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Several powerful natural disasters have recently occurred in different countries around the world. Mitigating the impacts of these disasters has been an important component of urban/land-use planning (Burby et al., 1999). Seismic hazard and urban vulnerability are the two major factors in the assessment of seismic risk. The Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) is the principal measure of seismic hazard, the Peak Ground Displacement (PGD) represents a minor one, and land-use patterns characterize urban vulnerability. A spatial statistical approach is used to better understand the spatial interactions of seismic hazards and their relationships with land-use patterns. In seismic engineering, spatial autocorrelation (SA) has been rarely discussed, but may cause biased estimations due to omitted variables (Esposito and Iervolino, 2011). A LOSS model is also estimated, that links the economic losses incurred by various activities (housing, commerce, industry, etc.) to PGA and PGD. Next, in order to deal with the uncertainty of earthquakes, an optimization approach has been developed, using the LOSS statistical model, to allocate future land uses.A set of pseudo-data is generated with an earthquake-engineering simulation model for the city of Taichung, Taiwan, using as input the characteristics of 22 significant historical earthquakes. A PGA model is first formulated as a spatial lag panel (SLP) model based on earthquake magnitude, epicenter-to-site distances, source depth, and neighborhood effects accounting for site geology. A PGD SLP model is also specified to account for neighborhood effects represented by soil liquefaction. The results demonstrate the need to be concerned not only by the PGA/PGD at a specific location, as caused directly by the earthquake, but also by the PGA/PGD at neighboring locations. Then, a seismic loss model is formulated, relating monetary damages to seismic impacts (PGA and PGD) and land uses (residential, commercial, industrial, etc.). By combining the three models, monetary damages can be estimated as a function of land-use patterns, PGA, PGD, their neighborhood effects, and other seismic characteristics. Finally, the statistically-estimated seismic loss function is then used to formulate a seismic land-use optimization model to allocate future land uses under various regional growth rates scenarios while minimizing potential seismic losses. Several location ranking analyses are conducted to generate robust ranking results, at both the township and district levels. These rankings provide planning information for decision makers to allocate future land when confronted with the uncertainty of regional development rates.

This dissertation analyzes the Information Technology sector's role in reshaping urban politics and space in India, post liberalization, through a comparative analysis of Kolkata and Hyderabad, both state capitals (of West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh respectively) and both second- tier investment destinations. The state governments represent opposite ends of India's political spectrum, with a communist government in West Bengal for thirty four years and a pro-market government in Andhra Pradesh, whose Chief Minister (Naidu) preferred to be called the state's CEO. Despite different ideologies, both governments devised high-profile strategies to attract the IT sector and facilitated high- end real estate enclaves and private land consolidation in urban peripheries, within which IT projects were prominent. The ways in which hyper-modern imaginaries associated with the IT sector have strengthened an emergent high- value, high- risk real estate sector, through state support (infrastructure, use of Eminent Domain and new public- private partnerships) lie at the heart of post- liberalization changes in urban India. These changes highlight not only how India has become situated within new capital accumulation strategies, but also how state/ city scales have become more significant than the national scale in these strategies. I argue that the combined dynamics of the IT- Real Estate sectors have increased spatial fragmentation, speculation in land markets and economic and environmental vulnerability in both Kolkata and Hyderabad. The IT sector's effects on urban India are compelling, but not unique. Contemporary development prescriptions encourage cities to compete for external investments. High-growth sectors often take center stage in such bidding, encouraging a broader context of regional competition. Interest from high- profile sectors is often used to measure local government efforts. Yet, singular focus on external investments often pressurizes local governments to participate in speculative strategies with investors, through leveraging of urban resources, particularly land. India's IT story highlights that if and when real estate investments are allowed to become a standin for economic development in a competitive bidding for 'growth', impacts such as statesupported speculation, vulnerability to investor perceptions and lower urban capacities to respond to economic/ environmental crises are likely at the city-region scale.