Bay Area Cities Research Articles

Drink Tap: A Multisector Program to Promote Water Access and Intake in San Francisco Parks.

Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), or drinks with added sugars, show promise in decreasing purchases and consumption of SSBs. Some have called for coupling such taxes with improvements in access to safe drinking water as a strategy for reducing inequities in SSB intake, yet no studies have examined such an approach. Drink Tap is a San Francisco-based program in which public tap water stations were installed in parks and public spaces (winter 2017) and promotional efforts (fall and winter 2018) encouraged water intake. At the same time, San Francisco and surrounding communities were also implementing SSB taxes. We conducted a quasi-experimental study to examine whether water access and promotion combined with SSB taxes affected beverage intake habits more than SSB taxes alone. We conducted 1-hour observations (N = 960) at 10 intervention parks (Drink Tap plus SSB taxes) and 20 comparison parks (SSB taxes only) in San Francisco Bay Area cities before (July-September 2016) and after (June-August 2019) implementation of Drink Tap. We found significant adjusted percentage increases in drinking water among visitors to intervention parks, compared with comparison parks: water from park water sources (+80%, P < .001) and water from reusable bottles (+40%, P = .02). We found no significant reductions in visitors observed drinking bottled water, juices, or SSBs. The Drink Tap intervention led to increases in water intake from park sources and reusable bottles across parks that surpassed increases achieved through SSB taxes alone. Jurisdictions should consider coupling tap water access and promotion with policies for reducing intake of SSBs.

DEMYSTIFYING SUSTAINABLE DISTRICT-LEVEL INDUSTRIAL BUILDING RENOVATION: A TAXONOMY FRAMEWORK AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

ABSTRACT With the progress of urbanization, most people live in cities and adjacent urban areas. Meanwhile, the transformation and development of cities and their industries leaves behind a large volume of old building blocks and requires renovating some urban spaces. Notably, urban renewal plays an important role in the sustainable development of cities. As a typical task of urban renewal, the renovation of industrial buildings involves the protection of the industrial heritage and the adaptive reuse of the existing building spaces. Yet, the complex nature of district-level industrial building renovation work spells challenges to effective urban renovation and sustainable city renewal. Although a few studies were devoted to the renovation of industrial buildings, very limited research focused on the renovation of existing industrial urban areas. In particular, the cooperation of different work disciplines to orchestrate sustainable district-level industrial building renovation and strategies to facilitate effective administration of such a way of urban renewal remain to be clarified. To close such a gap, this research employs an approach of multi-case study to conceptualize sustainable district-level industrial building renovation. Four case projects from the Big Bay Area cities, including Dongguan, Foshan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, are investigated and analyzed due to specific local policies of renovation and their rapid urbanization. Based on the knowledge disciplines of urban planning, industrial heritage reservation, and building renovation, a taxonomy framework is introduced, and the relevant sustainable development strategies are identified. The framework demystifies sustainable district-level industrial building renovation regarding the key aspects of sustainable management to achieve sustainable urban renewal and their hierarchical relations and enhances the knowledge body of industrial building renovation by broadening the scope to the urban scale. Furthermore, the proposed strategies can provide practical implications to sustainable urban renewal with industrial building renovation.

Socially-aware evaluation framework for transportation

ABSTRACT Technological advancements are rapidly changing traffic management in cities. Navigation applications, in particular, have impacted cities in many ways by rerouting traffic. As different routing strategies distribute traffic differently, understanding these disparities across multiple city-relevant dimensions is extremely important for decision-makers. We develop a multi-themed framework called Socially- Aware Evaluation Framework for Transportation (SAEF), which assists in understanding how traffic routing and the resultant dynamics affect cities. The framework is presented for four Bay Area cities, for which we compare three routing strategies - user equilibrium travel time, system optimal travel time, and system optimal fuel. The results demonstrate that many neighborhood impacts, such as traffic load on residential streets and around minority schools, degraded with the system-optimal travel time and fuel routing in comparison to the user-equilibrium travel time routing. The findings also show that all routing strategies subject the city's disadvantaged neighborhoods to disproportionate traffic exposure. Our intent with this work is to provide an evaluation framework that enables reflection on the consequences of traffic routing and management strategies, allowing city planners to recognize the trade-offs and potential unintended consequences.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Participatory Budgeting and the Quest for Empowered Participatory Governance

