City Managers Research Articles

TÜRKİYE’DE AFET YÖNETİMİ VE YENİ BİR MODEL ÖNERİSİ: KARDEŞ ŞEHİR AFET YÖNETİM MODELİ

The concept of interaction, which has found more space in international relations with globalization, has also expanded the field of action of local governments. Sister city relations are among the international collaborations of local governments representing cities, regions and states. Managers of Washington-Hyogo, California-Osaka and Hawaii-Hiroshima sister cities in the USA and Japan and managers various regional non-governmental organizations made some recommendations at the end of the three-day conference process where lessons learned and best practices on planning, preparation and response to natural disasters were shared. Taking these recommendations into consideration, sister city relations were considered as a disaster management model in the context of local governments at national level. In the model, city pairings were made by taking into consideration factors such as fault line, population, cities not being close to each other, geographical location, etc. The main purpose of these pairings is to prevent managerial uncertainty and other weaknesses that may arise in the event of a possible disaster and to take action quickly. With the sister city disaster management model, it is thought that sharing the knowledge and experiences of sister cities regarding past disasters among themselves will provide significant contributions to the cities.

Heterogeneity of soil CO2 efflux from local parks across an urban landscape

ContextThe soil-atmosphere carbon exchange is an important component of the carbon cycle; however, dynamics of CO2 fluxes from urban landscapes are particular complicated and poorly understood due their heterogeneity.ObjectivesThe objectives of this study were to examine the total and temporal variation in CO2 flux from wooded and turfgrass areas of local parks in different part of town and identify the biophysical characteristics and landscape level factors that contribute to CO2 flux spatiotemporal variance in urban greenspaces.MethodsWe characterized the soil CO2 fluxes, temporal variation, and response to soil temperature from five parks under uniform management of a medium-sized town in southwestern Virginia, USA. We measured site scale characteristics (soil properties, tree cover) as well as the urbanicity of the surrounding land (land cover composition, population).ResultsSoil total nitrogen, soil temperature, and bulk density explained approximately 70% variation in the annual CO2 flux across the five parks. Diurnal, weekly, and seasonal CO2 fluxes were primarily related to changing soil temperature and differed between the turfgrass and wooded areas. Contrary to predictions that increased urbanicity around parks would increase soil temperature and CO2 fluxes, both CO2 and soil temperature of turfgrass were higher at parks located on town edges compared to parks in the center.ConclusionsIn sum, this study indicates that soil nitrogen and compaction, urbanicity, and the resulting site-scale structure of vegetation have a strong influence on temperature dependent biogeochemical processes like CO2 efflux.

Identification and empowerment of capabilities and potentials in urban tourism with an approach to enhancing brand image and personality: A case study of Tabriz City

<p>This research focuses on identifying and enhancing the capabilities and potentials of urban tourism with the aim of improving the brand image and personality in Tabriz City. The research methodology, given its practical nature, is based on the analytical-survey method. The statistical population includes all city managers and experts in the tourism sector of Tabriz City. The data were analyzed using SPSS software, and the ANP and TOPSIS Fuzzy decision-making models were employed for prioritizing criteria. The results indicate that Tabriz City possesses exceptional tourism power, capacity, and potential. The examination of urban tourism capabilities and potentials in Tabriz demonstrates that its tourism capacity is particularly pronounced in the social, cultural, traditional, historical, and architectural domains. The social and cultural identity index of the city (celebrities, music) with a normalized weight of 0.0277, the presence of historical entities in the city with a normalized weight of 0.0274, the old context with traditional architecture (houses, mosques, etc.) with a normalized weight of 0.0272, great variety in souvenirs and food products with a normalized weight of 0.0271, creating a sense of belonging to a neighborhood among residents with a normalized weight of 0.0270, and special customs in the city (food styles, etc.) with a normalized weight of 0.0270 are among the most important indicators. Therefore, city managers and officials in the tourism sector of Tabriz should pay special attention to the social and cultural capacities and historical and architectural components to introduce Tabriz as a cultural and historical city at both the national and international levels. The tourism planning for Tabriz should be based on the city's cultural, architectural, and historical attractions.<strong></strong></p>

Impact of urban land development on carbon emission performance based on a multidimensional framework

