Local planning and global implementation: Foreign investment and urban development of Pudong, Shanghai

Competitive planning programmes for global integration have been created in cities throughout developed and developing countries during the past 2 decades. In China, global aspiration planning has been characterised by the establishment of Pudong New Area of Shanghai in 1990, with a group of foreign direct investment (FDI)-oriented themed zones targeting different types of global flows. Pudong very rapidly became a focus of FDI in the city, which extended to China as a whole in the 1990s, and now is further extended to playing a global role. However, spatial planning for the themed zones in Pudong has been limited in its scope to the physical design, land use, and the pattern of transport routes. This limited role of land use planning has been inadequate to coordinate the mutual engagement between global and local factors; however, an improved mechanism for coordinating planning has not yet emerged to replace it. The competitive and entrepreneurial approach of land management in conjunction with the imperatives of global firms has effectively diminished the original plan's intention that each zone should focus on particular industries, with each of them complementing the others.     

Use of ecological information in urban planning: Experiences from the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland

This paper studies the use of ecological research information in urban planning focusing on Finland. Research questions addressed the importance and challenges of incorporating ecological information into the planning process, and ways to promote the use of ecological information. Fifteen key professionals from three representative development approval processes in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area were interviewed. The interviewed planners and ecologists considered ecological information important for identifying and preserving valuable urban nature and biodiversity, diminishing negative environmental impacts of construction and for enabling nature-related experiences and services for urban residents. The identified challenges for the use of the information included insufficiency, fragmented nature and lack of adequacy of information, as well as problems with the interpretation and presentation of information. In order to provide more comprehensive ecological information from urbanizing areas in Finland; there should be more coordinated efforts to produce research information that planners really need, ecologists should be more active in the process in providing ecological insights for plans, a proper and simple biodiversity valuation method should be developed, more research on the function on ecological corridors should be conducted, and biodiversity monitoring of implemented planning projects should be developed.     

Place-based urban ecology: A century of park planning in Seattle

This research responds to calls from within the field of urban ecology to explicitly incorporate humanities-based research in order to achieve robust interdisciplinarity. Our research provides an example of a place-based urban ecological analysis. We use this framework to analyze over a century of park planning and development within the city of Seattle. We identify four eras of park planning that are linked by a comprehensive 100-year park plan. This case study examines how the political, cultural, and economic aspects of park planning have produced and been influenced by long-term trends and historical contingencies. This research also offers practical insights for effective contemporary urban planning, emphasizing the need for flexible and adaptive long-term plans when confronted with unpredictable events, emerging political arrangements, changing cultural priorities, and shifting fiscal climates.     

Conflicts in urban fringe in the transformation era: An examination of performance of the metropolitan growth management in Beijing

The performances of urban growth management are often criticized because their original objectives are frequently inconsistent with local development facts. Underlying the many reasons for this are the political and institutional contexts that influence policy-making and development activities. The urban fringe, a zone is managed to against urban sprawl in many countries, represents the conflicts between urban management system and local development resulting from political transformation. This study examines the case of decentralised-concentration strategy, one of the most important metropolitan growth management in Beijing since the 1990s, and sheds some lights on the performance of the growth management in the transformation context. The results suggest that the aims of municipal growth management to concentrate developments in urban fringe have partly been achieved through actual local developments; however, some unexpected and illegal local developments outside the planned areas are counterproductive from the perspective of municipal growth management. The performance of the present growth management is being challenged by new trends towards political decentralisation and locally fiscal responsibilities. In the interest of future policymaking, the dominant central planning system in Beijing should take these decentralisation trends into growth management account, compared with the great progress in decentralisation in economy system. The urban policy needs to shift from the dictatorial manner and put more efforts into creating a harmonious relationship between municipal growth management and actual local demands on development.     

Managing urban growth and development in the Riyadh metropolitan area, Saudi Arabia

The paper examines public sector management of urban growth and development in the Riyadh Metropolitan Area, Saudi Arabia. The focus of the paper is on institutional capacity building and development intervention. The paper traces changes in public sector management structures and development activities over the history of the city with the aim of assessing development impact and identifying forces that have shaped the evolving state of urban management. The paper notes that urban management has significantly improved with time but the persistence of urban problems coupled with projections of future growth point to the need for further improvements. The paper, in conclusion, while acknowledging the utility of the metropolitan development strategy (MEDSTAR) being formulated for the city, points to the need for broader administrative reform to improve the ability to cope with long-term challenges of growth in the city. Some issues that reform could address are suggested.     

