technology in Mexico City both by local entities and the central city government. The research finds that this technology, originally designed by the central city with the stated purpose of aiding aquifer recharge, was adopted by local entities driven by concerns over flood control. Geophysical realities, complemented by political and socioeconomic factors, are key in deciding the use and type of infiltration technology by local entities. Water policy priorities at the local level are a decidedly local affair, which makes coordination difficult and thus constitutes a challenge for sustainable water management in Mexico City as a whole. Ineffective formal coordination mechanisms among the three levels of government, and the incentives that explain the uneven adoption of recharge wells by local communities, suggest an alternative approach to metropolitan water governance. In addition to traditional solutions such as regulation and formal metropolitan cooperation bodies, a third path of sustainable water management would involve a division of tasks between high and lower local level governments. Levels of government with the resources and incentives to develop technologies with systemic impacts and that address immediate needs can then "market" or "scale down" these solutions to localities whose incentive structure would lead them to, in effect, implement these solutions. In this way, collective action problems could be sidelined at the metropolitan scale., by José Antonio Correa Ibargüengoitia., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-96)., This thesis examines the role of International Development in the United Kingdom during its transition from a colonial ruler to a neo-liberal capitalist state. Starting with the inter-war period, it looks at the changing position adopted by the British state vis-a-vis development aid to its colonies up to the formation of the Department for International Development in the late 1990s. The study argues that during this period, the nature of state-sponsored international development aid has transformed significantly to a point of self-redundancy. At the same time, the British state's insistence to continue its colonial bilateral ties has made it an insignificant and obsolete player in the game. Faced with the choice to embrace this obsolescence brought about by the market, the British State could transform its foreign aid policies and explore new ways bring change in developing nations. However, trapped between the disciplinary limitations imposed by "Planning" and its own recurring economic crises, the British state has been unable to seize this opportunity, leading to an anachronistic foreign development policy., by Ninad Pandit., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-88)., This thesis examines how an NGO can function and create change within the shifting domains of Palestinian stability and conflict through the case study of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committee (UPMRC). Palestinian society today heavily relies on NGO's for an array of service provisions. However, Palestinian NGO's continue to face various challenges since their inception. The long history of Israeli occupation has forced NGO's to focus their efforts on relief work and caused them to negate long term development issues. This has also led to a very fragmented NGO sector in Palestine. The creation of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in 1994 brought with it further impediments to the NGO sector in Palestine. The authoritarian political nature of the PNA meant that a number of NGO's were marginalized from the national development agenda. The shift of international aid during this period from NGO's to the Palestinian government led to a decline in NGO funds. As a result of these factors, and despite the plethora of NGO's in Palestine, many of the NGO's have failed to promote sustainable development. An exception to the overall picture of NGO's in Palestine is the UPMRC. Despite facing similar challenges as the rest of the NGO sector, the UPMRC has been successful in fostering its grassroots ties, implementing effective development projects, building horizontal linkages with other NGO's, as well as creating vertical linkages with the PNA and influencing national policy. The success of the UPMRC has significant implications for other NGO's in Palestine as well as NGO's in other post-conflict areas., by Dana Erekat., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2010., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 100-104)., This thesis examines the ways in which the phenomena of walling, ethnic segregation, sectarian violence, and imbalanced urban development have continued to reproduce themselves and reinforce one another in the present day, post-Good Friday city of Belfast. Situated within an understanding of the historic patterns of urban development and sectarian conflict in Belfast, as well as the city's emerging socio-spatial divergence, three case studies of present-day management and development at key 'interface' areas in North, West, and East Belfast are presented. These case studies highlight the continued legacy of violent conflict on present-day development outcomes, as well as help to frame the impact that these outcomes have on the emergence of divergent visions of desired post-conflict urban development. Ultimately, this thesis underlines why interface management, urban development, and the mitigation or escalation of violent conflict must not be addressed as separate functions within the context of chronic violence by examining how the Belfast's legacy of urban violence has conditioned the restructuring of physical space at various scales, and has itself subsequently been conditioned by those outcomes., by Alexander M. Keating., M.C.P.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Vita. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-69)., This paper is based on ethnographic field research undertaken in a public health clinic in the periphery of São Paulo, as well as an examination of the "Humanisation of Childbirth Campaign". The Humanisation Campaign is a Brazilian public health initiative targeted at low-income women that aims to drastically lower country-wide caesarean rates. This paper will consider how pregnant women actively seek to be labeled 'at risk' during ante-natal care by doctors, nurses and health care technicians in order to ensure access to caesarean technology during their birthing process, in order to avoid the discrimination and physical abuse often associated with a vaginal delivery. I suggest that experiences of riscos, or riskiness, bear heavily on women's pragmatic adoption of interventionist birthing. Riscos, as it has been explained to me, is experienced both bodily and socially, as a physical threat to bodies that is experienced via physical and social violence within the clinic. In this paper, I plan to explore the phenomenology of risk, and how, for women from the periphery, risk to body and health is an embodied experience, and situated within the social and political context within which individual experience occurs. Ethnographic work suggests that women seek inclusion into 'expert' biomedical risk assessments and categories that ordinarily exclude or overlook them. This paper will be situated in an examination of the Humanisation of Birth Campaign, it will explore the conflicting meanings about what 'natural, normal and tradtional' means in Brazil, and the ongoing debate over birthing that is currently encapsulated in the narratives surrounding the Humanisation Campaign., (cont.) This pragmatic desire to adopt risk labels offers a window into understanding a new range of questions about how public health narratives have direct implications for women's reproductive health, while at the same time reconfigure women's conceptions of, and negotiations with, bodily risk and flexibility., by Laurie Michelle Denyer., S.M.