This study investigates the Impact of COVID-19 on London and highlight opportunities to mitigate the impact on the city. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews with experts and categorised through the smart city framework, which includes, smart: economy, people, governance, mobility, environment and living.

AirBnB and other short term rental services (STRs) have become an established part of the residential real estate market in London. For the STR market in general, the desire to stay in apartments and your ‘own space' over that of a hotel has given rise to this market. AirBnB and other short-term rental platforms claim to operate through the ‘sharing economy’. However this paper will show that STR listings in London are forming a new professionalised market. As a result of this booming industry, there is substantial removal of stock from the private rental sector (PRS) resulting in reduced supply and rising prices. Despite this, the industry is still operating largely unregulated and uncontrolled. Where regulation has been attempted in London, it has been routinely ignored without repercussions and remains ineffective. This paper investigates the impact of STR professionalisation using data samples and interviews before examining regulatory policies from Japan, Santa Monica and Barcelona

An in-depth investigation into the contemporary role of archaeology within the current planning system in London, looking at its role in real estate development. Interviews with developers, planners and archaeological advisors form the original research in this dissertation.

The present dissertation is developed under the basis that the un-targeted promotion of cycling, fails to increase gendered diversity in this mode of transport in the context of London. The research explores from a subjective approach the reasons behind the gender gap in cycling by looking into women’s personal experiences and intrinsic social conditions that make them prone to cycle, or on the contrary, constrain them from doing so. This dissertation is framed under Amartya Sen’s ‘Capability Approach’ (CA) (1984) as it recognises that individuals have different abilities or capabilities to carry out and activity, in this case, women's capabilities to cycle. The data was gathered through semi-structured interviews focused on women’s personal experience in cycling, and showed the social construction of gender influences how women perceive the action of riding a bicycle, and hence their ability to do so.

qualitative study of local residents of a regeneration area in London, seeking to understand the impacts which policy-led heightened development activity and the commodification of land is having on their lived experience.

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.

Over the past two decades, the Greater London Authority (GLA) has pursued the delivery of high-density development in London in order to respond to population growth whilst protecting the green belt. Though high-density places have been associated with sustainable outcomes, it is well documented that residents interact less frequently and build fewer relationships in these environments. This can be particularly detrimental since social contact is fundamental for our general well-being and happiness. In response to this problematic, this study explored if and how we can design for social interaction in high-density housing. To do so, it adopted the process of inducting theory from case studies. Firstly, three case studies of recently completed developments were undertaken to determine whether social interaction was a driving factor in the design process, the type and location of social interactions, and clarify the influence of physical design on social contact in comparison to other factors. These design-led schemes were chosen for investigation as award-winning developments which had received commendation for creating the foundations for a strong community. Next, a cross-case comparison was undertaken to identify hypothesis that addressed the research question and objectives. Providing support for existing literature in the context of high-density housing, it was discovered that limiting the number of apartments to a building allows for collective stewardship, and that communal areas shared by smaller groups are used more intensively. Moreover, combining shared paths and communal areas was observed to support fleeting interactions and helped to nurture a local sense of community. New findings included that externalising the circulation spaces of multi-storey apartment blocks can facilitate conversations between neighbours, and that bike stores can represent an epicentre for contact if internalised and co-located with shared paths. Notably, the impact of physical design factors was not deterministic.

A study which examines sense of place in two London high streets from the perspective of local residents. The study uses a sense of place framework (consisting of the built environment, activities, and meaning) to explore attributes that contribute to sense of place in Totteridge and Whetstone high street and Marylebone high street.