Habitat equivalency in urban estuaries: An analytical hierarchy process for planning ecological restoration

Ecosystem restoration is critically important in urbanized landscapes because habitat degradation is severe and ubiquitous in such areas. Because successful restoration requires specification of desired environmental endpoints, a generally applicable method for valuing and comparing possible restoration endpoints is needed. One method available for comparative valuation is the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP allows a suite of alternatives to be valued on a rank scale based on simple, tractable, paired comparisons among all alternatives. Given a sound technical foundation for the paired comparisons, the method yields an objective set of rank values. By incorporating the relative values of various restoration alternatives in a restoration scaling evaluation such as a Habitat Equivalency Analysis (HEA), restoration programs can be designed effectively both qualitatively (in terms of the kinds of resources or habitats desired) and quantitatively (in terms of the amounts or areas of each). In this study, we develop and apply AHP in the context of a specimen HEA for US Mid-Atlantic coast estuaries. By ranking various habitat types as potential restoration targets based on their value for a suite of key natural resources, a series of restoration ratios is produced, relating relative habitat areas of each type needed to offset specific impairment levels. These ratios provide a basic tool for restoration planning in urbanized estuaries, as these comprise nearly entirely built environments with little or no natural habitat. Under these conditions, restoration planners must specify desired states of the ecosystem, and the restoration ratios allow various permutations of presumed post-restoration environments to be valued and compared.     

The negative effects of construction boom on urban planning and environment in Turkey: Unraveling the role of the public sector

Construction sector is usually accepted as the engine that triggers economic growth due to its strong backward and forward linkages with other sectors. On the other hand, it is also argued that increased construction activity could end up with negative economic, social and environmental impacts. The literature emphasizes the role of public sector, especially the national governments in minimizing the negative impacts of construction activity. The related arguments mostly postulate that public sector is well aware of the environmental challenges caused by construction activity and devoted to the understanding of how to improve the sustainability performance of private developers. Yet the case of Turkey provides significant evidences to question these assumptions. In this respect, this paper elaborates on the negative impacts of increased construction activity in Turkey and argues the role of public sector in intensification of the negative environmental effects through deregulation on urban planning and housing production by public agencies. The findings of the research highlight the importance of sustainable construction and verify the need for mainstreaming of sustainable construction into public policy-making at national and local levels, especially in developing countries, where most, if not all, of the future urban population growth will take place.     

Environmental risks of urban agriculture in the Lake Victoria drainage basin: A case of Kisumu municipality, Kenya

This paper examines the environmental risks threatening sustainable urban agriculture in Kisumu municipality. The issues covered in the paper are: review of policy and institutional framework, infrastructure and service delivery, pollution analysis of irrigation water and crops and urban agriculture waste management. In addition, the paper proposes measures for sustainable urban agriculture. Household survey and pollution analysis of irrigation water and crops (kales and yams) were conducted in the study area. To capture spatial distribution of farmers in the municipality, the municipality was stratified into four strata and in each stratum a combination of stratified-systematic-simple random sampling was used to sample 194 households. Structured household questionnaire was administered to the sampled households.     

Vertical Farming: Social Work and Sustainable Urban Agriculture in an Age of Global Food Crises

Abstract

Environmental concerns, including issues of ecological justice, attention to sustainability, and focus on issues of food security have gathered increased momentum in social work. This article will trace the background of sustainable urban agriculture as a partial solution to the issue of global food insecurity and its impact on marginalised urban populations. It will review the development of a sustainable agricultural initiative called vertical farming and suggest that it holds promise for communities struggling with chronic food security problems. It will outline some tentative steps social work may consider in order to become more fully involved in support of vertical farming initiatives.     

People and their waste in an emergency context: The case of Monrovia, Liberia

Liberia has gone through civil crisis for over a decade which has resulted in the destruction of infrastructure and disruption of basic services delivery particularly in Monrovia, the capital city. Most of the 1.3 million people living in Monrovia are without adequate environmental sanitation and waste management services which situation poses a serious health risk to the residents. The current waste management service coverage is less than 20% and disposal is by indiscriminate open dumping. In 2003, there were series of outbreaks of cholera epidemics in the city during which time a total of 26,651 cases were reported with many dying.The waste management plan was initiated as an exit strategy of UNICEF following an intervention response programme to assist the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) whose capacity in this area had been crippled as a result of years of war, through the provision of support in solid waste collection and disposal.The objectives of the plan were to:

(a) Improve waste management services delivery in the city.

(b) Strengthen the ability of the MCC to plan and manage the waste services delivery.

(c) Enhance cooperation of service beneficiaries through comprehensive and effective health education and service promotional campaign.

(d) Enhance revenue generation and community participation through the promotion of private sector and CBOs/NGOs active involvement in the waste management service delivery.

