City Assets Research Articles

Integrating HEC-RAS, GIS, and LISREL for assessing and enhancing urban building resilience against flood threats: Comprehensive model and analysis

Floods pose significant threats to urban areas, resulting in substantial human and financial losses annually. The vulnerability of key urban centers to these risks diminishes their efficiency, leading to public dissatisfaction and service deficiencies. Recognizing and enhancing the resilience of essential buildings becomes crucial in mitigating these challenges. This study employs a comprehensive approach to achieve a resilience model for critical buildings facing floods. The research process involves the identification of city assets based on leveling criteria, utilizing GIS technology for spatial mapping. HECRAS software aids in river flow modeling, identifying areas lacking flood-carrying capacity. By overlaying vulnerable gravity centers with flood-prone regions, building resilience components are computed through structural factor analysis and LISREL modeling. The study identifies ten key criteria. Further analysis includes resilience modeling using TOPSIS and AHP methods. The positive ideal and negative ideal solutions are determined, resulting in the grading of building resilience. Notably, the balance redundancy index with cascading potential effects attains the highest positive ideal value at 0.257, while the resistance to a level of stress index achieves the lowest negative ideal value at 0.02. This comprehensive approach and modeling contribute to the understanding and enhancement of urban building resilience in the face of flood threats.

Investigating the effective consequences on the assets of an urban system in facing scenario-based hazards

Urban assets are generated through physical elements in a city as part of critical infrastructure. To ensure a sustainable urban future, innovative businesses and people are also essential urban assets. In the possible occurrence of natural and manborne hazards, architecture, population density, gathering locations, and connected infrastructure systems in cities are efficient. Manmade hazards are accidents caused by people that happen in or close to human settlements. These are things that have a major impact on the quality of life, health status, and even mortality. The consequences of such hazards in the town will have to be analyzed. To this end, causal relationships between a town's assets against man-made and natural hazards have been analyzed using the Fuzzy DEMATEL method. According to the results of this research, physical elements have a more important effect on other assets in cities at risk from man-made hazards than any other factor. In the face of man's hazards, economic activity can be more closely linked to population and physical elements. Physical elements have a higher impact on the population and economic activities when confronted with environmental hazards. Physical elements interact more with population and economic activities. In line with the results, more important than physical elements are population and economic activities. Lastly, it is suggested that the risks of dangerous accidents should be assessed and their consequences determined by taking into account the worst-case scenario.

Urban green infrastructure and its role in sustainable cities: A comprehensive review

Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) plays a pivotal role in shaping sustainable cities by integrating natural elements into the urban landscape. This comprehensive review explores the multifaceted contributions of UGI towards enhancing environmental quality, social well-being, and economic resilience in urban settings. As cities continue to grapple with challenges such as climate change, air and water pollution, and the urban heat island effect, UGI emerges as a key solution for fostering urban sustainability. The review delves into the various components of UGI, encompassing green spaces, urban forests, green roofs, and permeable surfaces. It examines how these elements collectively contribute to mitigating environmental issues by absorbing carbon dioxide, reducing air pollutants, and attenuating the impacts of extreme weather events. Additionally, UGI serves as a biodiversity hotspot, supporting diverse flora and fauna within urban boundaries. Beyond its environmental benefits, UGI significantly influences social dynamics and well-being. The presence of green spaces fosters recreational opportunities, promotes mental health, and strengthens community cohesion. Accessible and well-designed green infrastructure contributes to equitable distribution of environmental benefits, addressing environmental justice concerns in urban areas. Economically, UGI proves to be an asset for cities by enhancing property values, reducing energy consumption through temperature regulation, and supporting local businesses. The review explores successful case studies of cities that have effectively implemented UGI to achieve sustainable urban development, drawing insights into best practices and potential challenges. This comprehensive review underscores the integral role of Urban Green Infrastructure in creating sustainable and resilient cities. By addressing environmental, social, and economic dimensions, UGI emerges as a holistic approach that aligns with the evolving needs of urban populations and the imperatives of a sustainable future. Understanding the intricacies of UGI implementation provides a foundation for policymakers, urban planners, and researchers to collaboratively work towards fostering greener, healthier, and more sustainable urban environments.

