« This dissertation examines whether participatory projects, notably those involving children, in urban areas in Lebanon can help improve refugee children’s wellbeing, including by enhancing social cohesion between diverse residents. Drawing from urban studies, child psychology, and other literature, it outlines Syrian refugee children’s circumstances in Lebanese urban areas, and the risks and protective factors they face as a result of their experiences. Centred around urban space, its theoretical framework links concepts of spatial justice, environmental child psychology/socio-ecological models, and social cohesion. Fundamental to its overarching exploration, it adopts a relational and psychosocial definition of wellbeing, which also recognises children’s unique characteristics and experiences. It considers practical evidence for its exploration in two projects in Lebanon, after briefly looking at children’s reimagining of urban areas outside of formal processes. It concludes that there is strong evidence that, when processes are meaningful and address participants’ priorities, as well as successfully engage local authorities, they have significant potential to contribute to children’s wellbeing and improve prospects for social cohesion. The challenge is in creating genuinely inclusive processes that have multiplying, lasting effects – i.e. that they can serve as the ‘glue’ that binds residents in pursuit of the urban commons – and that trigger ongoing, collective actions by a cross-section of residents, which can convince strategic, powerful stakeholders of their importance. Given the acute crisis Lebanon faces, such processes remain more important than ever, while remaining sensitive to the socio-political and economic realities affecting millions across the country.

With the exploration of the value and sustainability of developing Urban Agroecology for application to urban development processes, the central question that will be extended and studied in this dissertation is, therefore, how can Urban Agroecology offer new possibilities for sustainable urban development? This can be deeply meaningful for agricultural civilisation contexted cities' problems solving and future development. Shanghai and Lima are case cities analysed, have been through and are now experiencing some exciting urban eco-building projects. They are urbanising at a fast pace with the global trend; both face complex urban development challenges while still needing further to consider potential and possibilities for further sustainable development and find the right questions during the application of Urban Agroecology. Urban space will be given a new functional definition in the future. The theoretical areas on which this dissertation will focus are the value of developing Urban Agroecology and approaching it sustainably.

With less than a decade left to deliver the Sustainable Development Goal of universal access to water and sanitation, innovative and inclusive new approaches are needed to address the ongoing challenge of urban Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS). WSS has long been misrecognised as a technical issue of facilities and infrastructure, obscuring the complex socio-political drivers that shape distributional injustices in service provision. Furthermore, marginalised groups disproportionately suffering WSS injustices, such as informal settlement residents, are typically excluded from the WSS decision-making that could alleviate their struggles. The co-production of knowledge through partnerships with informal settlement residents is gaining interest as a potentially transformative method to address WSS injustices through improving recognition of the multifaceted and heterogeneous realities within informal settlements and empowering the political participation of informal settlement residents. Despite widespread academic enthusiasm, much of the literature remains broadly conceptual. This dissertation contributes to the debate by examining how knowledge co-production can help alleviate WSS service provision injustices through the specific case of the Centre for Community Initiative’s activities in the informal settlements of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The combined theoretical lenses of environmental justice and Feminist Political Ecology deliver a nuanced perspective on knowledge co-production that emphasises the importance of local context, heterogeneity within and between informal settlements and the complexity of ‘transformative change’.