Massive carbon emissions resulting from global urbanization have been one of the main triggers of climate warming. Because of its scale and representativeness, China's urbanization has significantly affected the world's socioeconomic system. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the urban land development (ULD) process and its impact on carbon emission performance (CEP), using cities in China as an example, is crucial for achieving global climate goals. Thus, using 245 cities in China as examples, a new explanatory framework was developed to understand the multidimensional characteristics of ULD and their impact on CEP. The average ULD increased from 0.266 to 0.299 and stabilized from 2000 to 2019, with the gap between cities continuously narrowing. Average CEP increased from 0.634 to 0.663 and then decreased to 0.556, presenting an increasing distribution pattern from northwest to southeast. The coupling level between ULD and CEP decreased from the east coast inland. More than half of the cities retained their coupling levels, and 3.67% achieved leapfrog development. The higher the initial CEP level, the weaker the positive effect of an increase in ULD level on the coupling score. In addition, the influences of the multidimensional characteristics of ULD on CEP showed significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity at the country scale. Thus, this study proposes that the effect of the ULD on CEP is phased, which is highly correlated with the evolution of the coupling level. These findings highlight the necessity for city managers to incorporate the differential impacts of the multidimensional characteristics of ULD on CEP in the formulation of carbon emission reduction policies.

Smart urban progress as a tool to assess urban and environmental sustainability: a case study of Zhenjiang, China

Abstract The proliferation of urban areas has led to significant economic and environmental challenges, prompting urban experts to seek effective strategies to address these issues. Over recent decades, various localized solutions have been proposed. However, in the late 20th century, the concept of smart urban growth emerged as a comprehensive strategy to combat environmental challenges and achieve sustainable development. A “smart city” leverages information and communication technologies (ICTs) to optimize service delivery to its residents. This research aims to explore the regional smart city metrics in Zhenjiang, China. Utilizing descriptive and analytical methodology, the study is both practical and exploratory in nature. Data collection was conducted through library research and surveys involving 25 IT specialists, city managers, and professors. To ensure the reliability of the survey questions, Cronbach’s alpha and hybrid alpha were employed. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS and Smart PLS software through structural equation modeling. The findings indicate that the smart economy has the most substantial impact, with a path coefficient of 0.689, followed by smart people at 0.419, and smart government at 0.292. These results validate the outcomes of the survey. The study discusses the potential implementation of smart city components to foster the adoption of smart city initiatives in Zhenjiang and its potential contributions to environmental and sustainability objectives.

A Systematic Review of the Coopetition Relationship between Bike-Sharing and Public Transit

The sharing economy, mobile Internet, and smartphones have been widely utilized in recent years to promote the development of bike-sharing services. Bike-sharing serves as a first/last mile travel mode to connect to public transit, which improves trip efficiency, alleviates traffic problems, improves environmental quality, and promotes public health. However, the substitution of public transit by bike-sharing and the decline in public transit ridership have raised concerns among city managers regarding the coopetition between shared mobility services and public transit. To understand the impact of bike-sharing on the decline in public transit and to formulate reasonable synergistic development policies, it is crucial to identify the coopetition relationships between the two. This paper uses a combination of database search and backward snowballing to review existing research. Three research themes were identified: macrolevel studies on bike-sharing and public transit interaction, studies on actual coopetition behaviors based on bike-sharing user surveys, and studies on potential coopetition relationships based on bike-sharing transaction data. The three categories of studies reveal the effect of bike-sharing usage on public transit ridership, the emergency function of bike-sharing in the event of unexpected transit shutdowns, and the substitution and connection relationships between bike-sharing and public transit and the factors influencing them. Finally, this study suggests many directions for future research. This review helps clarify the understanding of the coopetition relationships between bike-sharing and public transit, provides theoretical support to promote the synergistic development of both, and points out ways to deepen the research on the coopetition relationship between the two.

Toward an Organizational Ethics Culture Framework: An Analysis of Survey Data From Local Government Managers

This research explores what public managers think about the elements of an ethical organizational culture predominately discussed in the literature. It develops a multidimensional framework of these elements and uses it to explore data from a national survey of local government administrators. The framework is derived from the literature in public administration on organizational ethics. This research tests the organizational ethics framework on city managers, one type of public manager. The results of the survey at the local level showed a need for more priority setting in public administration on ethics and organizational culture. Our major finding is that an ethical organizational culture is multidimensional, containing six main elements. Together these should be understood to explain the ethics culture in local government organizations and potentially other governments.