Public Transport Decarbonization: An Exploratory Approach to Bus Electrification

In 2020, only 0.9% of buses running in European Union countries were electric, with 93.5% still being diesel-powered. The Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy set out by the European Commission targets a reduction of at least 55% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2023 and the achievement of climate neutrality by 2050. These targets will only be met by a shift to sustainable mobility, which comprises the introduction of electric vehicles in cities and the adoption of battery electric vehicles (BEV) for urban public transport. Thus, a literature review on “electrification of bus fleets” was conducted, focusing on the practices adopted for the replacement of polluting buses with electric-powered ones. A total of 62 documents were included in the final investigation, and their results were used to conduct a SWOT analysis. It is possible to conclude that BEBs are an important asset for cities to decarbonize the transport sector and that they are more cost-effective than diesel buses. On the other hand, some attention needs to be given to the generation of energy that will feed the charging of batteries because the use of fossil fuel energy sources can jeopardize the environmental benefits of BEBs.

The Smart City Implementation and Development Model in Realizing Bureaucratic Reform in the Local Government of Cimahi City

This study delves into the implementation and development of a Smart City model as a strategic approach by the Regional Government to achieve bureaucratic reform. The aim is to address challenges associated with inefficient service systems, lengthy processes, organizational structures, and bureaucratic placements that hinder effective government management. Focused on Cimahi City's urban development strategy, the Smart City concept integrates the Internet of Things (IoT) and information and communication technology (ICT) to optimize city assets, enhance law enforcement, streamline government agency information systems, and improve community services. However, despite its potential, the government's Smart City strategy faces obstacles, including server errors, login difficulties, frequent application loading, cumbersome display interfaces, and unresponsive buttons. In response, this research proposes the TRSCM model as a framework for the effective implementation and development of Smart City initiatives, aiming to overcome barriers and contribute to the realization of meaningful bureaucratic reform in government organizations.

Inclusion of ecosystem services in the management of municipal natural open space systems

Abstract Unprecedented urbanisation in the Global South is transforming natural urban landscapes, impacting on the ability of nature to provide essential ecosystem services. Within the context of pressures facing many urban natural open spaces, particularly in Africa, we used a local municipality in South Africa as a case study to (i) identify local government priorities for a natural open space system; (ii) develop an understanding of whether, and how, ecosystem services are considered by local government, and the reasons thereof; and (iii) ascertain the extent of proactive planning regarding regulating and other ecosystem services, including the temporal and spatial scales, and implications. In‐depth qualitative interviews (n = 12) were undertaken with senior municipal officials representing departments whose work impacts the environment. Municipal decision‐support documents were also analysed for any direct and/or indirect references to ecosystem services. Planning for, and management of, ecosystem services provided by natural open spaces is influenced by interwoven infrastructure, municipal service delivery and equity challenges, complex institutional constraints and poverty, with little focus on the socio‐economic opportunities and other benefits of natural open space systems. Values, perceptions and knowledge also influence the management of ecosystem services. The study contributes to understanding the opportunities and challenges for the future governance of natural open space in the Global South, which require explicit consideration in municipal planning, management and budgeting processes. Policy and management implications identified include prioritisation of the regulating functions provided by natural open space systems, pivotal to the urban resilience agenda; building on the inherent appreciation of nature features as city assets, while achieving socio‐economic upliftment; improved (on‐site) collaborative management of natural open spaces; and involvement of local government officials in the preparation and updating of environmental policies and decision‐support documents, to ensure skills and knowledge transfer and interest are entrenched in local government departments. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Features of the rational use of innovation and investment clusters of construction enterprises under the conditions of business relocation to overcome the crisis of marital state in Ukraine