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a welcome democratic innovation because it promises to empower traditionally marginalized groups and create more equitable public spending. PB delegates public authority to neighborhood residents to propose and decide on projects to fund with tax dollars. Does PB achieve a form of empowered participatory governance? This article examines this question by focusing on the degree to which PB engages marginalized groups in two Bay Area cities, using survey and interview data. We find that marginalized groups do participate, periodically at rates equal to their proportion of the population, and such groups appear to occasionally benefit materially from winning projects, though to a lesser extent. Effective outreach methods that contribute to these outcomes are highlighted. However, overall findings show that white middle-aged, middle-class groups participate most. Moreover, PB funds have been scaled back in both cities, limiting benefits and their potential to achieve PB’s equity goals. These results mirror outcomes in other jurisdictions. We conclude, nevertheless, with discussion of how PB’s institutional design, which if expanded and deepened, provides concrete pathways to achieve a promising form of empowered participatory governance with redistributive potential at the local level.

Organic destination imagery and social media: Mapping tourism dynamics across China’s Greater Bay Area cities

ABSTRACT Drawing upon Gunn’s formative concept of organic destination image this study proposes an application and extension in a contemporary regional context. Noting that the formation of destination image now emanates from tourists as well as from tourism businesses, the researchers use a prominent Chinese social media platform – the Red – to evaluate tourist/user generated content on the destination image of the ‘9 + 2’ Greater Bay Area cities in southern China (9 mainland cites plus Macao and Hong Kong SARs). The authors employed computer-aided lexical analysis on over 10,000 posts extracted from the Red. Four clusters of designative and prescriptive image are revealed. The study contributes to knowledge by applying big data analytics to study destination image from the tourist perspective (user-generated organic image), especially in a regional context. The insights offer prospective benefits to destination planners at local and regional levels by showing the merits of mobilizing tourism resources across multiple cities.

Quantification of the carbon emission of urban residential buildings: The case of the Greater Bay Area cities in China

Building sector plays a significant role in China's ambitous climate targets to peak carbon emissions (CEs) by 2030 and to realize carbon neutral by 2060. However, studies in characterizing the CEs of urban residential buildings from life-cycle perspective at regional level are still limited, especially for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) in China. Here, life cycle assessment method and improved building stock turnover model were employed to quantify the annual CEs of urban residential buildings (including materialization CEs of the newly-built urban residential buildings, operational CEs of the existing urban residential buildings, and CEs generated from the demolition of the existing urban residential buildings) in GBA cities from 2000 to 2018. The results show that the total CEs increased dramatically from 44.5 Mt. CO2 e in 2000 to 75.1 Mt. CO2 e in 2018 with an annual growth rate by approximately 3%. The CEs from operation stage accounted for around 70%, and recycling building wastes could reduce 7.5% emissions. Compared with other bay areas globally, the operational CEs of urban residential building in GBA became the highest since 2014. Therefore, climate actions in energy saving and emission mitigation are required. Based on scenario analysis, we estimated that Huizhou city can reach the peak target by 2020 if taking some effective measures. These emission findings could provide data references and suggestions for the low-carbon development path for urban residential buildings in GBA and other global cities.