Public resources such as parks, transportation, and schools can be very important factors to housing prices nearby. Among these various factors, urban green spaces are especially essential since they can help approve the urban quality of living such as reducing traffic noise and air pollution, as well as being beneficial to human wellbeing. There are academic studies focused on cities all around the world indicating that the proximity to urban green spaces usually has a positive effect on housing prices in the surrounding areas, which is also part of the hedonic pricing analysis and called the proximity principle. However, relevant studies on the correlation between urban green spaces and housing prices have mainly concentrated on Global North, especially in the United States, Europe, and Asian cities. Few studies have mentioned the proximity principle in the United Kingdom context. Therefore, the objective of this research is to investigate the effect of urban green spaces on housing prices in nearby areas. London postcode system is being applied when designating particular areas including green spaces. Five renowned parks are being selected within Inner London and 5223 housing transactions raw data in total were collected within three parks to prove the proximity principle and make the results more general. Substantial evidence by quantitative data analysis through IBM SPSS Statistics 27 shows that the proximity to urban green spaces is positively correlated to housing prices nearby, regardless of the housing types. The conclusion of previous studies is still applicable in Inner London that the proximity principle is accepted in the Global North planning context. This research will shed light on the Inner London context in residential housing purchase decision-making, as well as for estate developers and governments to make reasonable planning development layouts with potential increased economic benefits.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent national lockdowns have had a significant impact on businesses of all sizes, particularly small businesses. Therefore, it is essential that small businesses are adequately supported to enable their sustainable recovery from the pandemic. The Mayor of London has assembled the London Recovery Board (LRB) to oversee and push forward initiatives to support the long-term recovery of unemployment rates, small business closures and lost economic growth caused by the pandemic. This report has identified two important factors which are crucial to businesses’ ability to grow and survive and have subsequently been impacted by the pandemic: (1) growing and maintaining social networks and (2) dealing with uncertainty. The impact of the pandemic on these factors has ultimately limited the ability of small businesses to develop their knowledge of business administration and obtain investor financing. Anchor institutions are private or public organisations which have the potential to make genuine social and economic impacts to their localities due to their size and spending power; they have been identified as important actors in the city (GLA, 2021). By using their spending power through procurement, anchor institutions have an important role in helping small businesses recover from the pandemic. Public and private anchor institutions can provide this support by establishing local procurement policies. To help anchor institutions strategically target resources, this report analysed the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses by industry. In addition, a tool has been developed for anchor institutions to use to help small businesses. The function of the tool is to help anchor institutions make informed decisions about setting and assessing the effectiveness of their local procurement policies. The tool does this by plotting the locations of small businesses and anchor institutions. This allows anchor institutions to identify where and what small businesses are in their locality. Coupled with a list of small businesses who were offered tenders, the tool also allows institutions to see how many small businesses they have offered service/product tenders to out of the total number of small businesses in the same industry, and therefore, the effectiveness of their local procurement policies.

High-rise development and densification are tools used by planners to achieve social and environmental goals within increasingly populous urban areas. This study aims to explore the impacts that these processes can have on residents in the neighbourhoods they are occurring in. The project employs a mixed-method approach with both quantitative and qualitative processes. This methodology will be applied to the case study: residents on the Isle of Dogs. The Isle of Dogs is a neighbourhood located in London, England that has undergone intense high-rise development and regeneration. The study involved a quantitative survey of 49 residents and 7 participants from the survey volunteered to do a walked interview. The study focused on residents’ perceptions of densification and high-rise development. The findings indicate that residents primarily felt opposed to high-rise development and densification and felt their lives and the neighbourhood were both negatively impacted by factors relating to development such as infrastructure stress and loss of community. There was a geographic divide, with residents of newer high-rise towers on the Isle feeling less negatively about development. Residents also felt a lack of agency over the impact of development and densification in their neighbourhood. The additional pressures that densification places on infrastructure is the primary cause for resident's negative perceptions of development. This current study proposes that there is a need for a balance between new development and infrastructure pressure and this is key to ensuring residents are not negatively impacted and therefore more accepting of development.

Investigation into the impact of Covid-19 on the travel choice and behaviour, including how perceptions of public transport changed

Through rethinking a more holistic framework for the structure of digitised short-term rental market in London, the study reviews the fundamental problem constrained the agency of planner and contextualises the Airbnb matter within London context.

This dissertation investigates social implications of built environment interventions (BEI) related to bicycle urbanism from a Spatial Justice (Soja, 2010) perspective. By combining urban spatial theory and mobilities research, the novel theoretical framework Mobility Space helps to analyse spatial, experiential and discursive aspects of urban mobility priorities concomitantly and is thus an adequate analytical tool to uncover how recently proliferating cycling strategies impact society through an alteration of urban space. A qualitative and multi-method research design combines descriptive mapping, virtual site observation and semi-structured interviews to apply Mobility Space to the controversial Mini-Holland programme in Waltham Forest, London. Examining in detail the Walthamstow Village scheme, the research finds three patterns by which BEI related to bicycle urbanism re-organize movement, re-allocate space and re-design public realm to prioritize active travel and dwelling while discouraging car use. Those spatial alterations shift the political organization of space which in turn affects the Right to the City (Lefebvre et al., 1996) – an expression of Spatial Justice – as it enables a greater diversity of people to use urban space (right to appropriation) and makes them conscious how the space they inhabit is discursively produced and the outcome of contentious decision-making processes (right to participation). This research is relevant for urban professionals as environmental as well as pandemic-related urban mobility challenges necessitate a transformation of urban space to accommodate cycling, but negative outcomes for social equity, as resulting from car-urbanism, need to be avoided.

