Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemAn approach to improved housing delivery in large cities of less developed countries( 1999)The world population is increasing very rapidly, overwhelming all efforts to provide adequate housing. The urban population is growing at a much faster rate than the population as a whole. A staggering 93 percent of this increase between 1995 and 2020 is expected to occur in the developing countries. This poses a major challenge to those responsible for the provision of housing and related services. It is reasonably clear that housing delivery systems are deficient in almost all the large cities of less developed countries. The deficiencies are not the same in all cities, but they generally relate to land assembly, development and disposal of developed land, provision of infrastructure, and co-ordination among different implementation agencies. The aim of this research is to suggest an approach to improve housing delivery systems for large cities in developing countries. The heart of the method developed to achieve this aim was to break down the housing delivery system into its various stages: planning; land assembly; implementation; and final disposal of the finished houses. This permitted examination of the problems related to four various stages individually, rather than trying to view a system in toto. A variety of cities from both developed and developing countries were examined to generate sets of alternatives for each of these stages. These alternatives were then tested for the city of Delhi, India, through individual interviews with different actors in the housing delivery system, to observe how different sets of those actors see the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative for each stage. The method used to analyse the responses was both quantitative and qualitative. This produced suggestions for each of the stages of the housing delivery system, appropriate for Delhi. Although the systems in different cities of less developed countries might differ from each other, there are overriding defects that are common to most. Reflection on the alternatives derived for Delhi suggested that for the most part they would be applicable to other cities of less developed countries. However, for some of the stages the political, social or cultural situation in particular cities would require individual selection from the range of possible alternatives. In such cases, the research method developed in this research project can be applied to make an appropriate selection.
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ItemEquitable and sustainable development in less developed countries( 1997)There has been a perception among development planners that if economic progress continues economic efficiency and market forces will even out any inequality problems through the 'trickle-down' effect. However, in many LDCs (less developed countries) this assumption does not seem to hold. Moreover, it seems that persistent poverty and income inequality are also reflected in environmental degradation in many parts of the world. This leads to unsustainable development, both in the equitability and the environmental contexts. The aim of the research is to explore development policy for LDCs that is both equitable and environmentally sustainable, within the context of the current market economy. Two research approaches were used. First, a statistical cross-country analysis of 40 LDCs was employed. The objective was to provide a general picture of income equality and development attributes, namely: 'level of development'; 'orientation of development'; and 'balanced urbanisation' as an indicator of the spatial distribution of development. Second, a detailed analysis of development over the last few decades was made for two LDCs, Indonesia and Thailand. This was to verify the relationship between development, balanced urbanisation and income equality and to explore the relationship between balanced urbanisation and environmental conservation. The findings were then linked to decentralisation policy in the two countries. Income equality was found to have a negative relationship with level of development and a positive relationship with orientation,of development-export-led growth strategy. It also had a positive relationship with balanced urbanisation. The detailed study of Indonesia and Thailand revealed that when urbanisation was unbalanced, regional disparities in manufacturing, GDP and per capita income and environmental degradation were likely to be high. This indicates that if a government wishes to create equitable growth, one approach is to undertake regional development, targeting on balanced urbanisation. To achieve this, the government should take action on decentralisation policy. Although the findings were mostly specific to Indonesia and Thailand, the following major findings are likely to hold for other LDCs: (1) national development with little attention to equitability is neither socially nor environmentally sustainable; (2) equitable development is likely to be achieved by regional development aimed at balanced urbanisation through fiscal and political decentralisation; (3) the form of development advocated in (2) needs central government intervention although the degree of decentralisation will depend upon the particular country's conditions.
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ItemAppropriate interventions for rehabilitating degraded tropical uplands( 1993)Land degradation is one of the most serious environmental and developmental problems in the upland regions of developing tropical countries. Immense efforts have been made, with considerable international cooperation, to rehabilitate this land and increase its productivity. However, the achievements of these efforts have been disappointing, largely because of unsuitable technology and implementation strategies. The aim of this study was to establish what are appropriate interventions for rehabilitating degraded tropical upland. Agroforestry was specifically studied because it is the most promising family of rehabilitative technologies for biophysical and economic reasons. 'Appropriate' in this work refers to that which is consonant with principles of sustainable development while being pragmatically aware of current geopolitical constraints on following these principles. An 'intervention' is not only the technology applied at the ground-level to rehabilitate land, but also the necessary institutional and organizational changes for its implementation. A case study of the uplands of Sri Lanka, involving one year's field work, was undertaken to achieve this aim. While adopting a broad human-ecological perspective, the case study employed agroecological and politico-ecological methods to diagnose the causes of land degradation, to prescribe interventions for rehabilitating that land, and to evaluate and plan for the implementation of likely agroforestry interventions. Specifically, it evaluated the 'analog forest' (an agroforestry system which is structurally and functionally analogous to the natural ecosystem) and planned for its implementation in an existing management program in the Upper Mahaweli watershed. Based on the experience gained through this case study, it was concluded that: (1) there is no universally appropriate intervention; (2) the appropriateness of interventions is determined at three nested politico-ecological levels, namely the biophysical, the socio-economic, and the politico-cultural; and (3) it is at the politicocultural level that most difficulties are likely to be found in determining an appropriate intervention. A corollary of the third finding is that international development efforts need to be directed to improving the functioning of national resource-management organizations in developing countries.