Ride-hailing services have grown ingrained in the urban mobility landscapes of cities all over the world. Uber alone has completed over 10 billion rides across 10,000 cities in a decade (Uber, 2018; Uber, 2020). During this time, ride-hailing players have revolutionized the transport sector by disrupting the taxi industry, public transport systems and labour protection laws. Despite its growing popularity in cities, many unknowns about ride-hailing’s impact make it difficult to regulate. The case of Uber, which faced regulatory hurdles and briefly ceased operations in Colombia in January 2020 (Feiner, 2020), a first for any LAC nation, exemplifies this. In the context of concerns about urban sustainability and social equity, Oviedo et al (2020) emphasize that as this new mode becomes more popular in LAC, assessing its impact becomes all the more crucial for local authorities and transport planning organizations. Scholars argue that research on this topic has been limited due to under-conceptualisation (Gomez‐Morantes et al, 2021), knowledge gaps regarding emerging markets (Granada et al, 2018) and a lack of focus on distributional perspectives and social disparities (Oviedo et al, 2021). Moreover, disagreements about the effects of ride-hailing and the resulting regulatory inconsistencies stem mainly from a lack of adequate data. Due to the novelty of the service and the unwillingness of its companies to disclose information due to privacy concerns, it has been difficult to measure the impact of ride-hailing. As a result, most of what is known comes from small survey samples, such as Henao's (2018). To overcome these limitations, this dissertation leverages one of the largest ride-hailing focused datasets made available by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) which captures responses from over 4000 LAC respondents. By placing ride-hailing within the well-established transport related social exclusion literature, this timely research adds much-needed information to the field of transport, specifically to the sub-discipline of shared mobility. The dissertation recognizes the complexity of framing the various dimensions of Transport Related Social Exclusion and analyzing all these effects in one study. However, at the core, under this theoretical framework, the research objective is to examine the potentially restrictive nature of ride-hailing for residents in LI neighbourhoods in Bogotá, Colombia. Ride-Hailing, Transport Equity, Transport Related Social Exclusion, Urban Mobility, Latin America

In order to raise awareness on particularly gender disparities during their exercise of the right to be mobile and participate in the city, this work aims to examine the associations between the frequency of the usage of on-demand transport services and particular factors related to gender-based inequalities such as sexual harassment, gender-based violence and fear, crime rates, social class and individual practices to contribute with broader debates on gendered social exclusion and inaccessibility. While intersecting concepts underpinning transport-related social exclusion (TRSE) and access to the city, this study uses official quantitative data, including attitudinal preferences, from the cities of Bogota and Mexico City provided by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as part of their broader research on ride-hailing and Social Exclusion.

A description of the work (Abstract): Since the beginning of the pandemic many flaws in the way cities around the world function were made visible and the FAO identified the urban food provisioning system as one of these (Khim, 2020). COVID-19 is far from being the first biological hazard but in current times it is the first that has gravely affected all stages of the food system including, production, processing, packaging, distribution, retail, and consumption. More frequent climatic hazards have been studied and addressed through disaster risk reduction usually at the level of agricultural production such as unpredictable and extreme weather leading to failed harvests. Therefore, this paper combines the fields of disaster risk reduction and food system planning to build back better after the COVID-19 biological hazard in developing cities such as Lima, Peru and more particularly in the middle-low to low-income district of Villa Maria del Triunfo. This combination is based on the idea that disasters can be defined as the impact of a hazard on a human system which can be a food system and that literature in both fields mention resilience as a key concept to build back better. Throughout the case study assessing pre-disposing disaster risk to COVID-19 in the food system shed light on the unequal exposure, vulnerability, and capacity to act to disaster risk in Lima. It also created space to look at international examples of post-disaster recovery strategies in food systems of other cities and the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s most recent resilience framework called the City-Region Food system. The strategies suggested for the case of Villa Maria del Triunfo are transferable to cities that have similar issues but on the other hand they are also largely dependent on the will of cities and their actors to act on these matters. Thus, this paper can be seen as advocating for the implementation of food systems planning in disaster risk reduction as an important step for urban development.

Access to secure housing is a basic requirement for human dignity, and yet millions of people are under the threat of eviction. Amidst the global housing crisis, there has been an emergence of social movements defying the hegemonic concept of individualistic property rights. The discussion around the urban commons is in line with this struggle. Thailand’s slum upgrading program, Bann Mankong, is a great example of practising collective rights over land and housing. Starting from 2003 with ten pilot projects, Bann Mankong has scaled up successfully to 1,231 projects covering 112,777 households as of 2019. Impressed by its success, a lot of literature on Bann Mankong tried to extract lessons on how to replicate the model elsewhere. However, while it stresses its applicability, less has been discussed about the country-specific context of Thailand, which gave birth to this program. Similarly, the focus on the participatory aspect of the program diluted the fact that Bann Mankong is a government-initiated and funded program and the very nature of the CODI, the operating agency of the program, is a government organisation, even if it adopted the flexibility of NGOs. Guided by Ostrom’s institutional analysis and development framework and Bookchin’s confederal governance, the dissertation identified the hierarchical elements of Bann Mankong’s organisational structure. Also, the dissertation analysed the socio-economic and cultural context around the institution which enabled the emergence of a state-initiated commoning process like Bann Mankong; the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in Thailand, the notion of ‘sufficiency economy’ combined with Buddhism, the long-held history of public control over land, and grassroots movements. Lastly, the dissertation outlined the limitations of Bann Mankong in terms of inclusivity, financial sustainability, and gender equality. Especially regarding gender equality, the dissertation illuminated how voluntary labour in creating and managing the urban commons is gendered and underappreciated.

