China experienced unprecedented urbanization development in the last two decades. During the rapid urbanization, cities have been attracting large population inflows from rural areas, and ...concentrating a wide range of social and economic activities. However, an over-concentration of population and human activities has lead to severe and diverse challenges for sustainable urban development, such as environmental degradation, poor infrastructure, and inadequate public services etc. Against this backdrop, concepts within urban carrying capacity (UCC) have received growing attention. It provides local government and urban planners key conceptual underpinnings to improve urban sustainability. However, there remain huge ambiguities in its definitions, implications, particularly measurable indicators, and analytic procedures. These deficiencies significantly hamper the effective implications of UCC concepts in routine urban management. Using the mean variance analysis method, this paper aims to establish an integrated UCC analytic framework to improve decision-making on sustainable urban land use and development. 30 representative indicators drawn from literature are selected to systematically evaluate the UCC conditions. 30 provincial capital cities and municipalities in China are selected as data sample. The results reveal several important findings. First, there exists a positive link between the city scale and UCC. Second, this exists a geographical pattern that costal cities have a high UCC than the central and western regions. Third, infrastructural and environmental factors are of salient weights in evaluating the UCC. Through the broad validations in China's mega-cities, this system has demonstrated capabilities of simplifying, appropriately quantifying, and evaluating the complex process of urban planning and management towards sustainability.
•This paper develops an integrated urban carrying capacity (UCC) evolution model.•The paper summarizes limitations of existing studies on the topic of UCC.•The article systematically compares the pros and cons of related evaluation methods for traditional index evaluation systems.•The article evaluated the UCC conditions of 30 provincial capital cities and municipalities in China.•This paper reveals several important patterns of UCC in China's mega-cities.
•Review of cooling potential from green infrastructure in cities with hot, dry summers.•Presents a hierarchical process to prioritise urban areas for green infrastructure.•Framework to strategically ...select green infrastructure that is ‘fit-for-place’ and ‘-purpose’.•Case study of framework applied to local government planning scale.
Warming associated with urban development will be exacerbated in future years by temperature increases due to climate change. The strategic implementation of urban green infrastructure (UGI) e.g. street trees, parks, green roofs and facades can help achieve temperature reductions in urban areas while delivering diverse additional benefits such as pollution reduction and biodiversity habitat. Although the greatest thermal benefits of UGI are achieved in climates with hot, dry summers, there is comparatively little information available for land managers to determine an appropriate strategy for UGI implementation under these climatic conditions. We present a framework for prioritisation and selection of UGI for cooling. The framework is supported by a review of the scientific literature examining the relationships between urban geometry, UGI and temperature mitigation which we used to develop guidelines for UGI implementation that maximises urban surface temperature cooling. We focus particularly on quantifying the cooling benefits of four types of UGI: green open spaces (primarily public parks), shade trees, green roofs, and vertical greening systems (green walls and facades) and demonstrate how the framework can be applied using a case study from Melbourne, Australia.
•Nature experience produced clear benefits for affect (e.g., decrease in anxiety and rumination).•Nature experience produced some benefits for cognition (complex working memory span task).•Supports ...the idea that exposure to natural greenspace can improve affect and cognition.
This study investigated the impact of nature experience on affect and cognition. We randomly assigned sixty participants to a 50-min walk in either a natural or an urban environment in and around Stanford, California. Before and after their walk, participants completed a series of psychological assessments of affective and cognitive functioning. Compared to the urban walk, the nature walk resulted in affective benefits (decreased anxiety, rumination, and negative affect, and preservation of positive affect) as well as cognitive benefits (increased working memory performance). This study extends previous research by demonstrating additional benefits of nature experience on affect and cognition through assessments of anxiety, rumination, and a complex measure of working memory (operation span task). These findings further our understanding of the influence of relatively brief nature experiences on affect and cognition, and help to lay the foundation for future research on the mechanisms underlying these effects.
Abstract
Based on the analysis of the current Russian urban planning legislation and the practice of its application, the paper studies the system of legal support for the renovation of built-up ...urban areas in the Russian Federation, shows the features of the current legal forms and mechanisms for providing the renovation of territories, analyzes the conceptual apparatus in the field of renovation, identifies the main problems of legal support for the renovation of built-up areas and shows the directions of its further improvement.
Much planning theory has been undergirded by an ontological exceptionalism of humans. Yet, city planning does not sit outside of the eco-social realities co-producing the Anthropocene. Urban planners ...and scholars, therefore, need to think carefully and critically about who speaks for (and with) the nonhuman in place making. In this article, we identify two fruitful directions for planning theory to better engage with the imbricated nature of humans and nonhumans is recognised as characteristic of the Anthropocene – multispecies entanglements and becoming-world. Drawing on the more-than-human literature in urban and cultural geography and the environmental humanities, we consider how these terms offer new possibilities for productively rethinking the ontological exceptionalism of humans in planning theory. We critically explore how planning theory might develop inclusive, ethical relationships that can nurture possibilities for multispecies flourishing in diverse urban futures, the futures that are increasingly recognised as co-produced by nonhuman agents in the context of climate variability and change. This, we argue, is critical for developing climate-adaptive planning tools and narratives for the creation of socially and environmentally just multispecies cities.