Can we trust our eyes? Interpreting the misperception of road safety from street view images and deep learning

Road safety is a critical concern that impacts both human lives and urban development, drawing significant attention from city managers and researchers. The perception of road safety has gained increasing research interest due to its close connection with the behavior of road users. However, safety isn't always as it appears, and there is a scarcity of studies examining the association and mismatch between road traffic safety and road safety perceptions at the city scale, primarily due to the time-consuming nature of data acquisition. In this study, we applied an advanced deep learning model and street view images to predict and map human perception scores of road safety in Manhattan. We then explored the association and mismatch between these perception scores and traffic crash rates, while also interpreting the influence of the built environment on this disparity. The results showed that there was heterogeneity in the distribution of road safety perception scores. Furthermore, the study found a positive correlation between perception scores and crash rates, indicating that higher perception scores were associated with higher crash rates. In this study, we also concluded four perception patterns: “Safer than it looks”, “Safe as it looks”, “More dangerous than it looks”, and “Dangerous as it looks”. Wall view index, tree view index, building view index, distance to the nearest traffic signals, and street width were found to significantly influence these perception patterns. Notably, our findings underscored the crucial role of traffic lights in the “More dangerous than it looks” pattern. While traffic lights may enhance people's perception of safety, areas in close proximity to traffic lights were identified as potentially accident-prone regions.

Institutional work in smart cities: Interviews with smart city managers

This exploratory analysis investigates self-reported work practices that managers consider to be crucial for driving smart city transformation. We build upon the literature on institutional work and highlight different institutional work types. Using interviews, we show that smart city managers use a combination of institutional work that includes (a) creation (e.g., introducing new ideas, technologies, methods, and policies), (b) maintenance (which involves preserving certain aspects of existing institutional arrangements that are deemed valuable), and (c) disruption (such as by challenging entrenched institutional arrangements). The results provide deep insights into how smart city managers express their roles and responsibilities in smart city transformation. We discuss implications for theory and practice and conclude with avenues for future research.

City Managers as Digital Transformation Leaders: Exploratory and Explanatory Notes

This article examines the internal sources for digital transformation at the local level. It attempts to comprehend a public manager’s individual role in the introduction of digital tools to lower levels of governance, traces the institutional and personal motivators that encourage city managers in framing digital transformation efforts, and identifies barriers that temper their efforts in practice. The empirical study based on forty-seven interviews with Russian city managers explores the peculiarities of digital transformation comprehension, the key barriers hampering digital transformation, and the detours that city managers use to implement digital tools. The study explores why and how, in a situation of limited resources, unclear political attitudes, and restricted opportunities, city managers act in the direction of implementing digital tools and digital government transformation. The flexible thematic analysis shows that digital transformation at the local management level has the potential for leadership, as city managers recognize and articulate the importance of digital tools in transforming the urban environment. Digital transformation is integral to the image of the city managers’ profession and their mission to serve the local community. However, the leadership potential of digital transformation is significantly hindered by institutional factors, predominantly regulatory deficiencies, lack of resources, and social mistrust.

Factors with ambiguous qualities for Cultural World Heritage Sites

The aim of this study is to investigate factors with both beneficial and harmful qualities for Cultural World Heritage Sites. Particular but not exclusive attention is given to aspects relating to tourism and infrastructure. Data from the World Heritage List for North America and Europe, linked to the 2014 UNESCO Periodic Report II, are employed for the analysis. A simultaneous Bivariate Probit model estimation is carried out on the 30,954 observations and 402 Heritage Sites. World Heritage managers assess that certain factors are both beneficial and harmful for their sites. These contradictory perceptions appear most commonly in relation to tourism/visitors/recreation (28% of the sites), ground transport infrastructure (16%) and to the Society's valuing of heritage (12%). Besides this, ambivalent perceptions are also identified for housing, commercial development, land conversion, forestry/timber production and renewable energy facilities, although to a lesser extent. Estimation results reveal that the highest degree of ambivalence occurs in relation to tourism/visitors/recreation, interpretive and sightseeing facilities and ground transport infrastructure when location and specific site characteristics are controlled for. Thus, the results coincide only to some extent with the descriptive statistics. Compared to other groups of Cultural World Heritage Sites (cultural landscapes, religious sites and other sites) managers of cities have a significantly lower probability of perceiving the different factors as harmful.

The Role of Data Fusion in Contemporary Urban Image Design and Communication in the Context of Big Data

Abstract The urbanization process is accelerating, the competition between cities is getting more and more intense, and the problem of urban image management is getting more and more attention from urban image researchers and city managers. Taking Nanchang City as the case study, this paper selects the city government, economy, tourism, and people image, as well as three data platforms: the official website, news positioning, and tourists’ diary, and crawls the comments of the four types of city image elements on the platforms, and carries out the data fusion and pre-processing to get the comment dataset. Subsequently, the TF-IDF algorithm is used to extract high-frequency words from the city image, and it is combined with the SnowNLP model and LDA theme analysis model to analyze and supplement the overall image of Nanchang City. Finally, after studying the mechanism of city image under data (media) fusion, the communication effect of Nanchang’s image is explored in terms of communication heat, recognition, and participation. Government image and tourism image aspects of the words appear most often, and the highest and lowest percentage of positive emotions are the city’s economic image and government image, respectively, which should integrate the existing resources, improve the level of service, and further create the city’s characteristics, to expand the city’s visibility and communication effect.

