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This study is an ethnographic, single case study that examined Blueberry Hill Cohousing (BBHC), an American cohousing community, and both the processes the community uses to foster social capital among residents, and the challenges that have arisen over time within the community. Cohousing, a little-known residential planning model in the United States, centers on creating neighborhoods with abundant social capital. Research shows social capital can be an effective means to provide many benefits to individuals as they manage their daily lives. These benefits can include expanded access to economic opportunities, a lack of loneliness, and emotional support. I undertook this study in response to the significant planning discourses, which link social capital to healthy communities. In this study, I employed open-ended interviews, observations, and reflective memo-writing. I analyzed data through repeated data coding. Key findings showed activities were more critical than site design in fostering social capital. Living at BBHC did not lessen residents' daily life tasks, given residents' expected participation. Also, social capital is unevenly distributed amongst residents. Factors that influenced an individual's store of social capital included participation in activities and the ability to navigate community norms and processes. Many existing residents expressed satisfaction with the benefits they received, such as sharing child or elder care, socializing, and general social support. Others cautioned that the lack of socioeconomic and racial diversity may isolate some residents. The study offers several suggestions to facilitate creating supportive communities. These include clearly defining consensus and articulating decision-making processes; incorporating homebuyers' input early in the project development phase; rethinking common area designs; and methods to foster activities that encourage resident interaction. Future research could explore interpersonal relationships in cohousing, linkages between social capital and consensus decision-making, and comparisons between American and European cohousing communities. Doctor of Philosophy This study is an ethnographic, single case study that examined Blueberry Hill Cohousing (BBHC), an American cohousing community, and both the processes the community uses to foster social capital among residents, and the challenges that have arisen over time within the community. Cohousing, a little-known residential planning model in the United States, centers on creating neighborhoods with abundant social capital. Research shows social capital can be an effective means to provide many benefits to individuals as they manage their daily lives. These benefits can include expanded access to economic opportunities, a lack of loneliness, and emotional support. I undertook this study in response to the significant planning discourses, which link social capital to healthy communities. I employed open-ended interviews and observations and analyzed data through repeated data coding. Key findings showed activities were more critical than site design in fostering social capital. Living at BBHC did not lessen residents' daily life tasks, given residents' expected participation. Many existing residents expressed satisfaction with the benefits they received, such as sharing child or elder care, socializing, and general social support. Others cautioned that the lack of socioeconomic and racial diversity may isolate some residents. The study offers several suggestions to facilitate creating supportive communities. These include clearly defining decision-making processes; incorporating homebuyers' input early in the project development phase; rethinking common area designs; and methods to foster activities that encourage resident interaction. Future research could explore interpersonal relationships in cohousing, linkages between social capital and consensus decision-making, and comparisons between American and European cohousing communities.

This dissertation analyzes contemporary transformations in urban policy and space production in Brazil; in particular, those associated with state efforts to attract the private sector to participate in the design, finance, development and long-term management of infrastructure and housing provision systems. While the study's focus is on adoption of the public-private partnership (PPP) mechanism in the affordable housing sector, empirical research is based on the case study analysis of Casa Paulista Program, the first PPP for affordable housing delivery in the country, sponsored by the State Government of São Paulo and implemented in the central districts of the city of São Paulo, the state's capital. Specific questions driving the research are twofold: in the first, I ask what were the characteristics of the Casa Paulista PPP model, and in the second, how public and private agents, including social groups, affected the evolution of the model. Permeating this analysis is the concern as to how housing provision through PPPs may affect the ability of local populations to access adequate housing and fully participate in city living, as demanded by social housing movements and urban reform advocates and predicted in Brazil's Federal Constitution, and rights-based urban policy at national and local levels. Findings indicate that the Casa Paulista model, while neither leveraging private capital nor scaling up housing production, facilitates rearrangements in the private local housing market, urban policy, and social relationships around housing provision. These efforts are successful only with support of the development and finance industries operating beyond the local scale. I argue that these new rearrangements support a publicly funded, privately managed model to support predominantly residential real estate development projects of large scale and which are debt financed through long term agreements. This dynamic generates risk to society's ability to control urban transformation in the central city area and support preservation of a stock of public and private land where affordable housing development is currently prioritized, an outcome I describe as 'privatizing planning and socializing risk'. PHD