The general methodology adopted for the assignment entailed the following:Desk study and review of existing reports on Water and Environmental Sanitation (WES) in Monrovia and other relevant literature, consultation with stakeholders, site visits and participatory planning which aimed at soliciting the opinions of the various stakeholders involved with the respective components to capture their aspirations and experiences. It also covered collection and analysis of available information and data to facilitate the plan preparation and facilities design.The three-phased strategy (short, medium and long term) covering a period of 10 years (August 2004–December 2014), recommended a combination of technical options for collection based on the pursuit of staged development to allow for the adoption of realistically attainable standards within a framework of continuous and systematic improvements as economic conditions improved and new knowledge gained through practice. The plan sought to blend the capacity within the City Corporation with that of the private sector and NGOs/CBOs to respond to the diverse service demands of the city taking into consideration housing and infrastructural conditions, service costs and cost recovery to ensure sustainability. It also identified sources of financing and allocated financing responsibilities to facilitate effective plan implementation.     

Managing our urban future: the role of remote sensing and geographic information systems

Urban growth is inevitable over the next two decades. The bulk of this growth will take place in less developed countries. This presents a formidable challenge for urban planners and managers. With this in mind, this paper considers some of the ways urban planners can make use of recent developments in remote sensing and geographic information systems technology to respond to this challenge. The discussion is divided into four sections. The first of these considers the nature of the tasks involved. The second examines the potential of remote sensing and geographic information systems to assist in these tasks in general terms. The third section presents some of the findings of three case studies of contrasting application areas in the urban planning field which give some insights as to how these tools can be used to respond to this challenge. The final section rounds off the discussion with a vision of sustainable urban development and its implementation at the local level.     

Determinants of domestic waste input use in urban agriculture lowland systems in Africa: The case of Yaoundé in Cameroon

This paper suggests policy actions for safe urban and peri-urban agriculture and domestic waste recycling in urban lowland areas of Africa, in particular, in lowland areas of the capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé. We identify the explanatory variables of recycling domestic waste and their use in three selected lowland areas. Data were collected between August and September 2005 among 126 farmers. Results show that the factors contributing to the adoption of recycled fresh and decomposed kitchen waste are: vegetable production, the distance between the house and its crop field and the use of livestock waste. The factors contributing to the adoption of recycled livestock wastes are the age of the farmers, the distance between the house and its crop field, the educational level of farmers and land size. Young farmers are more likely to adopt recycled livestock wastes, and short distances between houses and crop fields are more likely to contribute to the adoption of both recycled kitchen waste and recycled livestock wastes. In this context, the implementation of transfer stations for domestic waste, inside or next to lowland areas, appears to be an adequate solution of transport and sanitary constraints faced both by farmers and municipalities in Africa.     

Urban growth,policy and planning of public space

Under the pressure of the urbanizing tsunami, town planning and urban policies in Spain have given a residual treatment to public spaces in recent urban development. This work proposes a brief but comprehensive sociological analysis about social and morphological traits of public spaces – like paradigmatic social space – in order to show the city's irreplaceable role in citizen socialization processes. The network of streets and places, the city in this sense, make up the scenes of man's sociability. In this perspective, planning ought to be geared towards and for the city and redeem a civic impetus that pursues developing the whole instead of subjecting it.     

Assessing the abundance of freshwater turtles in an Australian urban landscape

Although interest in the ecological impacts of urbanisation has increased, very little is known about its impacts on freshwater turtles in Australia. This study investigated the abundance and diversity of turtles in lakes in an urbanised subtropical landscape, Brisbane, Australia. It was found that turtles were abundant throughout the lakes surveyed, with four native species and one introduced species being detected. A total of 371 individuals were captured, 77.7% of which were Brisbane River turtle (Emydura macquarii signata). The lakes surveyed were estimated to support a population of 63–269 individuals for all species combined with most lake populations containing less than 100. Turtle demographics may be classed into three stages of population growth: recovery or nascent; intermediate; and climax. Turtle reproductive success is a major concern for the survival of turtles in urban areas. Continued monitoring is needed to establish if population declines are occurring. This study suggests that while turtles are persisting in this urban environment of Australia the pressures of urbanisation, such as habitat loss, increased predation on both nests and juveniles and pollution of waterways may pose on-going risks to their survival.     