The main condition for innovative development of the country is the innovative potential of the construction industry, as the flagship of today's urban reconstruction.
 This article is devoted to the characteristics of the innovative potential of the country's construction industry, in particular, the main innovative problems of the Ukrainian economy are analyzed and recommendations are made for their improvement.
 The organization and stimulation of processes of technology renewal, the transfer of scientific developments from the field of knowledge acquisition to production, which is achieved with the help of the development of the education system, the intellectual property market, the creation of innovative infrastructure, financial and tax stimulation of scientific and technical activities, is of particular importance in the processes of the functioning of the national innovation system. etc. Thus, the situation in the innovation sphere makes it urgent to develop such a state policy that would ensure expanded reproduction of the object base of innovative activity and the irreversible impact of innovations on accelerated economic growth of the country.
 The relevance is due to forced changes in the regional socio-economic policy of Ukraine due to the relocation of property and enterprises from areas of risk and active hostilities.
 The economic front of the state during the war is one of the issues, ensuring the activity of which contributes to replenishing the budget and maintaining the solvency of the population. The improvement of the efficiency and transparency of the work of city authorities and services was analyzed, namely: integration and coordination of individual functions and city services to optimize the solution of complex problems and speed up interdepartmental interaction; improvement of the system of control over the activity of communal enterprises and budget organizations; improvement of the statistical information collection system to improve the efficiency of management decision-making on the ground; ensuring effective management of city assets.

Leveraging a novel NFT-enabled blockchain architecture for the authentication of IoT assets in smart cities

The concept of smart city architecture requires a comprehensive solution that can combine real-time response applications for cyber-physical systems. However, the architecture faces challenges that can obstruct the operations in terms of systems, processes, and data flow as far as the breach risk is concerned. Though the field has been researched with the existence of centralized and distributed architectures to support smart cities. Research gaps regarding security concerns, platform assistance, and resource management continue to persist. This research article presents a novel blockchain-based architecture that proposes expansion in the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to cater to the expansion of IoT-enabled smart assets. It enables NFTs to employ fog computing for all users and smart devices connected to a fog node in a cyber-physical system. The proposed expansion suggested in Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) for IoT assets representation in a cyber-physical system, provides devices and user identification and authentication functionality. The proposed NFT architecture has been designed to provide a smart city solution for cyber-physical systems that ensures robust security features (such as CIA) by introducing new attributes and functions for Owner, User, Fog, and IoT device/s authentication. The validation and rigor of the security services, efficiency, and latency have been achieved by deployments on private and public ledgers. The efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of the suggested functions and components have been evaluated in terms of evaluation cost and time complexity which resulted in promising results, obtained and validated on a testnet. The evaluation cost for the devised mint component was approximately 81%, and devised approve() was approximately 23% more efficient than other solutions.

Defense and Deterrence as the Foundation of the A2/AD System in Smart City Air Defense

The extreme concentration of tangible and non-tangible resources in the environment of the Smart City calls for their securing and protection. In the case of threat emergence, the military would have to enter areas where local authorities cannot guarantee the security of Smart City assets. Thus, the question arises whether or not Smart Cities could potentially assist the military forces in performing their tasks better on the battlefield. Some military agencies are currently exploring the possibility of using the military in Smart Cities. For instance, the United States Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is studying whether smart city communications and infrastructure could be of use on the future battlefield. This paper aims to indicate the potential for expansion and integration of the anti-aircraft defense systems to serve the needs of urban defense, thereby allowing the achievement of air superiority and implementing the assumptions of A2/AD systems. In reference to the research objective formulated in such a way, discovering the answers to the following questions was deemed crucial: What is the state of the current Anti-Aircraft Defense (AAD) system of urban centers, in particular Smart Cities? What are the possibilities of expanding and improving this system? How can the SMART CITY system be integrated and serve as an element of strengthening the AAD system? In order to answer the indicated questions, this article was written with the use of qualitative method consisting of text and literature exploratory research and analysis, and comparative analyzes of Smart Cities and Air Defense in contemporary military operations. To achieve the assumed aim, the authors have also conducted the evaluation of Air Defense combat capabilities, as well as the changes that have occurred in the environment of Smart Cities. The authors used thematic analysis methods to interpret patterns and meanings in the data

Design thinking for city dashboard development: Recommendations from a study of smart asset management in Sydney, Australia

AbstractThe city dashboard has become an integral component of smart city asset management systems. It leverages data collected from multiple sources to monitor performance and enable evidence‐based decision making. This article investigates the use of a design thinking framework to develop a functional and easy to understand city dashboard. The Smart Social Spaces project is used as a case study to illustrate how design thinking can be employed to develop an asset management dashboard, enabling efficient management of public space and infrastructure. The article profiles the unique collaboration between a local government, a multi‐disciplinary team of university academics, and a street furniture designer and manufacturer, all located in Sydney, Australia. We unpack some of the design practice nuances that led this project to receive national awards and international recognition, and most importantly, created a user‐friendly system to track and maintain public micro assets. We conclude with lessons learnt and recommendations for dashboard development through a design thinking process.