The identities of people residing in the vicinity of national borders are complex and affected by many factors, especially by narratives imposed by national governments through the national education system. The European Union, as a supranational organization, also provides narratives that expose individuals to globalized, versus national, ideals. This ethnographic case study asks how individuals living along the Macedonian-Bulgarian border, sharing strong ethnic and cultural ties, view their regional, national and European identities. The study finds that individuals have developed a strong attachment to their national identity. Many Bulgarians hold a strong vision based on historic claims to the Bulgarian Kingdom. Many Bulgarians see Macedonian as having been carved out of the ancient territory and therefore refer to the people as Bulgarians, thus denying their right to self-identify. Macedonians, on the other hand, choose not to refer to the 'other' as part of their own population, but rather as neighbors. They view their national identity is based on the idea of the country being 'attacked' by its neighbors and having to struggle for recognition in the world. The E.U. does not currently offer an alternative, as individuals have little attachment to their European identity related to E.U. membership. Ph. D.

Boarding, alighting and seating maneuvers were monitored on selected Arlington Transit (ART) bus routes in order to determine the link between passenger demographics, seating preferences and boarding and alighting times within the system. The data collection methodology employed digital stopwatch timings of boardings and alightings in conjunction with a coordinate-based spreadsheet seating chart tracking system in order to document passenger movements and seating occupancies. Passengers were visually profiled according to their ethnicity, sex, general age group and bulkiness. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to develop boarding and alighting models, and t-tests were used to isolate statistically significant differences between profiled groups in terms of their seating preferences and inter-group separation distances aboard the buses. It was observed that female passengers tend to sit closer to other passengers than males do, and that older female passengers have a preference for sitting in aisle seats and towards the lower level front of the bus - each of these preferences is linked with shorter boarding times. Males, in general, tend to prefer window seating to aisle seating, and this preference is linked with longer boarding and alighting times. It was also observed that younger passengers prefer less efficient upper level seating to lower level seating and that white passengers, on average, tend to sit closer to other white passengers on routes where whites are a minority in terms of passenger composition. Monetary fare payment was observed to contribute to longer boarding times than the use of a swipe card (e.g., SmarTrip® card). Master of Science

This dissertation investigates how the process, politics, and impacts of culturally-framed redevelopment balance growth and equity within inner-city neighborhoods experiencing change. Redevelopment programs that draw upon existing arts and cultural assets have been supported and identified by planners as a strategy of local economic development. However, critiques of cultural preservation as a form of economic development argue that the norms and goals of such planning efforts and their impact on existing residents require further evaluation. For example, planning scholars find that cultural preservation may reinforce both existing spatial divides and forms of social exclusion. At the same time, the recognition of ethnic and minority heritage by non-local forces has been identified by some scholars as an opportunity to further the multicultural transformation of public history as well as locally sustainable community development that benefits the neighborhood's original inhabitants. I employ an extended case study research design and ethnographic methods to analyze how the process of producing authenticity contributes or impinges on development and market potential as well as social preservation efforts in a historic African American neighborhood, U Street/Shaw, within Washington, DC. An analysis of the implementation of the guiding vision for the neighborhood's cultural redevelopment, The DUKE Plan, occurs on three scales: neighborhood, anchor institutions, and individual (residents and visitors). Pro-growth strategies that bolstered the marketable "Black Broadway" place brand were supported at each scale rather than opportunities to preserve the neighborhood's identity through the retention of long-term residents and interpretation of the breadth of the community's identity. As a result of culturally-framed redevelopment, the U Street/Shaw neighborhood continues to gentrify causing a loss of belonging and ownership of cultural heritage among long-term residents. Solutions to ensuring that social equity provisions are delivered in culturally-framed redevelopment requires the adoption of accountability measures defined by existing residents during the planning process that commercial and government stakeholders must continually adhere to throughout and after implementation. Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to explore the ways racial and socio-economic diversity potentially affect economic development in Columbia City, one of Seattle's most diverse neighborhoods. Case studies of diverse metropolitan neighborhoods have not considered the impacts of diversity on economic development directly, and quantitative studies regarding diversity and economic development have produced conflicting results. Therefore, this exploratory research will attempt to answer the question, how do neighborhood actors perceive the relationship between racial and socio-economic residential composition and economic development in a diverse, urban neighborhood? For this study, the author conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with neighborhood stakeholders including nonprofit leaders, government officials, business owners, and residents. The author used the interpretive approach to analyze the interviews. Results derived from the perspectives, accounts, experiences, opinions, and understanding of neighborhood informants suggest an important connection between diversity and economic development. Master of Urban and Regional Planning