A Study of Satisfaction for the Talent Enticement Policy in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area—with Zhuhai as an Example

Under the circumstances of the rapid development of knowledge based economy and artificial intelligence, talents are one of the most important resources not only for the local economic and social development, but also of great significance to the development of the region. Since the establishment of the special economic zone in Zhuhai, many policies concerning talents have been implemented, and some of the policies have achieved desired results. However, in the face of the current new situation, new opportunities, and new challenges, especially when the total number of talents is much lower than the demand, the existing policies in the Bay Area cities, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and other places, still need to be continuously improved based on the overall strategies and actual needs. Using the current situation of the talent enticement policy in Zhuhai City as the starting point, taking the enticement convenience, material benefits, incentive policies and flow mechanisms as measurement factors, combined with the data collection and analysis results, to explore the current situation of the talent enticement policy in Zhuhai City and its main stakeholders' satisfaction, and propose corresponding improvement countermeasures.

Assessing the connection between overeducation and migration intention in Hong Kong’s young working adults

ABSTRACT This study addresses the link between overeducation and intention to migrate to the Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities in mainland China in a sample of Hong Kong’s young adults employed in lower occupational classes (elementary occupations, plant and machine operators and assemblers, craft and related workers, and service and sales workers). The results indicate that overeducation has a unique negative effect on attitudes towards migration to GBA. The findings suggest that social capital theory rather than human capital theory is better able to explain the motivation of Hong Kong’s young people to invest in higher education. This research may help policy makers review the expansion of higher education in Hong Kong and provide valuable policy implications for regional integration between Hong Kong and mainland China.

Migrating to GBA cities in mainland China: Assessing a model of psychological distance among Hong Kong working adults

AbstractSouth–North and North–North migration patterns have received significant interest in the literature, and recently, studies have begun to investigate South–South migration. However, as yet, very few studies have addressed North–South migration or investigated the psychological facilitators and barriers that drive this growing migration pattern. With a sample from a representative group of Hong Kong adults, we evaluated the role of positive attitude in shaping the intention to migrate from Hong Kong, a more‐developed economy (a metropolitan area), to the Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities in Mainland China, considered a less‐developed economy (with less metropolitan areas). We found positive attitude toward GBA cities in Mainland China promoted migration intention both directly and indirectly, as mediated by situational concerns and experience of visiting Mainland GBA cities. The impact of a positive attitude on a field visit was found to be weaker among wealthier adults relative to their economically disadvantaged counterparts. The effect of a field visit on migration intention was found to be stronger among wealthier adults relative to their economically disadvantaged counterparts. The findings suggest that an understanding of social psychology has implications for policy makers through highlighting the different approaches and entry points that could be adopted to encourage migration by people of varying economic status.

Are Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay area cities attractive to university students in Hong Kong? Leading the potential human capital from image perception to locational decisions

Purpose This study aims to identify the perceived image of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities by university students in Hong Kong through both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the levels of familiarity and favourability, the characteristics of the GBA cities and the personal factors that affect the locational decisions (tourism, education, employment and migration) of the sampled students. This study also classifies both the students and the cities according to their perceived image. Design/methodology/approach This study, on a sample of university students in Hong Kong, investigated the linkage between their perceived familiarity and favourability of the 11 GBA cities using a questionnaire-based survey (n1 = 617). A follow-up, semi-structured interview (n2 = 32) was then conducted to qualitatively understand the underlying factors that determine the perceived city image and inform the students’ locational decisions. Findings Geographically, the familiarity-favourability (F-F) analysis indicates that Hong Kong university students are overwhelmingly familiar with and favourable to Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen. The 11 cities are classified into development-oriented, have specialized local economy, are personality-based and have a rich history and bring back nostalgic memories. From the F-F scores, Hong Kong students are classified into two main clusters of non-interested students and positive but unfamiliar students. The locational decisions of local students show a relatively stronger magnitude of favourability affecting all four purposes of relocation, an overriding preference for Hong Kong and the high determination of psychological characteristics. Research limitations/implications As this study focuses on Hong Kong students as a sample, a further comparative study between mainland Chinese students in the GBA region and Hong Kong could be conducted to extend the main findings of this research. Social implications The idea of “People-to-People Bond”, under the framework of the Belt-and-Road Initiative, and its socio-cultural aspect are emphasized as the key to transnational and regional policy success, which is relevant to the GBA region. The regional policies determine the movement of human capital and the interconnection of places for regional planning and development. The research outcomes correspond with the dearth of knowledge about the relationship between the characteristics of upcoming university graduates, their perceptions of GBA cities as destinations for varied purposes and their ultimate decision for relocation. Their interests and intended movements will exert short-to-long-term social and cultural influences to the region. Originality/value The promulgation and implementation of the GBA development plan for providing opportunities for tourism, education, employment and migration for mainland and Hong Kong university students. This research enriches the knowledge about the bottom-up and citizen-oriented approach in regional planning and policy formulation by advancing Govers and Go’s (2009) three-gap branding model and relying on an empirical foundation for these policy initiatives.