Smart Urban Forest Management in East Africa: The Case of Nairobi and Kampala Cities

Digital technologies are increasingly being incorporated in the management and governance of urban forests to provide the information needed for sustainable and more livable cities. However, there is scarce information on the documented lessons from applying these digital technologies for urban forestry management in many developing countries. This study addressed this challenge using a literature review in the case of Nairobi, Kenya, and Kampala, Uganda. The results substantiate that urban forests are important city assets enhancing ecological stability and sustainable development. As such, the digital technologies of urban forest management practices are rapidly expanding in the two cities to enhance urban forestry and create new opportunities for sustainable development. Both cities have differentiated integration of digital technologies in the vegetative, community support, and resource management components of urban forest governance and management, with important information and lessons being generated for city authorities and policymakers. In general, the technology implementation level in Kampala city is higher than in Nairobi City. This differentiation could be attributed to differences in the socio-political contexts of the two cities, which present different enablers and barriers to technology application in urban forestry. Nevertheless, more location-specific practices and experiences with a focus on how to diversify opinions and actors in digital technologies should be pursued.

Framework for Quantifying Energy Impacts of Rehabilitation of Derelict Buildings: Assessment in Lisbon, Portugal

Cities are currently responsible for an important part of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, justifying the need to develop measures to help them become more sustainable. One of those measures can be to address under-utilized assets in cities, such as derelict buildings with high potential for rehabilitation, and the establishment of new residence hubs within cities. Consequently, this work establishes a novel framework for evaluating the impact of rehabilitating these buildings in an urban area in Lisbon, considering the energy consumption associated with the usage of the dwelling as well as the impact on mobility, since it was considered that these buildings will be occupied by people who currently work nearby but live in the outskirts of Lisbon, favouring an urban planning of proximity between home and work. To this extent, a methodology was developed for selecting the buildings to be analysed and the commuting movements to be replaced. Then, buildings were simulated in an urban building energy modelling (UBEM) tool, considering three rehabilitation scenarios, and the required primary energy, CO2 emissions, and costs were calculated. Regarding mobility, three new scenarios were compared with the current scenario. The results obtained confirm the high potential savings from the rehabilitation of derelict buildings and in the best-case scenario—corresponding to the rehabilitation considering envelope insulation, the installation of efficient windows, and the adoption of a heat pump together with a mobility standard targeting 15 min cities—reductions of 76% in primary energy and 84% in CO2 emissions were achieved.

Engineering Resource-Efficient Data Management for Smart Cities with Apache Kafka

In terms of the calibre and variety of services offered to end users, smart city management is undergoing a dramatic transformation. The parties involved in delivering pervasive applications can now solve key issues in the big data value chain, including data gathering, analysis, and processing, storage, curation, and real-world data visualisation. This trend is being driven by Industry 4.0, which calls for the servitisation of data and products across all industries, including the field of smart cities, where people, sensors, and technology work closely together. In order to implement reactive services such as situational awareness, video surveillance, and geo-localisation while constantly preserving the safety and privacy of affected persons, the data generated by omnipresent devices needs to be processed fast. This paper proposes a modular architecture to (i) leverage cutting-edge technologies for data acquisition, management, and distribution (such as Apache Kafka and Apache NiFi); (ii) develop a multi-layer engineering solution for revealing valuable and hidden societal knowledge in the context of smart cities processing multi-modal, real-time, and heterogeneous data flows; and (iii) address the key challenges in tasks involving complex data flows and offer general guidelines to solve them. In order to create an effective system for the monitoring and servitisation of smart city assets with a scalable platform that proves its usefulness in numerous smart city use cases with various needs, we deduced some guidelines from an experimental setting performed in collaboration with leading industrial technical departments. Ultimately, when deployed in production, the proposed data platform will contribute toward the goal of revealing valuable and hidden societal knowledge in the context of smart cities.

