Cities

Since the 1990s, governments have increasingly employed PPPs for the revitalization of subsidised housing stock and the creation of mixed-income neighbourhoods. These PPPs typically involve private-sector partners taking on the responsibility for replacing, maintaining, and operating subsidised housing for a number of decades before transferring the housing back to the public sector. Governments pay the private sector firm for the maintenance and operation of the housing units over the course of the agreement. While there is always the risk that the cost of replacing, maintaining, or operating the subsidised housing may exceed projections, there is little to no demand risk in such partnerships for either party. In Toronto, however, the success of its subsidised housing revitalization is dependent on market forces, as the sale of condos or land owned by the city's subsidised housing provider provide much of the capital needed for revitalization. This paper examines how well Toronto’s market-oriented subsidised housing PPPs address demand risk and protect the communities undergoing revitalization.

Infrastructural practices, made by the manipulations of pumps, pipes and hydraulic expertise, play a critical role in managing urban populations. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research in Mumbai, in this article I show how Muslim settlers in a northern suburb are being rendered abject residents of the city. Abjection isn’t not a lack of social and political entitlements, but a denial of them. As Muslim settlers are being pushed down to claim less desirable water through the deliberate inaction of city engineers and technocrats, this article shows the iterative process through which abjection is made through tenuous and contentious infrastructural connections between the government and the governed.

Kako nastaju gradovi? Koji su to elementi koji su presudni u izboru mesta za grad? Kakva je uloga lovca u formiranju grada? Koje zajednice pribegavaju formiranju naseobina? Kakva je uloga reke u formiranju grada? Kakva je uloga odbrane u formiranju grada? Kakva je uloga groblja u formiranju grada? Samo su neka od mnogobrojnih pitanja kada je u pitanju formativno grado-graditeljstvo. O savskom amfiteatru kroz vreme i ideje...

The current status of solid waste management in Lahore, a metropolitan city of Pakistan, is reviewed in this article using an existing approach, the UN-Habitat city profile. This involves a systematic quantitative and qualitative assessment of physical components and governance features of the current waste management system. A material flow diagram (MFD) is developed, which allows visualisation of the current waste management system with all related inputs and outputs. This study shows that in the current system, waste collection and transportation is the main focus, however the collection coverage is only about 68%. There is no controlled or even semi-controlled waste disposal facility in Lahore. There is no official recycling system in the city. It is estimated that currently ~27% of waste by weight is being recycled through the informal sector. Making use of the organic content of the waste, a composting facility is operative in the city, producing 47,230 tonnes year(-1) of orga...

Climate change is a global problem that has reached the level of crisis today and has transboundary effects. These effects have important consequences especially in cities where population and economic activities are concentrated.Rising sea levels as a result of increasing global average temperatures, increases in the number, frequency and severity of extreme weather events and disasters such as floods, droughts and storms, and the prevalence of public health problems; are consequences of climate change in cities. The negative effects of these results on economic activities, environmental situation, basic services, infrastructures, housing, human well-being, social structure and health of all living things in cities are quite high. However, the relationship between cities and climate change is not unidirectional. Urbanization processes and activities carried out in cities are also a significant source of climate change with their greenhouse gas emissions and high use of natural resources. The aim of this study is to evaluate bidirectional cause-effect relationship between climate change and cities. In the study, it was concluded that greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation actions in the fight against climate change also contributed significantly to the resilience of cities. Another result obtained in the study is that cities are the key to the solution in the fight against climate change.

This article examines the conception of the everyday city as presented in the work of architect Christopher Alexander and architectural theorist Bill Hillier: Both thinkers suggest that, in the past, lively urban places arose unself-consciousty through the routine daily behaviors of many individual users coming together in supportive space and place. In different ways. both thinkers ask whether, today, a similar manner of vital urban district can be made to happen self-conscioustv through explicit understanding transformed into design and policy principles. The aim for both Alexander and Hillier is place-based urban communities marked by lively streets, serendipitous public encounters, and informal sociability. The article begins by examining commonalities and differences in Alexander and Hillier's conceptions of environmental wholeness and urban place. Next. the article considers implications for urban design and, last, indicates the considerable value that the two thinkers' ideas offer environmental philosophy, particularly for understanding environmental wholes.

