Ranking Of Cities Research Articles

A Brief Review on Changes in Air Pollution Scenario over South Asia during COVID-19 Lockdown

In general, the lockdown to prevent the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a better quality of air across the world. The concentrations of both particulate and majority of gaseous pollutants were decreased drastically due to total shutdown of outdoor activities in the initial phase. This has resulted in up to 50% reduction in the air quality index (AQI) over South Asian megacities. A significant reduction was observed over most polluted ranked cities in South Asia like Delhi (41%), Dhaka (16%), Kathmandu (32%), Colombo (33%) including Islamabad and Kabul. A major decrease was also observed in the gaseous pollutants like CO, NO2, and SO2. The strict lockdown provided an opportunity to the relevant authorities to reassess the large-scale transport and industrial sectors to avoid undue emissions of harmful pollutants. The present analysis suggests that there is a need of controlled emissions of air pollutants with reference to the lockdown values of `New Normal’, and to switch over to the cleaner fuel technology options at the earliest possible. There is a need to constitute an Inter-state agency to monitor trans-boundary and long-range transport of pollution across south Asia. Finally, a holistic approach for maintaining balance between `need and greed’ for energy and resource consumption is needed which can provide us the sustainable atmosphere and healthy air quality throughout the region.

Public Libraries: Their Role in Smart City Strategies

Purpose/Thesis: This paper examines the position of public libraries in smart city strategies. To that end, I verify two hypotheses, H1: Cities analyzed employ strategic plans to define their path to “smartness”, and H2: Public libraries are a part of these strategies. Approach/Methods: Top 30 cities from the ranking of IESE Cities in Motion Index 2019 were se­lected. The hypotheses were tested through the analysis of strategy documents and web portals. In most cases, the analysis relied on English versions of said documents/portals, occasionally compared with the national language version . Results and conclusions: The process of verifying the first hypothesis led to identifying four groups: G1, comprising cities with a general strategy, presumed to include smart initiatives (3 cities), G2: cities with a separate “smart city” strategy, published on their own portal, or a related website (15 cities); G3: cities with subsites/portals briefly summarizing their activities in the area of ‘smart’ development (10 cities), and G4: cities with many sectoral strategies, presumed to include smart initiatives (2 ci­ties). The analysis allowed the identification of a number of areas in which public libraries already contribute to smart development: smart building, smart infrastructure, smart services, digital skills and life-long learning, sustainability, creativity, digital citizenship and smart business Originality/Value: Although many library and information science scholars study smart cities, no similar study has been conducted, and therefore, this paper, with its unique approach, offers a new perspective on the discussion on smart libraries.

A Multitier Approach to Estimating the Energy Efficiency of Urban Passenger Mobility

As society has experiences new modes of mobility in recent years, cities have planned to increase their energy efficiency as a way of reducing environmental impacts and promoting economic development. However, governments face difficulties in establishing mechanisms to determine the best actions in the management of urban mobility regarding energy efficiency and to elaborate a ranking of cities based on energy efficiency in order to better allocate resources. This is due to the complex nature of obtaining a wide range of activity and energy data from a single municipality, especially in data-scarce regions. This paper develops and applies a model for estimating the energy efficiency of urban mobility that is applicable to different contexts and backgrounds. The main contribution of the article is the use of a multitier approach to compare and adjust outputs, considering different transport configurations and data sets. The results indicate that variations in vehicle occupancy and individual motorized transport rates have a significant impact on energy efficiency, which reached 0.70 passenger-kilometers/MJ in Sorocaba, Brazil. However, as the use of electric vehicles increases in this city, this scenario is expected to change. Additionally, the method has been proven to be an important mechanism for benchmarking purposes and for the decision-making process for transport investments.

Quality of life ranking of Spanish cities: A non-compensatory approach

Urban areas are hubs of economic activity, but also consumption centers where a high quality of life may attract human capital and increase prospects of economic growth and well-being. We rank 73 Spanish cities on the basis of 35 individual indicators covering three basic facets of quality of life: socio-economic performance, general livability conditions, and residents' health status. We reject the conventional approach of compensability among different quality of life dimensions in favor of a Condorcet-inspired non-compensability approach. We obtain three partial composite indicators, one for each of the aforementioned dimensions, and a global indicator that synthesizes the three of them. Large cities display some advantages concerning the first two dimensions, but nevertheless substantial heterogeneity remains with regard to the relationship between quality of life and population size.