Facilitating the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area’s Participation in the Dual Circulation Economy

The Sino-US conflicts and the COVID-19 have significantly impacted the Chinese economy and the Chinese government has proposed the “Dual Circulation Economy” strategy as countermeasure. As one of the most developed regions in China, the Guangdong -Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is expected to shoulder responsibilities in this ambition. In this paper, we analyze the challenges for the Greater Bay Area to participate from the perspective of industrial development. We then employ a quantitative method to identify the industrial potential of the Greater Bay Area cities in facilitating the dual circulation economy. At last, we provide several policy recommendations including promoting cross-regional industrial cooperation and enhancing the spatial spillover effects of core cities.

Chinese cities exhibit varying degrees of decoupling of economic growth and CO2 emissions between 2005 and 2015

Summary Cities, contributing more than 75% of global carbon emissions, are at the heart of climate change mitigation. Given cities' heterogeneity, they need specific low-carbon roadmaps instead of one-size-fits-all approaches. Here, we present the most detailed and up-to-date accounts of CO2 emissions for 294 cities in China and examine the extent to which their economic growth was decoupled from emissions. Results show that from 2005 to 2015, only 11% of cities exhibited strong decoupling, whereas 65.6% showed weak decoupling, and 23.4% showed no decoupling. We attribute the economic-emission decoupling in cities to several socioeconomic factors (i.e., structure and size of the economy, emission intensity, and population size) and find that the decline in emission intensity via improvement in production and carbon efficiency (e.g., decarbonizing the energy mix via building a renewable energy system) is the most important one. The experience and status quo of carbon emissions and emission-GDP (gross domestic product) decoupling in Chinese cities may have implications for other developing economies to design low-carbon development pathways.

Study on the Representation of Traditional Graphic Elements in Coastal Landscape Planning and Design

Zhao, P., 2020. Study on the representation of traditional graphic elements in coastal landscape planning and design. In: Bai, X. and Zhou, H. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 115, pp. 253-255. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The coastal landscape is an important part of urban waterfront space and display windows. China's Greater Bay Area (9+2) cities: Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two sub-provincial cities and Zhuhai, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Huizhou, Zhaoqing, and two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau The landscape design of the coastal zone should be a comprehensive design that can meet the needs of different urban characteristics and different urban populations, while bringing life and leisure activities to people, and bringing good ecological and environmental benefits to coastal cities. Therefore, the design of urban waterfront space becomes more and more important in urban planning and construction.