Providing Work Engagement Model based on the Blue Ocean Strategy and Organizational Resilience with the Mediation of Job Self-Efficacy in Non-Government School Managers

Objective: Work engagement has an effective role in improving other job and organizational functions. As a result, this research was conducted with the aim of providing work engagement model based on the blue ocean strategy and organizational resilience with the mediation of job self-efficacy in non-government school managers. Methodology: This study in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was cross-sectional from type of correlation. The present research population was non-government school managers of Tehran city in the academic years of 2023-24, which 400 people of them were selected as a sample by purposive sampling method. To collect data were used from questionnaires of work engagement (Salanova & Schaufeli, 2008), blue ocean strategy (Rajabi Farjad et al., 2019), organizational resilience (Prayag et al., 2018) and job self-efficacy (Riggs & Knight, 1994). For data analysis were used from methods of Pearson correlation coefficients and path analysis in SPSS-25 and Amos-25 software. Findings: The results indicated that the work engagement model based on the blue ocean strategy and organizational resilience with the mediation of job self-efficacy in non-government school managers had a good fit. Also, the variables of blue ocean strategy and organizational resilience on job self-efficacy and work engagement of non-government school managers and the variable of job self-efficacy on work engagement of them had a direct and significant effect (P<0.001). In addition, each of the variables of blue ocean strategy and organizational resilience with the mediation of job self-efficacy on work engagement of non-government school managers had an indirect and significant effect (P<0.001). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, the officials and planners of the educational system can improve the work engagement of non-government school principals by increasing their blue ocean strategy, organizational resilience and job self-efficacy.

Research on the Perception and Dissemination of Tourist Attraction Images in Tourist Cities under Cross-Cultural Backgrounds: Data from International Tourists’ Online Reviews

This paper investigates the perception and dissemination strategies of tourist images in tourist cities from the perspective of international tourists with cross-cultural characteristics, coming from different countries. It selects 13 tourist cities in Jiangsu Province, China, as case studies. By analyzing online review data from international tourists entering the country, the study examines both positive and negative perceptions of tourist attraction images. The results reveal that the language and volume of the reviews reflect the origins and scale of the international tourists, while the content of these reviews indicates their preferences for tourist attractions. A comparative analysis of the review data suggests that there are differences in the perceived images of tourist cities. The conclusions of this study suggest that tourism city managers, tourism business operators, and local residents can make efforts to improve the city’s tourism development. These improvements can be achieved by utilizing international media platforms to disseminate tourism images, enhancing the quality of tourist attraction operations, and strengthening cultural exchanges in tourism.

The impact of the development of the tourism sector in terms of economic, social population and land cover in Batu City

The development of the tourism sector has a positive impact on city growth through increased profits and revenues, encouraging competition from city managers in increasing tourist attraction through facilities, investment, employment, and local income. The development of tourism-supporting infrastructure accelerates city growth by increasing population, economic interaction, and land cover transformation. This study identifies the relationship between tourism development, economic transformation, socio-population, and land cover. The 2016-2021 constant price GDP shift-share analysis is used to understand economic transformation, while the 2020-2021 population growth and population density analysis for social aspects. As a result, the socio-population aspect shows a transformation in Batu City, where manufacturing business has shifted to service business as the main occupation, which has an impact on increasing population growth. In land cover, significant changes are seen in built-up, open, plantation, and forest. This research provides a preliminary analysis of the development of the tourism sector from the economic, socio-population, and land cover aspects in 2016-2022. These transformations reflect dynamic changes in the city's economic and social structure, requiring continuous monitoring for better policies.

공무원의 다문화 교육 경험이 수용성 결정요인에 미치는 영향 연구

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the multicultural education experience of local government officials in metropolitan cities on the determinants of multicultural acceptance as a controlling variable. Multicultural acceptance is a socio-cultural value required throughout a multicultural society, and is especially necessary for front-line public officials who are implementing multicultural policies. As a result of the analysis, it was proved that there are several determinants of multicultural acceptance of public officials, and that multicultural education experience has a positive (+) effect on such acceptance determinants. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a more systematic multicultural education program so that the public officials of the basic local governments can play a role as a subject of policy implementation that helps indigenous people and migrants coexist harmoniously.

