Excavation | Elevation: Above and Below Ground in Nairobi

After a period of rapid development, the process of urbanization in China has gradually shifted from “scale expansion” to “enhanced quality”. The scarcity of urban land resources has created constraints on resources and economic development. This paper examines the carrying capacity of urban land resources from the perspective of urban renewal. A conceptual model of the driving mechanism of land comprehensive carrying capacity is constructed, incorporating six dimensions and 22 indicators, including urban renewal and urban ecology. Through questionnaire surveys and structural equation modeling, feedback data are analyzed, and measurement models, structural models, and mediation effects are examined to analyze the causal paths of factors in different dimensions on the comprehensive carrying capacity of urban land. The research results indicate that all six dimensions in the conceptual model have a direct positive impact on the land carrying capacity. In terms of direct effects, the influencing factors are ranked in descending order of magnitude as follows: urban development, urban disaster prevention and mitigation capacity, infrastructure development, urban renewal, social economy, and urban ecology. In terms of overall effects, factors are ranked in descending order of magnitude as follows: urban development, social economy, urban ecology, urban renewal, urban disaster prevention and mitigation capacity, and infrastructure development.

The article is divided into two parts. In the first part, we examine the emergence of the tower block phenomenon and summarize the cause of its subsequent decline. The issue is important, for, as we argue, tower blocks have been used to discredit not only public housing, but state welfare provision in general. In the second part, we utilize our analysis of developments in social policy in the United Kingdom in the 1990s to generate a critique of housing renewal strategies. Although it is important not to read across simplistically between politics, cultural crit icism and policy failure, nevertheless with reference to tower blocks we argue there is a commonality between these three issues. By highlighting these links it is possible to show how many of the latest housing pro posals are influenced by a one-dimensional reading of 'modernity', accentuating the negative aspects and neglecting some of the positive attributes. As a consequence, the philosophies that now underpin housing development are, in many respects, regressive and unimagina tive.

The importance of landscape values and human and nature interactions are usually ignored or degraded during planning processes not only in Turkey but most of the countries, resulting in unhealthy urban environment. This viewpoint causes exclusion of landscape planning from national planning stages, which in fact has a vital importance for the development of sustainable cities, in terms of both natural and cultural resources. The necessity of landscape consideration and urban ecology recognition in urban planning and design have led the emergence of various theories such as ecological urbanism, landscape urbanism and landscape ecological urbanism. However, there is still a need for a more definite and integrated model allowing for the landscape as the basis of the planning practices in the very beginning of the process. Landscape planning enables the detection and analysis of landscape characteristics supported by ecological concerns and thus provides a reliable basis for development plans and healthy decision-making. The spatiality of the data used in planning process, on the other hand, enables the utilization of geographic information systems (GIS) technologies for obtaining rapid, accurate and precise results. Moreover GIS offer opportunities to work with multi data sets and realize advanced analysis. Considering the need for improvement of traditional planning approaches especially within the context of the latest urban regeneration discourses of Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanism, in which an integrated planning understanding is lacking, this paper discusses the applicability of current urbanism theories comprising the evaluation of landscape and ecological systems and proposes a landscape based urbanism model enriched with geospatial understanding for Turkey, through the case of Antakya City Regeneration Project Proposal. Key words: Urbanism, urban regeneration, landscape planning.

Reigning the river: Urban ecologies and political transformations in Kathmandu, by Anne M. Rademacher. Foreword by Dianne Rochleau. New Ecologies for the 21st Century Series, Duke University Press,...

The high-rise tower block is an ambiguous construction: a much-maligned architectural form yet a persistent symbol of modernity and aspiration. It is also a fulcrum for discourses about urban failure, broken communities, widening urban inequality, and insecurity. Recent tower block disasters, from the Grenfell Tower fire in London to high-rise collapses in Nairobi, have intensified such debates. In this introduction to the theme section, we explore “tower block failure” as both event and discourse. Engaging with scholarship on global urbanism, verticality, and failure as a generative force, we highlight the particular discursive, social, political, and material constellations of “failure” as it manifests in relation to tower blocks. We propose that exploring what failure sets in motion—following what failure does, rather than what it means—can help inform our understanding of urban transformation.