Measuring interaction among cities in China: A geographical awareness approach with social media data

Unlike the large body of research on investigating interactions among cities using survey data, the social media-based city interaction study has received much less exploration. Based on geographical studies of social media content in China, we develop a few indices quantifying various levels of geographical awareness among cities. (1) We find that the geographical awareness proxy by the social media-based indices can measure interactions among cities. Specifically, the geographical awareness among cities follows gravitational law and is highly correlated with mobility flows. (2) The spatial in-awareness index (SIAI) is an appropriate index indicating a city's ranking in the urban hierarchy (3) the spatial out-awareness rate (SOAR) can indicate the interactions from a focal city to other cities. Our findings also show that SOAR can predict the number of people infected during a pandemic in a city system. Once the origin city or hotspots of the outbreak and the number of infected persons within those cities are known, we can use the social media-based SOAR index to predict number of cases for other else cities in the urban system. With this information, governments can properly and efficiently deliver medical equipment and staff to cities where large populations are infected.

Investigating the Presence of National Capitals as Ranked Global Cities

Urban competitiveness has become an undeniable reality of our world. Cities around the world create strategies and development plans to enhance their competitiveness and reach worldwide fame and attraction for different segments. This competition has widened to reach different aspects of social, economic, physical and environmental aspects of cities. Along the years different methodologies and criteria were proposed to create a systematic assessment of cities worldwide and rank their competitiveness. The results of such assessments are published in indices; e.g. Global Power City Index, Global Power City Index, etc. Each index has its own set of indicators that cover different aspects of cities; e.g. economy, environment, accessibility. Sample cities from all over the world are graded and ranked accordingly. The cities that achieve top ranking in those global assessment lists are called global cities. This paper aims to investigate if being a national capital can be related to becoming a global city. This is through the study of two global city rankings; Global Power City Index (GPCI) and Global Cities Index (GCI), for three successive years; 2016, 2017, 2018. It is shown that around 50% of ranked cities are national capitals across both ranking system and over the three years covered in this research. European national capitals reach 66% of those featured, followed by Asian capitals with around 33%. The presence of capital cities is also evident in within each indicator of the Global Power City Index (GPCI). In general, evident presence can be linked to national capitals especially those of Europe and Asia.

The Role of Universities in the Competitiveness of Cities and Urban Agglomerations

The article examines the problem of assessing the competitiveness of universities from the perspective of regional and urban development. The paper raises the question of taking into account the criteria aimed at examining the benefits of universities for the territory of presence in the modern methodology of assessing the effectiveness of universities. The article considers the advisability of integrating the results of international university rankings in the development of indices which assess the impact of universities on urban development. It includes a review of the methodologies of compiling international city rankings (Global Cities Index, Cities of opportunity, Mercer Quality of Living, The Global City Competitiveness Index, QS Best Student Cities) in order to identify the content and significance of the criteria aimed at assessment of the effectiveness of universities. The paper gives a critical assessment of international university rankings (Qs World University Rankings, Times Higher Education, Academic Ranking of World Universities). It also proposes criteria to evaluate universities from the perspective of the benefits they bring to the cities in which they are present. The article was prepared as part of the research work of the state task of the RANEPA under the President of the Russian Federation.

Comparing ethnic segregation across cities\u2014measurement issues matter

This paper investigates how important measurement issues such as the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP), random unevenness and spatial autocorrelation affect cross-sectional studies of ethnic segregation. We use geocoded data for German cities to investigate the impact of these measurement problems on the average level of segregation and on the ranking of cities. The findings on the average level of residential segregation turn out to be rather robust. The ranking of cities is, however, sensitive to the assumptions regarding reallocation of population across neighbourhoods that the use of different segregation measures involves. Moreover, the results suggest that standard aspatial approaches tend to underrate the degree of segregation because they ignore the spatial clustering of ethnic groups. In contrast, non-consideration of random unevenness gives rise to a moderate upward bias of the mean segregation level and involves minor changes in the ranking of cities if the minority group is large. However, the importance of random segregation significantly increases as the size of the minority group declines. If the size of specific ethnic groups differs across regions, this may also affect the ranking of regions. Thus, the necessity to properly account for measurement issues increases as segregation analyses become more detailed and consider specific (small) minority groups.