Does Density Aggravate the COVID-19 Pandemic? Hamidi, Shima; Sabouri, Sadegh; Ewing, Reid
Journal of the American Planning Association,
10/1/2020, 2020-10-01, Letnik:
86, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Problem, research strategy, and findings: The impact of density on emerging highly contagious infectious diseases has rarely been studied. In theory, dense areas lead to more face-to-face interaction ...among residents, which makes them potential hotspots for the rapid spread of pandemics. On the other hand, dense areas may have better access to health care facilities and greater implementation of social distancing policies and practices. The current COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect case study to investigate these relationships. Our study uses structural equation modeling to account for both direct and indirect impacts of density on the COVID-19 infection and mortality rates for 913 U.S. metropolitan counties, controlling for key confounding factors. We find metropolitan population to be one of the most significant predictors of infection rates; larger metropolitan areas have higher infection and higher mortality rates. We also find that after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to the infection rate, possibly due to more adherence to social distancing guidelines. However, counties with higher densities have significantly lower virus-related mortality rates than do counties with lower densities, possibly due to superior health care systems.
Takeaway for practice: These findings suggest that connectivity matters more than density in the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Large metropolitan areas with a higher number of counties tightly linked together through economic, social, and commuting relationships are the most vulnerable to the pandemic outbreaks. They are more likely to exchange tourists and businesspeople within themselves and with other parts, thus increasing the risk of cross-border infections. Our study concludes with a key recommendation that planners continue to advocate dense development for a host of reasons, including lower death rates due to infectious diseases like COVID-19.
Studies commonly reiterate that urban planning complexity is defined by the coexistence of three elements: regulation, various scales of urban design, and multiagent negotiations. We confirm this; ...however, we reject the idea that they can ideally interact in perfect balance with no negative impact on each other. Thus, this article analyses the limits of coexistence of these elements. We hypothesize that perfect and balanced coexistence is not possible. This is based on four main and consecutive activities: 1) a literature review concerning the roots we believe contemporary urban planning is based on; 2) a critical and qualitative analysis of the main documents containing urban planning directives currently in use by the three largest cities in Latin America (Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and São Paulo) focused on the guidelines established by these documents and how they communicate with each of the three pillars; 3) identification of controversies and convergences in the interaction between the three pillars; and 4) elaboration of conclusions.
Urban development in southern Europe differs from urbanization patterns observed in other affluent countries. Urbanization processes in the Mediterranean region reflect heterogeneous spatial forms ...and more similar socioeconomic dynamics. Rejecting a unique ‘Mediterranean city’ model, this study proposes a thorough analysis of post-war urban development in four southern European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) focusing on homogeneous patterns and possible sources of heterogeneity in spatio-temporal trends of individual city expansion. Urbanization without industrialization - boosted by the informal economy and the development of traditional services - has driven the growth of large cities through agglomeration economies enhanced by internal immigration. This trend has deflated shortly after the end of the baby boom, favoring slow dynamics towards spatially-balanced settlements and determining a recovery of medium-sized cities, which have been further consolidated with the economic crisis.
•We assess benefits and well-being deriving from visiting urban and peri-urban green areas.•We examine how biodiversity of urban and peri-urban green areas affects well-being.•Biodiversity positively ...affects well-being, especially for urban green areas.•Length of visit to green areas and biodiversity predict well-being through the mediation of perceived restorativeness.•Urban green spaces rich in biodiversity can enhance well-being and promote sustainable lifestyles.
The literature on human experience in green environments had widely showed the positive outcomes of getting in contact with nature. This study addresses the issue of whether urban residents’ evaluations of urban and peri-urban natural settings and the positive outcomes deriving from contact with such settings vary as a function of their biodiversity. A field study assessed benefits and subjective well-being reported by urban residents visiting four different typologies of green spaces, selected on the basis of urban forestry expert criteria according to a 2×2 factorial design. The biodiversity level (low vs. high) was crossed with the setting location (urban vs. peri-urban) as follows: urban squares with green elements, urban parks, pinewood forest plantations, and peri-urban natural protected areas. A questionnaire including measures of length and frequency of visits, perceived restorativeness, and self-reported benefits of the visit to the green spaces was administered in situ to 569 residents of four Italian medium-to-large size cities: Bari, Florence, Rome and Padua. Results showed the positive role of biodiversity upon perceived restorative properties and self-reported benefits for urban and peri-urban green spaces. Consistently with the hypotheses reported herein, a mediation role of perceived restorativeness in the relation between experience of natural settings (i.e. higher level of biodiversity) and self-reported benefits was found. The design and management implications of the findings are discussed.
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