Prioritizing Subway Station Entrance Attributes to Optimize Passenger Satisfaction in Cold Climate Zones: Integrating Gradient Boosting Decision Trees with Asymmetric Impact-Performance Analysis

Subway station entrances serve as crucial links between urban environments and underground transit systems and are particularly vital in cities with cold climates. Specialized design strategies are essential to address user needs and promote safety and comfort, thereby encouraging sustainable travel in harsh winter conditions. This research utilizes data from Harbin and Shenyang, two winter cities in China, to explore the nonlinear influences of subway entrance attributes on passenger satisfaction through the combined use of gradient-boosting decision trees and asymmetric impact-performance analysis. The findings indicate that most key attributes of subway entrances impact passenger satisfaction asymmetrically, highlighting the significance of their hierarchical importance in generating satisfaction. These attributes are categorized into frustrators, dissatisfiers, hybrids, satisfiers, and delighters, based on their asymmetry levels. Considering the current performance of these attributes, the study identifies priority for improvement at Harbin and Shenyang’s subway entrances. This aids urban designers and city managers in making informed decisions for urban development and enhancing the overall commuter experience in winter cities.

Smart city branding vision: multiple stakeholder perspectives

City governments around the world are becoming smarter to enhance the quality of life of residents and the sustainability of the city. Becoming smart provides an opportunity to gain competitive advantages for cities by developing their identity as a smart city brand. To successfully brand a smart city, a smart city vision that incorporates the perspectives of different stakeholders can provide a useful basis for developing brand positioning strategies. This study aims to explore a smart city branding vision from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders. The study constructs and analyzes the vision maps of a smart city brand for user innovators (n = 224) and end users (n = 716) in Taiwan through surveys and network analysis. The results reveal a vision map with thirty-one elements for the two groups, consisting of seven core elements and twenty-four peripheral elements. Compared to end users, user innovators have more vision associations with a smart city brand. Additionally, the two groups share four core vision elements: smart pay, smart traffic, sound information infrastructure, and smart education. This study provides researchers with different approaches to understanding city branding vision and provides city managers with a valuable reference while designing city services and devising branding strategies for smart cities.

Smart placement of depolluting panels in urban areas as regards of the airflow using adjoint framework and district digital twin

A two-step numerical strategy based on a district digital twin is presented to efficiently deploy a limited number of depolluting panels in urban areas. In a diagnosis stage, a detailed pollutant concentration map is computed using CFD to identify critical highly polluted areas. Then, in a remediation stage, the optimal placement of depolluting panels as regards of urban airflow is determined to locally mitigate the air pollution in the exposed areas. For this purpose, a spatial sensitivity indicator calculated from an adjoint framework is proposed. The approach is applied to two real case studies: the full-scale laboratory district “Sense-City” under controlled conditions and a district area in Paris using realistic NOx traffic emission and wind conditions. In both case studies, it is shown that depolluting panels should be placed on a part of the sidewalks, the building facades and the roads adjacent to the sidewalks to reduce the high NOx concentration on some sidewalks and on first-floor building windows, thus preventing outdoor/indoor pollutant transfer. It is also proven that the proposed strategy is more efficient than a non-smart massive deployment of depolluting panels to improve the air quality in exposed areas. In addition to practical recommendations, this numerical strategy can provide a help-decision tool for city managers to design depolluting panels-based mitigation actions.

The Effect of Organizational Culture, Job Satisfaction on Entrepreneurship and Innovativeness in SMEs in Bogor City

This study looks into the connections between innovation, entrepreneurship, work happiness, and organizational culture in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) located in Bogor City. This study looks at the link between these factors utilizing a quantitative method in which SPSS is used. The results validate the hypotheses (H1 and H2) by demonstrating the strong influence of corporate culture on entrepreneurship and innovativeness. Furthermore, entrepreneurship and innovativeness are significantly positively impacted by job satisfaction, supporting hypotheses (H3 and H4). Moreover, H5 was supported by the finding that entrepreneurship was a major predictor of innovativeness. These results highlight the critical roles that job happiness and company culture play in encouraging entrepreneurial endeavors, which in turn boost SMEs' capacity for innovation. The study's conclusions offer useful advice to Bogor City's small business owners and managers, offering methods for enhancing worker happiness, creating a supportive workplace culture, and eventually encouraging innovation in SMEs.