Comprehensive Economic Evaluation of Our Provinces Factor-based Analysis

According to the different conditions of the research objects, 10 indicators of economic representation in 2018 are selected for 31 provinces and cities in the country, and the objective and reasonable data analysis of economic indicators is carried out by using factor analysis method, and the ranking of provinces and cities in the country is obtained according to the level of their comprehensive evaluation scores. According to the score of provincial and municipal indicators, the economic situation of 31 provinces and cities in China is classified and analyzed. And put forward the feasibility suggestion to the economic imbalance of each province and city.

Application of APP Technology to Promote Urban Low-Carbon Transportation

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual ranking of cities in the liveability index, bicycle penetration is one of the top indicators of liveability in the world. As one of the transportation tools of low-carbon life, bicycle can provide convenient travel tools and leisure activities, effectively reduce the burden of man-made development on the environment, meet the spirit of relaxation, is both pollution-free, economic, convenient and other advantages of transportation. The 21st century is an era of smart technology, and the rise of APP has changed people’s life pattern and the way of obtaining information. However, it has become a current trend to take people and environment as design considerations [1]. The successful bike APP can meet the needs of cyclists of different ethnic groups when riding, improve the convenience of cyclists, so as to attract more people to use bicycles and promote low-carbon and energy-saving lifestyle. Based on a literature review and a survey of 50 existing bicycle apps, this study concluded that the “seven major functional categories, two navigation modes and two interface aesthetic” of the apps were the most important factors affecting users’ preferences and download intention.

Some people feel the rain, others just get wet: An analysis of regional differences in the effects of weather on cycling

Between cities and regions, not only cycling levels differ, but also the reactions of cyclists to adverse weather conditions. Using data from 122 automated bicycle counting stations in 30 German cities, and a composite index of adverse weather conditions that consists of air temperature, precipitation, wind speed, relative humidity, and cloud coverage, we calculate city-specific weather elasticities of the level of utilitarian cycling. The results show that these weather elasticities vary significantly between cities. Our next step is to analyze various determinants of weather elasticities, which reveals that the share of young inhabitants and the density of the cycle network have a positive impact on weather resilience. Based on the notion that resilience to adverse weather conditions reflects a revealed part of a city's bicycle culture, the weather elasticities can be used to create a ranking of bicycle cities. This ranking is positively correlated with a ranking based on the modal share of cycling, as well as with other rankings based on stated preference surveys or external conditions such as infrastructure or cycling safety.

TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF GLOBAL CITIES: ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS

Conceptual approaches to the definition of global cities are studied. The formation of global cities is analysed by regions. After an analysis of the world rankings of global cities, the author determines that the five leading cities – New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong – have remained unchanged in recent years. An assessment of global initiatives to stimulate cities to implement environmental policy is given. The strategy of sustainable development of one of the global cities is considered on the example of Sydney and its integrated environmental development. The experience of the largest Ukrainian cities in the formation of environmental priorities in their development strategies is studied.

Has Informatization Improved the Efficiency of Public Policies? An Empirical Analysis Based on the Quasi-natural Experiment of COVID-19

As a public health emergency, Novel Coronavirus Disease（COVID-19）has a major and far-reaching impact on China and the world, whilst testing the public policies and governance capacities of each country.The medical research and vaccine development cycle of COVID-19 is relatively long. Therefore, timely and effective identification and separation of COVID-19 cases through information technology has become a key task for epidemic prevention and control. The informatization of government affairs（that is, e-government）has always been an important tool for the Chinese government to improve its governance capacity, which has laid a solid foundation for the response to the epidemic. Through the government information system, cases and close contacts can be detected, tracked and isolated in a timely manner, and transmission routes can be blocked, which provides strong support for the control of the disorderly spread of the epidemic and the timely treatment of patients.Meanwhile, the implementation effect of e-government is also affected by social credit. Although local governments have set up elaborate government information systems based on big data, it is still difficult to accurately cover everyone. Therefore, the control of people can only be based on abstract information, but the accuracy of information and the execution of policies all depend on people’s credit level.Based on this quasi-natural experiment, the e-government level of 286 cities on pandemic prevention and control is tested. In addition, the fulfillment rate of Ctrip’s room reservation in December 2019 is used to represent the social credit level of each city, and the interaction effect of social credit on e-government is tested. The findings are as follows: （1）In general, e-government can improve the public policy efficiency of pandemic prevention and control. For every 0.1 increase in the e-government level, the number of confirmed cases will be reduced by 65.6, and the number of deaths per 10, 000 people will be reduced by 0.008.（2）The role of e-government in pandemic prevention and control depends on the local social credit level to a certain extent.（3）Registration of population information at the community level plays a prominent role during the control of pandemic. Using the number of post offices in each city and the revenue from telecommunication services as the instrument variables of e-government, using the digital index compiled by Tencent as an alternative variable, and controlling the personal characteristics of the Party secretary, the number of public sector employees and city rank, the basic conclusion remains stable. The findings provide some policy enlightenment to strengthen governance and improve the efficiency of regular epidemic prevention and control.