There is a need to rethink technical infrastructure for energy and water provision and for handling sewage and solid waste due to environmental problems related to the current large‐scale systems. From the author's point of view this includes a shift towards combining bottom‐up and top‐down strategies instead of seeing such strategies as incompatible. In Denmark there is an increasing interest in user involvement and small‐scale solutions to environmental problems, but still most planners of the large supply systems continue a top‐down attitude towards the planning process. It is argued that the main barrier to implementing urban ecology in network management is the lack of understanding of technical infrastructure as more than technique, and the technicians’ faith in large‐scale solutions. Today's planning practice and the momentum of the established systems require new forums for strategic debates if urban ecology is to be included in future network management. A methodology is presented for structuring a debate on future sustainable systems, which includes new actors with very different viewpoints on network management in the debate on the transformation process.

BackgroundConstruction workers are 3–4 times more likely than other workers to die from accidents at work—however, in the developing world, the risks associated with construction work may be 6 times greater. India does not publish occupational injury statistics, and so little is known about construction workers injured. We aimed to use Indian police records to describe the epidemiology of construction site injuries in Delhi and to thus generate knowledge that may help to control the burden of injuries to construction workers in India and in other developing countries.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional analysis of accident records maintained by the Delhi Police. We included all construction workers reported to have been killed or injured in construction site accidents in Delhi during the period 2016–2018. We used multivariable logistic regression models to investigate associations between injury severity (fatal vs. non-fatal injury) and exposure variables whilst adjusting for a priori risk factors. We also estimated the number of Delhi construction workers in total and by trade to generate estimates of worker injury rates per 100,000 workers per year.ResultsThere were 929 construction site accidents within the study period, in which 1,217 workers and children were reported to have sustained injuries: 356 (29%) were fatal and 861 (71%) were non-fatal. One-eighth of injuries were sustained by females. Most occurred in the Rainy season; most were sustained during the construction of buildings. The most frequent causes were the collapse of an old building, the collapse of a new building under construction, and electric shocks. Electricians were more likely than unskilled workers to suffer a fatal injury (adjOR 2.5; 95% CI: 0.87–6.97), and there were more electrical shocks than electricians injured. The odds of a fatal injury were statistically significantly lower in Central districts than in the less developed, peripheral districts.ConclusionsConstruction site injuries are an unintended health impact of urbanisation. Women undertake manual work alongside men on construction sites in Delhi, and many suffer injuries as a consequence: an eighth of the injuries were sustained by females. Children accompanying their working parents on construction sites are also at risk. Two main hazards to construction workers in Delhi were building collapses and electrical shocks. Electricians were over twice as likely as unskilled workers to suffer a fatal injury, and electrical work would appear to be undertaken by a multitude of occupations. As the global urban population increases over the coming decades, so too will the burden of injuries to construction workers. The introduction and enforcement of occupational safety, health, and working conditions laws in India and in other rapidly developing countries will be necessary to help to control this injury burden to construction workers.

Economics Analysis on Haze Weather and Urban Development in China

Engaging Local Policy Makers in Public Health: Current Perceptions and Future Directions.

Urban Ecology and Urban Renewal: The Case of Ibadan and Sapele

In this paper, results are reported of a technology assessment of the use and integration of decentralized energy systems and storage devices in an urban renewal area. First the general context of a different approach based on 'rethinking' and the incorporation of ongoing integration of coming economical and environmental interests on infrastructure, in relation to the sustainable urban development and regeneration from the perspective of the tripod people, technology and design is elaborated. However, this is at different scales, starting mainly from the perspective of the urban dynamics. This approach includes a renewed look at the ‘urban metabolism’ and the role of environmental technology, urban ecology and environment behavior focus. Second, the potential benefits of strategic and balanced introduction and use of decentralized devices and electric vehicles (EVs), and attached generation based on renewables are investigated in more detail in the case study of the ‘Merwe-Vierhaven’ area (MW4) in the Rotterdam city port in the Netherlands. In order to optimize the energy balance of this urban renewal area, it is found to be impossible to do this by tuning the energy consumption. It is more effective to change the energy mix and related infrastructures. However, the problem in existing urban areas is that often these areas are restricted to a few energy sources due to lack of available space for integration. Besides this, energy consumption in most cases is relatively concentrated in (existing) urban areas. This limits the potential of sustainable urban regeneration based on decentralized systems, because there is no balanced choice regarding the energy mix based on renewables and system optimization. Possible solutions to obtain a balanced energy profile can come from either the choice to not provide all energy locally, or by adding different types of storage devices to the systems. The use of energy balance based on renewables as a guiding principle, as elaborated in the MW4 case study, is a new approach in the field. It may enhance existing communities, and in some cases result in both the saving and demolition of parts of neighborhoods, which were not foreseen, while at the same time direct introduction of flexible appliances within the energy system for (temporary) storage. It is concluded that the best achievable energy balance in the MW4 area consists of an elaboration in which a smart grid is able to shift the load of flexible devices and charge EVs via smart charging while energy generation is based upon the renewables biomass, wind, tides and the sun. The introduction of new sustainable technologies makes a protected environment for development evident. As for system configuration, the choices arise mainly from technical and social optimisation. In fact, the social, or user-related criteria will be decisive for enduring sustainability.