The use of intangible heritage and creative industries as a tourism asset in the UNESCO creative cities network

The creative economy has been recognized as key in urban development and planning, which the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) consolidates. While benefiting from the label, the tourism sector also plays a fundamental role in the creative strategy. This paper explores how intangible heritage and creative industries can work as a tourism asset for creative cities and thus participate in their development. An NVivo thematic content analysis of all the tourism-related actions listed in the UCCN reports was performed to identify what types of cultural tourism products and actions are linked to the creative cities and to understand how they relate to their UNESCO creative fields to detect gaps and potentials. Tourism activity represents 17% of the total actions listed in the creative cities’ reports, mostly concentrated in the Crafts & Folk Art field. The empirical results highlight tendencies that can be applied and adapted to future destinations with intangible assets on their territory and that want to work with the creative industries. Thus, this paper unveils an underexplored potential of synergies between two important economic and creative activities.

The role of flexible and adaptable housing as part of the circular economy

Nowadays, the economy is based on the linear method in which people harvest, consume, and dispose of materials and buildings, affecting the environment negatively. Circular economy (CE) in cities aims to maintain and value as well as optimize the use of city assets and products through circular actions: sharing, recycling, refurbishing, re-using, replacing, and digitizing. CE will address the linear system inadequacies and move towards a sustainable society. Mainly, housing is considered a driver of economic, social, and civic development. It is also considered as one of the biggest sectors adding to these adverse effects by growing energy and water consumption, sewage burdens, and flooding. Therefore, the housing study toward CE's aims is the top priority for the circular economy transition. Most of the current CE research focuses on design for the disassembly and recycling of material. Instead, this study aims to further the investigation of flexibility and adaptability in housing as part of CE. By using quanlitative mothods (Literature Review, Theoretical Analysis, Secondary Data Analysis), this paper proposes the state-of-art housing design approaches that meet the requirements for the capacity of housing can adapt to different residents’ and societal needs over time to ensure that the building and its materials remain in circulation for as long as possible. The results contribute to real estate development in the formation of environmentally sustainable cities, as well as toward Circle Economy in the context that the yearly supply of homes continues to increase due to urbanization.

Understanding employee travel behaviours in response to workplace relocation: a case study comparing commuting patterns between Subiaco and Perth, Western Australia

ABSTRACT Our built environments offer distinct variables that impact behaviour – throughout the world, and equally within Western Australia. However, an in-depth analysis of extant literature indicates that influencing human behaviour is difficult in the absence of a ‘disruption’ event. Accordingly, this organization-level study examined the disruptive effects of relocating from a Subiaco office to a new office in Perth’s Central Business District on the commute habits of its built-environment professional employees. The relocation occurred during a ‘non-lockdown’ period between July and August 2021 (southern hemisphere winter). The study sought to determine if an office relocation constituted a sufficient ‘disruption’ to affect employees’ commute behaviours, and in contrast to state and national figures, to quantify how micro-communities revise and develop commuting habits in response to changing circumstances. It was expected that the shift would increase public transportation reliance, lengthen commute times, and increase expenditure. The study applied a two-part purposive survey using frequencies and a one-sample Chi-Square test at the 95% confidence level. The distance between the two locations and projected trip times through various modes was calculated using Google Maps. The findings indicate that both Subiaco and Perth had higher public transportation utilisation when compared to state and national numbers as a multi-modal means of commuting. Furthermore, car reliance decreased and general satisfaction with commuting choices increased for the Perth study. This suggests that multi-modal public transportation commute alternatives provided a cost-effective and efficient, alternative. The study identified social value and preference propositions beyond return-on-investment for improving existing idle city assets. Lastly, the study contributes to evolving contemporary cross-disciplinary discourse and body of knowledge in human geography, urban community development, and transportation, and sought to concomitantly determine the potential to further extend this research through concurrent collection of employee daily step count data.