Examination of the relationship between urban form and urban eco-efficiency in china

The present study aims at exploring whether aspects of urban form are associated with urban eco-efficiency in China. Quantitative indicators relating to urban form (form, compactness ratio, elongation ratio and population density) and urban eco-efficiency (resource efficiency, environmental efficiency and overall eco-efficiency) were selected and quantified using remote sensing and data envelopment analysis methods. The urban form aspects of form and compactness ratios were positively correlated with urban eco-efficiency and resource efficiency. Conversely, the urban elongation ratio exhibited negative correlations with urban eco-efficiency and resource efficiency. Regarding environmental efficiency, no significant correlation is found with compactness though a negative correlation is found with population density. These results indicate that, within China, designing cities to be compact may be lead to increases in eco-efficiency and resource efficiency, but if the population density is too high the increased pollution costs will result in a decrease in environmental efficiency.     

Urban growth boundary policy and residential suburbanization: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The process of suburbanization of Riyadh, a city of 4.5 million inhabitants, offers a unique situation in which the urban morphology of the city can be examined in light of socio-political and economic conditions. Central government ordinances helped create ‘dysfunctional’ sprawl by mandating big lots and overly wide streets. Fifty percent of the city’s urban plan of approximately 1300 km² represents a pattern of untimely, undeveloped subdivisions. Much of this premature sub-divisioning was a result of speculative land deals. The current area of undeveloped subdivided land is approximately 650 km², which is roughly the equivalent to the city’s land currently developed.The author argues that government policies and inefficient urban planning practices have encouraged the transformation of the peripheral desert landscape into unchecked land sub-divisioning championed by land developers and speculators. Using a comparative approach, the paper attempts to highlight sociopolitical and other cultural factors that underlie this inefficient sprawl at the fringe. It closes with recommendations to alleviate such a costly pattern that can be generalized to other developing world cities.     

A spatial analysis of indigenous cover patterns and implications for ecological restoration in urban centres,New Zealand

High levels of endemism, the sensitivity of species that have evolved without humans, and the invasion of exotic species have all contributed to severe depletion of indigenous biodiversity in New Zealand. We considered the contribution that urban restoration can make to maximising biodiversity by analysing landcover patterns from two national databases along an urban–rural gradient. Thirteen of 20 land environments in New Zealand are represented in cities, and nearly three-quarters of all acutely threatened land environments are represented within 20 km of city cores nationally. Despite this, remaining indigenous landcover is low within urban cores, with less than 2% on average, but increasing to more than 10% on average in the periurban zone. Threatened lowland environments are most commonly represented within cities, and least represented within protected natural areas. Restoration of existing urban habitat is insufficient to halt biodiversity loss. Ecosystem reconstruction is required to achieve a target of 10% indigenous cover within cities. A co-ordinated national urban biodiversity plan to address issues beyond a local and regional focus is needed. Analysis of national patterns of urban land environments, indigenous cover and remnant ecosystems will support action at a regional and local level while enhancing national and global biodiversity goals.     

Politics and performance: the implications of emerging governance arrangements for urban management approaches and information systems

Challenges to traditional public sector approaches to urban government have had an impact on various aspects of governance and management, including political arrangements, decision making processes, ways of ensuring accountability, the allocation of roles and responsibilities between public sector agencies and other potential service providers and between different levels of government, and the mobilisation and allocation of financial resources for urban development. These are discussed, drawing in particular on recent research on urban poverty and governance in ten cities in the South. The changing approaches to urban government and management have been accompanied by attempts to define criteria by which urban governance arrangements and performance can be assessed, which are summarised and critically evaluated. Finally, the potential value of a particular set of tools (GIS) for emerging approaches to urban governance is assessed. Their potential for improving the information available to all governance actors is recognised. However, because of their cost and technological and managerial demands, as well as the limited effectiveness of spatial planning and inequalities in access to information, plans for their use must be financially, institutionally and politically realistic.     

Restructuring for growth in urban China: Transitional institutions,urban development,and spatial transformation

This research examines government policies and urban transformation in China through a study of Hangzhou City, which is undergoing dramatic growth and restructuring. As the southern center of the Yangtze River Delta, an emerging global city region of China, Hangzhou has been restlessly searching for strategies to promote economic growth and survive the competition with Shanghai. This paper analyzes Hangzhou’s development strategies, including globalization, tourism, industrial development, and urban development, in the context of shifting macro conditions and local responses. We hold that urban policies in China are situated in the broad economic restructuring and the gradual, experiential national reform and are therefore transitional. The paper suggests that China’s urban policies are state institution-directed, growth-oriented, and land-based, imposing unprecedented challenges to sustainability and livability. Land development and spatial restructuring are central to urban policies in China. Last, while Hangzhou’s development strategies and policies to some extent reflect policy convergence across cities in China, local/spatial contexts, including local settings, territorial rescaling and land conditions, are underlying the functioning of development/entrepreneurial states.