This study looks into the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The main objective of this study is to enable an understanding of a favela as a capable urban governance institution. This rationale is made possible through the case study of local initiatives that surged in Rio during the crisis, by making use of Byrne’s (2005) complexity framework applied to social sciences. Through the analysis of this case, it becomes clear that three institutional conditions allowed local organisations to advance urban equality throughout the pandemic. First, a condition of formal government institution’s failure. Second, a condition of inadequate access to health and sanitation. Third, a structural inequality that portray favelas as a threat to be perceived by formal institutions as something that must be fixed. This understanding leads to a contribution to the academic and societal understanding of urban settings in Brazil. This paper contains important implications for future work in favelas, although its finding are somewhat limited to the specific context of favelas in Rio de Janeiro.

Poor water and sanitation brings health inequalities in Dar es Salaam, which sets great challenges to achieve health justice. Finding routes to water and sanitation equity is an important development agenda in Dar es Salaam. To answer the research question about how the current water and sanitation governance of Dar es Salaam affects health justice, the dissertation adopts literature review and case study to have an analysis. Through literature review, vulnerabilities in the relationship between poor water and sanitation and health inequalities in Dar es Salaam are founded. Through three cases, Kombo (Ilala Municipality), Keko Machungwa (Temeke Municipality) and Tandale Slum, interactions among all kinds of determinants and stakeholders in Dar es Salaam’ water and sanitation governance are analysed and discussed. Drawing the analytical framework of health justice, all cases are analysed from environmental justice, social justice and planning justice, these three aspects that help to achieve health justice. In the end, the dissertation identifies future challenges to water and sanitation equity in Dar es Salaam and proposes recommendations to the local and global water and sanitation governance.

A description of the work (Abstract): «Exploring a potential vision of the common good for London’s economic centres, this dissertation asks why and how economic democracy should be enacted at the scale of the high street. While COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities along many lines, evolving values around community, wellbeing and public space also pose an opportunity for re-imagining fairer economic trajectories through a focus on place. Often magnifying wider economic issues, the long-run decline of British high streets has been well documented. While commonly focusing on curation and design as a way to ‘activate’ these once public spaces, their complexity has given way to an equally diverse discourse lacking a consistent framework for guiding planning, interventions and policy. While current high street rhetoric offers a growing focus on social value and ‘community-led development’, economic power and equity implications are frequently overlooked. This thesis suggests, given the accessible and inclusive nature of high streets, the potential for situating a framework of economic development that considers a more radical restructuring of social and economic power. Placing the principles of economic democracy within an everyday site helps to foreground people and place. Through repurposing urban space for inclusive, collective and participatory workspaces, services or social centres, high streets can play a role in reformulating value concepts. Developing an analytical framework that considers rights, ownership and deliberation, through iterative empirical analysis, this thesis will address practices that could re-frame high streets to better serve their communities. SHORT: study asking why and how should a framework of economic democracy be used to re-shape london’s high streets, for the redistribution of economic power and the promotion of the common good.