A REVIEW OF THE ESSENCE OF CITY BRANDING IN ENHANCING IMAGE AND IDENTITY OF A CITY

The future of cities is at the juncture of a new reality. This poses a domestic opportunity to relook and rediscover the image and identity of the city. Cities are often viewed in the international arena, hence the authentic local essence of city image and identity is often flattened, hidden, or ignored. Therefore, this paper aims to review existing literature on city branding in order to identify characteristics that will enhance city strategies. This research is conducted using content and thematic analysis based on the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases. Findings have identified criteria such as integrated- design, landmarks, signature architecture, city vision statement, culture and symbolic assets to be among the contributing factors. Based on the review, the domain of city branding consists of intangible and tangible city assets that must be further researched in the field. These findings shall contribute to the research in the context of cities in Malaysia.

Nested Phoenix: a bottom-up Python model for the life cycle environmental performance of urban built stocks

Buildings and infrastructure assets in cities represent the dominant majority of the anthropogenic material stock and with the expected population growth this is set to double by 2100. It is therefore critical to quantify the life cycle environmental performance of built stocks, existing and forthcoming, to better manage them, modify their designs and mitigate climate change and resource depletion. Yet existing models fail to provide the required spatial and temporal resolution, are not comprehensive enough and often do not capture shifts in environmental effects. This paper presents Nested Phoenix, a bottom-up Python model that addresses these gaps and provides one of the most sophisticated models for built stocks to date. We present the scope of the model, its functionalities and development solutions before describing the different Python packages used, the overall approach and the database and model architecture. Nested Phoenix enables quantifying material stocks and flows and life cycle embodied, operational and transport environmental flows, alongside carbon sequestration in green infrastructure and biogenic carbon. This is coupled with a dynamic modelling approach that enables the investigation of myriad scenarios over time. This capacity, coupled with spatialization using geographic information systems, represents the breadth of Nested Phoenix.

Cultural Heritage, Sustainability, Conservation, and Social Welfare. A Management Plan for the Historic Municipal Buildings of Seville (Andalusia, Spain)

ABSTRACT Significant international forums and programmes, particularly the 2016 United Nations Conference Habitat III and the Horizon Europe, emphasise the need to address heritage management planning in cities from a comprehensive and inclusive perspective in balance with environmental issues. Accordingly, this research develops cross-cutting, alternative, and sustainable strategies for the design of a management process for municipal heritage assets in historical cities, which have been implemented in the city of Seville (the Management Plan for Heritage Municipal Buildings of Seville). This plan, finally approved in 2022, involves 130 symbolic buildings of which one third are either under-utilised or abandoned. The research focuses on the design of the developed methodology and presents the resulting 9 management programmes with 30 action lines created for the organisation of these heritage sites into a comprehensive system. Seville’s municipal built heritage plan implies the involvement of academics and researchers from a wide range of disciplines, public agents, and local actors who can guarantee a sustainable process and integrated governance in the future. In conclusion, the research shows an innovative design process for cultural heritage management based on the premise that such buildings are resources for contemporary local development and for a better quality of life.

Urban Memory and Heritage: The issue of City Heritage in the Reconstruction of the Centre of Baku

Urban spaces are public spaces where the society carries out commercial and economic activities, maintains social In a context of globalized urban production, it is common to notice a dissociation between urban memory and urban project; some city districts are transformed into a space-museum, an enclave out of time, while others are destroyed and “Dubaised” allowing the rise to interchangeable places around the world. The city itself consists of material and immaterial elements and the second ones includes what it is called urban memory. Memory can be defined by individuals as the property of retaining and restoring information from the past. Each individual develops his own memory of the city, corresponding to the experiences with the places and depending on its social and historical context. Memory is, by definition, transmitted and therefore it's the transmission of various expressions from the city that allow a person to appropriate the urban heritage. The appropriation of urban heritage is important in the context of the preservation of city assets. This study examines the complexity of the urban memory of human individuals and the difficulty to grasp its sense for decision makers who are engaged in urban policy. Based on the case of Baku city, the results from this study propose to draw attention to the awareness of the consequences of the misunderstanding of urban memory.