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2010., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-125)., This thesis explores the difference in adoption patterns of water recharge well technology in Mexico City both by local entities and the central city government. The research finds that this technology, originally designed by the central city with the stated purpose of aiding aquifer recharge, was adopted by local entities driven by concerns over flood control. Geophysical realities, complemented by political and socioeconomic factors, are key in deciding the use and type of infiltration technology by local entities. Water policy priorities at the local level are a decidedly local affair, which makes coordination difficult and thus constitutes a challenge for sustainable water management in Mexico City as a whole. Ineffective formal coordination mechanisms among the three levels of government, and the incentives that explain the uneven adoption of recharge wells by local communities, suggest an alternative approach to metropolitan water governance. In addition to traditional solutions such as regulation and formal metropolitan cooperation bodies, a third path of sustainable water management would involve a division of tasks between high and lower local level governments. Levels of government with the resources and incentives to develop technologies with systemic impacts and that address immediate needs can then "market" or "scale down" these solutions to localities whose incentive structure would lead them to, in effect, implement these solutions. In this way, collective action problems could be sidelined at the metropolitan scale., by José Antonio Correa Ibargüengoitia., M.C.P.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Vita. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-69)., This paper is based on ethnographic field research undertaken in a public health clinic in the periphery of São Paulo, as well as an examination of the "Humanisation of Childbirth Campaign". The Humanisation Campaign is a Brazilian public health initiative targeted at low-income women that aims to drastically lower country-wide caesarean rates. This paper will consider how pregnant women actively seek to be labeled 'at risk' during ante-natal care by doctors, nurses and health care technicians in order to ensure access to caesarean technology during their birthing process, in order to avoid the discrimination and physical abuse often associated with a vaginal delivery. I suggest that experiences of riscos, or riskiness, bear heavily on women's pragmatic adoption of interventionist birthing. Riscos, as it has been explained to me, is experienced both bodily and socially, as a physical threat to bodies that is experienced via physical and social violence within the clinic. In this paper, I plan to explore the phenomenology of risk, and how, for women from the periphery, risk to body and health is an embodied experience, and situated within the social and political context within which individual experience occurs. Ethnographic work suggests that women seek inclusion into 'expert' biomedical risk assessments and categories that ordinarily exclude or overlook them. This paper will be situated in an examination of the Humanisation of Birth Campaign, it will explore the conflicting meanings about what 'natural, normal and tradtional' means in Brazil, and the ongoing debate over birthing that is currently encapsulated in the narratives surrounding the Humanisation Campaign., (cont.) This pragmatic desire to adopt risk labels offers a window into understanding a new range of questions about how public health narratives have direct implications for women's reproductive health, while at the same time reconfigure women's conceptions of, and negotiations with, bodily risk and flexibility., by Laurie Michelle Denyer., S.M.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-96)., This thesis examines the role of International Development in the United Kingdom during its transition from a colonial ruler to a neo-liberal capitalist state. Starting with the inter-war period, it looks at the changing position adopted by the British state vis-a-vis development aid to its colonies up to the formation of the Department for International Development in the late 1990s. The study argues that during this period, the nature of state-sponsored international development aid has transformed significantly to a point of self-redundancy. At the same time, the British state's insistence to continue its colonial bilateral ties has made it an insignificant and obsolete player in the game. Faced with the choice to embrace this obsolescence brought about by the market, the British State could transform its foreign aid policies and explore new ways bring change in developing nations. However, trapped between the disciplinary limitations imposed by "Planning" and its own recurring economic crises, the British state has been unable to seize this opportunity, leading to an anachronistic foreign development policy., by Ninad Pandit., M.C.P.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009., Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-116)., The main topic of this study is the enactment of a non-contributory and non-means-tested Universal Pension (Pension Alimentaria Ciudadana para Adultos Mayores) program in Mexico City directed at city residents 70 years of age or older. A state-centered framework for social policy analysis is used to understand why and how was this policy implemented at the local level considering that it pertains a policy area that is normally restricted to national states. In order to show that there is a distinct local state in Mexico City, from the national state, the study explores the impulse international economic changes gave to the decentralization and democratization processes that took place in Mexico in the last few decades. As a consequence of these processes, an additional process of local state formation has taken place in the city, itself having larger consequences at the national level. To show how this process is taking place a series of political conflicts among city institutions and also national institutions in the 2000 - 2003 period are narrated. This process of local state formation prominently includes the change in the relationship between the state and society, from a relationship structured around corporatist institutions to a broader notion of citizenship through the introduction of a non-contributory universal pension., by Andrés Lajous-Loaeza., M.C.P.