Climate change is already threatening the lives and livelihoods of Yangon’s residents, with low-income informal settlements experiencing high levels of vulnerability, while receiving little protection in the face of spatially violent development, policy and planning. This dissertation aims to situate current climate change adaptation needs within the context of historical and contemporary spatial violence that continues to impact everyday lived realities in low-income settlements. Spatial violence in the form of displacement, dislocation and dispossession threatens to continue along the current trajectory perpetuating high levels of vulnerability. With so called ‘green’ development putting those most vulnerable into further states of precarity, this dissertation utilises a Feminist Political Ecology lens to explore the reality for women in Yangon, who despite traditional narratives of relative equality, experience high levels of vulnerability due to their gendered experiences. As a reaction to perpetuating spatial violence and threats of further precarity, women and community groups in Yangon are emerging as agents of their own adaptation in the form of community housing and infrastructure upgrading initiatives. Without acknowledgement for the current experience of spatial violence in the city, and the reactions of the most vulnerable communities, adaptation that aims to challenge the structures behind current vulnerability will not occur. This dissertation found that while there is a lack of care and acknowledgement for the reality of the most marginalised communities, they respond to threats of further precarity with agency, that if supported, could lead to transformative adaptation for the city of Yangon.

This research aims to provide an overview of the cultural-creative industries (CCI) in the Medina of Tunis and to understand pathways for socioeconomic development in the historic quarters. While the cultural heritage efforts, the history of craft and folk-art, and the function of souks in the Medina have been documented by scholars, little scholarly work has been carried out to analyse the link between socioeconomic development and the CCI in the city, despite the efforts of local civil society organisations. This work aims to provide an analysis of local socioeconomic challenges with a focus on labour and gender, to understand the relationship between the cultural-creative economy and the socioeconomic dynamics in the Medina, through a mixed-methods approach. Further, this research aims to add to the knowledge on economic development and creative industry development in a heritage context and specifically in countries in the Middle East and North Africa. While the majority of creative economy discourse is focused on the global North, this research aims to explore potential pathways for a heritage-led creative economy approach to economic activation through a comparative case study of other craft and folk-art heritage cities in the MENA region to inform pathways for change in the Medina. Finally, the notion of value is integral to bridging the gap between cultural heritage and economics. This research aims to map out the forms of value the cultural-creative economy can generate multiple and cross-disciplinary forms of value to contribute towards the work in measuring value in the Medina.

In many ways the experience of spatial violence in Beirut is somewhat of an anomaly both prior to and following the port-explosion, which prompts exploration with regards to the potentials of people-led urban recovery. The research explores the infrastructures of care that developed following the blast looking into different areas including Karantina, Mar Mikhayel, and Medawer as key case studies. The first section of the analysis examines the historical roots of sectarian divides in Beirut and the theme of statelessness. Referring to the works of Lefebvre and Agamben, the research explores spatial practices and the reproduction of space within the scope of conflict in Beirut. The second section of the research entails urban analyses of the aforementioned case studies, raising potential recommendation and discussions to assess and take remedial action following events of such magnitude in contested contents.

A description of the work (Abstract): With the fastest urbanization process, Chinese cities have experienced extraordinary housing development and marketization, resulting in a significant shift in housing consumption. However, over time, housing inequality has increased significantly, especially among different socio-economic groups. This dissertation used 2017 Chinese General Social Survey data to explore the underlying factors of housing inequality and interaction relationships with other types of inequality (e.g., occupational inequality, income inequality, wealth inequality and intergenerational inequality and so on). The findings suggest that in the current privatized and commodified housing market, socioeconomic status, such as education, gender and age would have a significant effect on housing choice and lead to housing inequalities. Furthermore, this dissertation uses a case study of Beijing to explore the change of underlying causes from a historical perspective. In China, the real estate market experienced three stages, which are socialistic allocation stage (before 1998), privatization stage – market-based housing reform (1999-2008) and housing price booming stage (2009-2021). In the pre-reform era, political status was the primary driver of housing inequality. With the establishment of a privatized and commodified housing market following reform, some political drivers such as political position and work unit have a diminishing impact on housing decisions, whereas hukou remain a lasting effect on housing market. These findings support market transmission theory and power persistence theory, implying that the political system and market mechanism are both influencing the housing market at the same time. These findings point policymakers in the right direction for implementing more targeted measures to promote sustainable development in metropolitan areas.