The project, Pollution of the Urban Midlands Atmosphere (PUMA), is funded by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) of the UK through a thematic programme on Urban Regeneration and the Environment (URGENT), which aims at a better understanding of natural processes in the shallow sub-surface, urban ecology, hydrological balances and atmospheric dynamics and chemistry in urban environments.

This article argues for the importance of a theology of 'recycling' as a form of public theology for an urban context. The argument begins by noting some of the difficulties in assessing the urban environment: the quality of some urban ecologies is improving although this goes hand-in-hand with the displacing of nature in wealthier cities. In response a theology of the urban ecology rather than a theology of the urban environment is proposed. This ecological interpretation better explains problems in efforts at urban regeneration and the resistance of urban neighbourhoods to change. The concept of the 'translocal'—a Eucharistic notion—is then introduced as a way of grasping the ecological situatedness of urban living and elaborating on the notion of a recycled city. The article concludes with a recommendation of six principles derived from this theology of 'recycling' that would aid the development of cities as recycled and promote the repeatability of cities.

Study of the influence of China's rapid urbanization and changing urban characteristics on urban ecology is of profound significance for the sustainable development of cities. The results of this study found that such changes have had a profound effect on PM2.5 concentrations. To explore the effects of urbanization on air quality (especially on PM2.5) we used indicators of population expansion, economic expansion, and urban geographical to represent levels of urban expansion, and used population density, urban CI, ISC, NDVI, and a night light index to indicate urban space characteristics. The strength of correlations between urban space characteristics and PM2.5 pollution were as follows:night light index > CI > population density > ISC > urban geographical expansion ≥ population expansion>NDVI. The highest correlation coefficient was between PM2.5 and the night light index, which was 0.77. During 2010-2015, the total contribution of urban expansion, urban characteristics, and spatial heterogeneity was 80.30%. The contribution of changes in urban characteristics was 55.00% and the contribution of spatial heterogeneity was 25.60%, both of which were above the contribution of basic urban characteristics in 2010, which was 5.70%. From 2000 to 2010, the contribution of changes in urban spatial characteristics to changes in PM2.5 concentrations was 39.30% and the contribution of the heterogeneity of urban spatial characteristics was 14.90%, both of which were higher than the contribution of basic urban characteristics in 2000, which was 3.70%. The results indicated that as urban transformation and development continue, green ecological cities should fully consider urban spatial layouts and the associated changes in urban spatial characteristics, minimize damage to the ecological environment from urban construction, and they should realize low-carbon and green development.

Buildings and their neighboring environments are transformed and replaced continuously under the process of urbanization. Large-scale mapping of building features is becoming increasingly important to enable a systematic measurement of building layouts and assess uneven urban developments. In this study, a set of 3D landscape metrics was used to create a national dataset of building features in Germany with a spatial resolution of 300m. This dataset shows a regular variation in building characteristics from urban to rural regions. Using this dataset, we made a comparison between the German states, and the results indicated significant differences in building characteristics. A principle component analysis revealed that urban transformations in the western states resulted in significantly higher building heights, densities, diversity, and complexity compared to the eastern states. Our dataset may be useful to further investigate the influence of urban development and urban morphology on urban ecology, particularly the urban heat island.