O artigo apresenta a ideia das cidades como novos atores da governança ambiental global (GAG). O objetivo é o estudo e análise do papel das cidades na abordagem das questões ambientais globais. O método de pesquisa foi o teórico-dedutivo, partindo do entendimento da GAG, analisando a organização destas, assim como soluções locais aos problemas ambientais de relevância global. Se revisaram instrumentos internacionais, bibliografia nacional e estrangeira e planos de ação ambientais de cidades. Como conclusão se confirma o papel destacado das cidades na temática ambiental e a existência de redes de política e paradiplomacia para abordar questões ambientais.

I was one of the experts invited by the journal, Issues in Science and Technology, to reflect on life after the COVID-19 global pandemic.  The journal is published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.  The wide-ranging contributions explore the postpandemic world as it relates to public health, research, universities, economics, disasters, robots, time, space, and much more.  My contribution on "Cities" is on pages 47-48.

Artists and art communities are essential to the cultural life of cities. In New York City, artists have created networks of artist-run galleries in unlikely spaces that are outside the corporate gallery system. Sociologist Mary Kosut explores how artists generate alternative urban art economies within the contemporary New York art world.

Although remotely sensed images have been used to study urban growth patterns the world over, very few studies have employed these methods to examine the growth of Iranian cities. Shiraz is perhaps the most important city in the southern part of Iran and, thus, was selected for this study. We used satellite images of the study area from the period between 1976 and 2005, and population censuses of Shiraz. By applying classification methods to the satellite images four main types of land use were extracted: water, built-up, vegetation and bare land. Then, the area coverage for all the land use types at different points in time were measured and coupled with population data. The results demonstrate that, over the entire study period, development in Shiraz cannot be characterized as sprawl. Since 2000, however, one can see evidence of sprawl. These results are also supported by calculations using Shannon’s entropy. A further finding is that vegetation growth did not keep pace with that of population or the built-up area; more recently, vegetation has greatly declined. It is advisable that future plans for the city give serious consideration to the preservation of available vegetation and, when possible, the restoration of vegetation that was destroyed in the past.► Remote sensing and GIS, are two powerful tools for urban environment studies. ► Built-up per capita index is a simple, but effective indicator of sprawl measurements. ► Shanonn’s entropy calculation, is the most validated method for sprawl measurement. ► Shiraz city is in the early stages of sprawl development.

This study investigated the removal efficiency and mechanisms of water contaminants (mainly N-nitrosamines) during municipal wastewater reclamation by a membrane bioreactor (MBR) and nanofiltration (NF) hybrid system. The removal of bulk water contaminants was governed by the microbial activities in the MBR and molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of the NF membranes. The removal of N-nitrosamines by the MBR was primarily attributed to biodegradation by aerobic bacteria, which can be determined by the reactivity of the amine functional groups with the catabolic enzymes (removal efficiency=45-84%). Adsorption and formation of membrane fouling can enhance the removal of N-nitrosamines by the NF membranes. However, size-exclusion is found to play a major role in the removal of N-nitrosamines by the NF membranes since the removal efficiencies of N-nitrosamines varied significantly depending on molecular weight of the N-nitrosamines and MWCO of the NF membranes (removal efficiency: NE90>NE...

Today, over-consumption, pollution and resource depletion threaten sustainability. Waste management policies frequently fail to reduce consumption, prevent pollution, conserve resources and foster sustainable products. However, waste policies are changing to focus on lifecycle impacts of products from the cradle to the grave by extending the responsibilities of stakeholders to post-consumer management. Product stewardship and extended producer responsibility are two policies in use, with radically different results when compared for one consumer product, refrigerators. North America has enacted product stewardship policies that fail to require producers to take physical or financial responsibility for recycling or for environmentally sound disposal, so that releases of ozone depleting substances routinely occur, which contribute to the expanding the ozone hole. Conversely, Europe's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive requires extended producer responsibili...