Despite increasing interest in health and wellbeing in transport policy, there is no policy monitoring tools to measure the effects of street projects on the mental wellbeing of those who walk. After establishing the two types of wellbeing (subjective and eudaimonic), a review of the literature suggested four main ways streetscape environments can affect wellbeing: traffic domination, safety, pollution and street greenery. These were combined with urban design and journey satisfaction approaches to create 16 streetscape factors which were integrated into a theoretical framework conceptualising how streetscape experience influences wellbeing. Given its progressive Healthy Streets Approach to streetscape projects, London was the case study location chosen to test the framework. A comparative approach was taken, comparing wellbeing associated with streetscape factors at Archway, where a Healthy Streets project has been completed, and Stoke Newington where a project is planned. The results found that whilst there is broad agreement with the most and least important streetscape factors, there were differences in the exact ranking which comes out more significantly when these importance ratings were used together with actual experience to plot ‘disgruntlement’. Although no relationship was found with eudaimonic wellbeing, subjective wellbeing was positively related to journey experience with the subjective wellbeing element positive deactivation-negative deactivation most influenced by journey experience in both locations. The most significant journey experience factor was found to be ‘Easy to cross’. No mediating relationship was found with socio-demographic factors or visit frequency. The overall comparison of wellbeing between the two locations found a statistically significant relationship for positive deactivation-negative deactivation and a moderately significant for experience. Thus, it appears streetscape experience has a measurable impact on wellbeing so policymakers should turn their attention to including wellbeing in project appraisal.

London lost more than half of its queer night-time venues in the ten years leading up to 2017 (Campkin & Marshall, 2017) and in 2022, there is only one singular lesbian bar left (Allenby, 2022). It is in this context that an increasing interest in spatiality is being established within queer studies. Comparatively, in Space Syntax research, there still is a shortage of consideration of current gender and sexuality studies beyond hetero- and cis-normativity. This study researches the social and spatial paradoxes of queer space from the perspective of queer theory and Space Syntax theory respectively. The work is put in context of Greater London, with a slight focus on lesbian space. First, a definition of queer space is reached by recognizing queer space as a dynamic entity, enabling transgression and revolution alike while providing a space protected from fear and shame induced by social norms, encouraging unfiltered self-expression. Second, it is argued that Space Syntax analysis like angular integration or isovist studies could contribute to queer theory through quantitative methods and promises budding potential in this area, yet the quantitative analysis reveals that these methods so far are predisposed to portray space in a rather limiting logic requiring field specific advancement to adequately express the unique essence of queer space. Third, the novel framework queer theory provides for socio-spatial concepts like integration and visibility is investigated, affirming its value as an extension to “The Social Logic of Space“ (Hillier & Hanson 1984) by revealing a dyadic relationship of power in space. Demonstrated by examining queer space, this phenomenon is relevant to any association between human behaviour and the built environment. Due to the hitherto scarcity of research in this area, this work is positioned as a starting point of challenging norms and conventions by introducing queer theories to the realm of Space Syntax.

The aim of this research is to identify the impact of personal safety perceptions on individuals’ travel behaviour and attitudes when walking in London, with a specific focus on walking trips between an individual’s home/end destination and public transport stops (First and Last Mile Travel). The research will seek to understand the extent to which individuals are concerned for their personal safety during these trips, what factors impact this concern, how they alter their travel behaviour to overcome this, and how they their concerns can best be overcome. In addition, this research will discuss ‘who’ is most impacted and concerned for their safety, by analysing a set of sociodemographic data also collected as part of this study.

Cities in the UK largely operate according to an unsustainable, linear metabolism, requiring high levels of resource extraction and generating significant amounts of waste. Conventional agriculture, responsible for almost all the food that feeds these cities, is dependent on non-renewable inputs such as artificial fertilisers, and with close to half of all food eaten in Britain imported, it often travels long distances before consumption. At the same time, approximately a third of all food grown is wasted. In the UK, 70% of this waste originates from households. In a circular economy, products are not wasted but retain ‘cascade’ value before degrading, and in their least useful form are recycled into a new input. In the food system, methods for achieving circularity already exist. Commercial and philanthropic ‘re-use’ allows for surplus to be distributed efficiently, while recycling – through anaerobic digestion and composting – converts waste, including sewage waste, into an environmentally-friendly fertiliser. These tools reduce the need for non-renewable inputs and can significantly reduce environmental harm. This paper will examine the potential for a circular food system in four London Boroughs: Merton, Sutton, Croydon and Kingston. These are chosen because together they form the South London Waste Partnership. The circularity of the present setup is assessed, through examination of the applicable policies at the national, regional and local level, combined with data review. It is shown that while some local policies are beneficial, there is significant scope for improving food recycling, while other system-wide changes would need a new approach by the national government

The research aim of this dissertation is to analyse the conditions under which the residents of social housing estates can retain their homes after a planned redevelopment scheme.