A statistics-based method to quantify residential energy consumption and stock at the city level in China: The case of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area cities

The residential sector is a substantial consumer of energy worldwide, especially in China, and therefore a focus of energy conservation efforts. Although cities are basic executive units nowadays, their residential energy consumption (REC) is often overlooked. By revealing this research gap, we develop a REC calculation model at the city level (CRECM) and an improved residential stock turnover model (RSTM) to calculate the REC and residential stock of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities. Based on these two indicators, the REC intensity is quantified to measure residential energy efficiency. The results show that 11 GBA cities see a dramatic increase in REC over the past 16 years and REC intensities of most cities have plateaued out. The total REC of GBA is expected to rise until that of Guangzhou and Shenzhen reaches the peak. Also, the over residential stock of GBA has tended to saturation in recent years after significant growth, while some cities (i.e. Zhuhai, Huizhou, and Zhongshan) tend to increase. The gaps in REC among cities can be attributed to socio-economic factors (population, GDP, and residential stock) and building characteristics (unit area and construction vintage). Both CRECM and RSTM proposed in this study can provide robust data support for developing building energy efficiency policies for GBA cities as well as other cities across the country

Purchasing patterns in low-income neighbourhoods: implications for studying sugar-sweetened beverage taxes.

The present study aimed to determine the store types from which people in low-income neighbourhoods purchase most sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and to identify associations between purchasing location and demographic characteristics. Street-intercept surveys of passers-by near high foot-traffic intersections in 2016. Participants completed a beverage frequency questionnaire and identified the type of store (e.g. corner store, chain grocery) from which they purchased most SSB. Eight low-income neighbourhoods in four Bay Area cities, California, USA.ParticipantsSample of 1132 individuals who reported consuming SSB, aged 18-88 years, who identified as African-American (41 %), Latino (29 %), White (17 %) and Asian (6 %). Based on surveys in low-income neighbourhoods, corner stores were the primary source from which most SSB were purchased (28 %), followed by discount stores (18 %) and chain groceries (16 %). In fully adjusted models, those with lower education were more likely to purchase from corner stores or discount groceries than all other store types. Compared with White participants, African-Americans purchased more frequently from corner stores, discount groceries and chain groceries while Latinos purchased more frequently from discount groceries. The wide range of store types from which SSB were purchased and demographic differences in purchasing patterns suggest that broader methodological approaches are needed to adequately capture the impact of SSB taxes and other interventions aimed at reducing SSB consumption, particularly in low-income neighbourhoods.

Emissions and low-carbon development in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area cities and their surroundings

Cities are the major contributors to energy consumption and CO2 emissions, as well as being leading innovators and implementers of policy measures in climate change mitigation. Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is an agglomeration of cities put forward by China to strengthen international cooperation among “Belt and Road” countries and promote low-carbon, inclusive, coordinated and sustainable development. Few studies have discussed the emission characteristics of GBA cities. This study, for the first time, compiles emission inventories of 11 GBA cities and their surroundings based on IPCC territorial emission accounting approach, which are consistent and comparable with the national and provincial inventories. Results show that (a) total emissions increased from 426 Mt in 2000 to 610 Mt in 2016, while emissions of GBA cities increased rapidly by 6.9% over 2000–2011 and peaked in 2014 (334 Mt); (b) raw coal and diesel oil are the top two emitters by energy type, while energy production sector and tertiary industry are the top two largest sectors; (c) GBA cities take the lead in low-carbon development, emitted 4% of total national emissions and contributed 13% of national GDP with less than a third of national emission intensities and less than three-quarters of national per capita emissions; (d) Macao, Shenzhen and Hong Kong have the top three lowest emission intensity in the country; (e) most of GBA cities are experiencing the shift from an industrial economy to a service economy, while Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Foshan and Huizhou reached their peak emissions and Guangzhou, Dongguan and Jiangmen remained decreasing emission tendencies; (g) for those coal-dominate or energy-production cities (i.e. Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Zhaoqing, Maoming, Yangjiang, Shanwei, Shaoguan and Zhanjiang) in mid-term industrialization, total emissions experienced soaring increases. The emission inventories provide robust, self-consistent, transparent and comparable data support for identifying spatial–temporal emission characteristics, developing low-carbon policies, monitoring mitigation progress in GBA cities as well as further emissions-related studies at a city-level. The low-carbon roadmaps designed for GBA cities and their surroundings also provide a benchmark for other developing countries/cities to adapting changing climate and achieve sustainable development.

