After successful completion of all requirements in planning theory and history, the major field, research methods, and outside coursework, students petition for appointment of a doctoral committee to administer the oral qualifying examination. The qualifying exam, at which the student defends the dissertation proposal, should be taken by the end of the third year of doctoral study. The doctoral committee then guides the student in preparing the dissertation, which is to be a monograph representing an original contribution to planning knowledge.
Dissertations are on file at the Young Research Library. For instructions on how to locate a dissertation from the YRL catalog click here[1]. Abstracts are available via the UCLA dissertations abstracts data base[2].
Recent Ph.D. dissertation topics are listed below:
Immigrant Ethnic Neighborhoods, Inward Focus, and Travel Mode Choice ('12)
Access and Outcomes: Transportation, Location, and Subjective Well-Being ('12)
Cooperation as
Collateral? Social Capital and Joint Liability Microfinance Group Lending in
Nicaragua ('11)
Sprawling to Opportunity: Los Angeles African Americans on the Exurban
Frontier ('11)
The Capability Model of Disability: Assessing the Success of UAE Federal Law No. 29 of 2006 in the Emirate of Dubai ('11)
Immigrant Crossings and Interactive Labor Markets: The
Story of Work in Koreatown, Los
Angeles ('11)
The Rise of Western Land
and Water Regulation on the Hawaiian
Islands: An Historical Analysis of Land, Property, and Water
Governance, 1840s-1910s ('11)
Containing Gangs and Creating Safer Communities: Gang
Policies and Youth Perceptions of Safety in Norwalk, California ('11)
Exit, Voice, Loyalty and Structural Silence: Citizen-Consumer Access and Behavior in Nigeria's Urban Water Markets ('09)
Promise or Compromise? Community-Managed Water Supply for the Urban Poor in Madhya Pradesh, India ('09)
The Regulated City: The Politics of Land Use Regulationin Los Angeles, 1909-2009 ('10)
Diesel Truck Impact Zones in Southern California: Localized Implications of Goods Movement Container Traffic ('09)
International Technology Gaps in the Age of globalization ('09)
Exploring the localization of Transportation Planning: Essays on Research and Policy Implications from Shifting Goals in Transportation Planning ('09)
Heterogeniety and Collective Action: Evidence from Massachusetts ('09)
The Politics of Counting Carbon: Lessons from the California Climate Action Registry ('08)
Fashioning a Greener Shade of Clean: Integrating Pollution Prevention Into Public Policy -- The Case of Professional Wet Cleaning ('09)
Institutional Issues in the Adoption of Smart Card Systems Among U.S. Transit Agencies for Fare Collection ('08)
Why do the Poor Move to Cities? : The Central City--Suburban Locational Choice of Low-Income Households ('08)
The In-Between City: Neoliberal Globalization, Inequality and Middle Class Politics in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2002-2007) ('08)
Lofty Ideal, Hefty Deal: Empowerment Through Participatory Slum Upgrading in India and Indonesia ('08)
Not Out of the Woods Yet: How Does Actor Proximity Shape Innovation in the Canadian Maritime Provinces Wood Furniture Industry ('07)
Cultural Development and the Entrepreneurial City: The Flagship Cultural Strategy in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose ('07)
The Caspian Sea Regionalism in a Globalized World: Energy, Security and Regional Trajectories of Azerbaijan and Iran ('07)
MacArthur Park: Rethinking Attachments to Public Space in a Transitional Environment ('07)
Complex Transactions: The role of Race and Relationships in Small Business Finance ('07)
Smart Cards, Slow Deployment: Institutional Barriers to Technology Adoption in Public Transportation ('07)
How the Built Environment Influences Non-Work Travel: Theoretical and Empirical Essays ('05)
From Neighborhood to Global: Community-Based Regionalism and Shifting Concepts of Place in Community and Regional Development ('05)
Globalization and Regionalism: How Does "Security" Condition Regional Trajectories of Resource Rich Countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus? ('04)
Assessing the Determinants and Economic Effects of Service Contracting on Fixed-Route Bus Transit ('04)
Coalition Building for Indigenous Justice: American Indian Sovereignty and Struggles in Ward Valley, California ('04)
Urban Disinvestment Revisited: Subprime Mortgage Lending and Slum Housing in the City of Los Angeles ('04)
Environmental Sacrifice Zones: Risk and Transport in Southern California ('04)
The Historical Geography of Innovation and the Localized Knowledge Spillover ('04)
Transit-Friendly Areas: The Role of Residential Relocation and Housing Development in Rail Ridership Over Time ('04)
Power, Conservation, and Indigenous Livelihood: Guarani Strategies for Conquering Political Space in Decentralizedation in Izozg, Bolivia ('03)
Local Autonomy Movements in North American City-Regions: Territorial Strategies and the Local Democracy Argument ('03)
The Numbers Game: The Politics of Federal Surface Transportation Programs ('03)
Remainders of Urbanity: Space, Politics, and French Urban Policy
Only A Nobody Walks: The Decline of Pedestrian Trips in the United States ('03)
Public-Private Partnerships and Low-Income area Revitalization in Los Angeles County: Effective Public Policy, Dysfunctional Conflict, or Private Sector Rip-off? ('03)
The Origins of Puerto Rican Environmental Justice in the South Bronx ('03)
Representing Community: A Qualitative Study on Multicultural Arts and the Struggle for Cultural Citizenship ('03)
Heterotopias of Memory: The Cultural Politics of Historic Preservation in Taipei('03)
The Land Question: Agrarian Reform and Capitalist Development in the Chilean Countryside, 1964-1980 ('02)
Reconciling Incompatible Zone Systems in Metropolitan Planning ('02)
A Comparison of African American Faith-Based and Secular Community Development Corporations ('02)
Performativities of Space: Bodies, Cities, Texts ('02)
Place-Based and People-Based Policy Approaches to Neighborhood Poverty: A Comparative Evaluation of the Enterprise Zone ('02)
The Power of Image: City-Building Processes at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin ('02)
PADRES: A Study of Revolutionary Chicano Priests ('02)