A good understanding of climate change damages is vital to design effective adaptation policies and measures. Using a dataset of probabilistic sea-level rise and other of flood damages and protection cost curves for the 600 largest European coastal cities we generate stochastic damage curves and their distributions with and without adaptation. We apply the Generalized Extreme Value distribution to characterize the distributions and calculate two risk measures: the Value at Risk and the Expected Shortfall, which contribute to understanding the magnitude and probability of high-end sea-level rise represented by the upper tail of the distribution. This allows the costs of sea-level rise to be estimated (that is, in addition to other costs related to coastal extreme events) and supports decision-makers in integrating the high uncertainty related to future projections. This knowledge is necessary for an adequate risk management that does not underestimate risk. Furthermore, it allows city planners to tailor their risk tolerance. A great number of cities in Europe are currently undertaking adaptation plans or have already done so. Making these findings available should therefore be of great priority value to inform these processes.

The article introduces Urban Food Policies (UFP) in the field of decentralized
cooperation as a relatively new field of work, exchange and action-oriented
research within and between cities, and local authorities in the global North
and South. Indeed, a plethora of cities have been implementing actions with
different implementation mechanisms indicating that UFP can generate
positive stimuli, new perspectives, and reciprocal benefits. The article
examines a number of ongoing international projects to then focus on the
relevant programs developed in Italy and on the African continent, looking
into aspects of governance, outlining essential features of decentralized
cooperation and of these ongoing development projects, and concluding
with potential prospects in this area.

U.S. local governments purchase $1.72 trillion of goods and services annually that contribute to global climate change and other environmental problems. Cities that successfully implement environmental purchasing policies can mitigate these environmental concerns while saving money and demonstrating their environmental leadership. However, cities confront numerous challenges when implementing an environmental purchasing policy. This chapter identifies the facilitators and barriers of implementing an environmental purchasing policy. It draws on the experiences within the City of Phoenix as an example and offers eight recommendations for how the City of Phoenix and similar cities can integrate environmental purchasing more fully into their existing purchasing processes.

Cycling is the most energy-efficient mode of transport and can bring extensive environmental, social and economic benefits. Research has highlighted negative perceptions of safety as a major barrier to the growth of cycling. Understanding these perceptions through the application of novel place-sensitive methodological tools such as mental mapping could inform measures to increase cyclist numbers and consequently improve cyclist safety. Key steps to achieving this include: (a) the design of infrastructure to reduce actual risks and (b) targeted work on improving safety perceptions among current and future cyclists. This study combines mental mapping, a stated-preference survey and a transport infrastructure inventory to unpack perceptions of cycling risk and to reveal both overlaps and discrepancies between perceived and actual characteristics of the physical environment. Participants translate mentally mapped cycle routes onto hard-copy base-maps, colour-coding road sections accord...

Dog parks represent a recent trend in western countries, enabling owners to spend quality time with their pets in a controlled environment. Despite their growing popularity, few studies have been performed to date on these parks to investigate dog intestinal parasitic infections and soil contamination. The present study examined 369 faecal and 18 soil samples collected from 3 dog parks in Greater Lisbon, Portugal. Additionally, 102 interviews were performed with dog owners to assess dog-walking behaviours and parasite risk. In total, 33% of the faecal dog samples were infected with at least one parasitic agent: hookworms (16.5%), Cryptosporidium spp. (11.9%), Giardia spp. (11.4%), Toxascaris leonina (1.1%), Cystoisospora spp. (1.1%), Toxocara spp. (0.5%), and Sarcocystis sp. (0.3%). The soil of all the parks was contaminated with hookworm eggs. This is the first study performed in a European urban area to assess canine faecal contamination and parasitic agents in dog parks. Our resu...