The alternative vote: Do changes in single-member voting systems affect descriptive representation of women and minorities?

There exist two, conflicting, conventional wisdoms in the United States about which electoral systems best provide for descriptive representation. On the one hand, single-member districts are understood to be the best way to ensure representation for ethnic and racial minority groups, at least when populations are geographically concentrated. On the other hand, it is well-established that a greater proportion of women are elected in multi-member districts in the United States, especially in state legislatures. At the intersection, minority women are not well served by single-member districts, at least using plurality or majority runoff election, but it is far from clear that multi-member districts are much better. This paper takes a fine-grained approach to electoral systems reform and descriptive representation, exploring the impacts of the reform of the electoral formula in single-member systems in the context of the adoption of the alternative vote (AV) in several California Bay Area cities. Using similar cities in the area that did not adopt AV as controls and a difference-in-differences research design, we show that reform of single-member electoral formulae can have a significant positive effect on descriptive representation.

The Highest and Best Use? Urban Industrial Land and Job Creation

Policy makers seeking to rezone urban industrial land often cite the need to attract or retain non-industrial or high-tech businesses that would otherwise locate in outlying areas or other regions. Yet industrial land may still play an important role in the 21st-century economy. This article describes how industrially-zoned land shapes the dynamics of business relocation and expansion in four San Francisco Bay Area cities. The analysis combines two unique data sets (the National Establishment Time Series and historic zoning maps) and uses multivariate analysis to examine the role of zoning in firm expansion, controlling for firm characteristics, industry, building characteristics, and location. Firm size plays the most important role, but the availability of industrially-zoned land and large buildings also helps firms to expand. The article concludes by outlining land use and economic development strategies that help cities target firms creating jobs on industrial land.

A “Virtual” Challenge: The Potential Impact of Electronic Commerce on Local Government Revenues

Over the past twenty years many California cities have substan- tially increased their reliance on sales tax revenue. The growth of online shopping threatens to undermine this source of revenue, because taxes are not collected for many electronic commerce transactions. More importantly, cities relying heavily upon tradi- tional retail may lose revenue, depending on how the State de- cides to redistribute taxes from online sales. Alternatives evalu- ated in this article include, redistribution according to the loca- tion of the retailer, location of the consumer (a residence), and population. The potential impacts of online sales growth and rev- enue redistribution are evaluated for Bay Area cities, 15 of which are identified as highly vulnerable, rapidly growing middle class suburbs. In conclusion, the implications of policies to mitigate such impacts are explored.

Integrating private transport into renewable energy policy: The strategy of creating intelligent recharging grids for electric vehicles

A new business model for accelerating the introduction of electric vehicles into private transport systems involves the provision by an Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO) of an intelligent rechargeable network in advance of the vehicles themselves. The ERGO business model creates a market for co-ordinated production and consumption of renewable energy. The innovative contribution of the model rests in its ability to combine two problems and thereby solve them in a fresh way. One problem derives from utilizing power grids with a substantial increase in renewable electric energy production (as witnessed in the Danish case with wind energy) and managing the resulting fluctuating supply efficiently. The other problem concerns finding ways to reduce CO 2 emissions in the transport sector. The ERGO business model effectively solves both problems, by transforming EVs into distributed storage devices for electricity, thus enabling a fresh approach to evening out of fluctuating and unpredictable energy sources, while drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This integrated solution carries many other associated benefits, amongst which are the possibility of introducing vehicle-to-grid (V2G) distributed power generation; introducing IT intelligence to the grid, and creating virtual power plants from distributed sources; and providing new applications for carbon credits in the decarbonisation of the economy. The countries and regions that have signed on to this model and are working to introduce it in 2009–2011 include Israel, Denmark, Australia, and in the US, the Bay Area cities and the state of Hawaii.