Contemporary Earthquake Hazards in the West-Northwest Himalaya: A Statistical Perspective through Natural Times

AbstractHimalayan earthquakes have deep societal and economic impact. In this article, we implement a surrogate method of nowcasting (Rundle et al., 2016) to determine the current state of seismic hazard from large earthquakes in a dozen populous cities from India and Pakistan that belong to the west-northwest part of Himalayan orogeny. For this, we (1) perform statistical inference of natural times, intersperse counts of small-magnitude events between pairs of succeeding large events, based on a set of eight probability distributions; (2) compute earthquake potential score (EPS) of 14 cities from the best-fit cumulative distribution of natural times; and (3) carry out a sensitivity testing of parameters—threshold magnitude and area of city region. Formulation of natural time (Varostos et al., 2005) based on frequency–magnitude power-law statistics essentially avoids the daunting need of seismicity declustering in hazard estimation. A retrospective analysis of natural time counts corresponding to M≥6 events for the Indian cities provides an EPS (%) as New Delhi (56), Chandigarh (86), Dehradun (83), Jammu (99), Ludhiana (89), Moradabad (84), and Shimla (87), whereas the cities in Pakistan observe an EPS (%) as Islamabad (99), Faisalabad (88), Gujranwala (99), Lahore (89), Multan (98), Peshawar (38), and Rawalpindi (99). The estimated nowcast values that range from 38% to as high as 99% lead to a rapid yet useful ranking of cities in terms of their present progression to the regional earthquake cycle of magnitude ≥6.0 events. The analysis inevitably encourages scientists and engineers from governments and industry to join hands for better policymaking toward land-use planning, insurance, and disaster preparation in the west-northwest part of active Himalayan belt.

Measuring Accessibility to Various ASFs from Public Transit using Spatial Distance Measures in Indian Cities

Nowadays, accessibility to facilities is one of the most discussed issues in sustainable urban planning. In the current research, two spatial distance accessibility measures were applied to evaluate the accessibility to amenities, services, and facilities (ASFs) from public transit (PT) by walking distance in six Indian cities. The first stage accounts for distance measures using the Euclidean distance with a new methodical approach derived from the built-up area with a spatial resolution of 30 m from Landsat data, and for the network distance method, the actual road distances using OpenStreetMap (OSM) for different threshold ranges of distances were derived. Meanwhile, in the second stage, indicators such as built-up area, network connectivity, and network density with the percentage of ASFs are evaluated and combined for normalization process for ranking the city. The present study assesses the accessibility to various ASFs from PT at city level and explores whether the actual road network access (by measuring distance) in Indian cities is contributing to a high level of accessibility. It adopts a unique approach using statistical tools while assessing both Euclidean and network distances. It models a framework for overall benchmarking in all six cities by ranking them for their accessibility. The results show various scenarios in terms of the rank of cities, which had been strongly affected by distance metrics (Euclidean vs. network) and thus emphasize the careful use of these measures as supporting tools for planning. This facilitates the identification of the local barriers and problems with network access that affect the actual distance. This unique approach can help policymakers to identify the gaps in PT coverage for reaching ASFs. Furthermore, it helps in crucial implementation by strategic planning that can be achieved using these distance criteria.

O Porto de Águas Profundas de Yangshan: o maior porto de terminais marítimos de águas profundas e fluviais já concebido

A China jamais se tornaria o maior exportador do mundo sem os seus portos, e nenhum deles retrata tão bem o crescimento exponencial na infraestrutura do país como o Porto de Yangshan. A megaestrutura ajudou Shangai a ultrapassar Cingapura no ranking de cidades com maior movimentação de carga do mundo e estabeleceu recordes históricos de fluxo com mais de 25 milhões de containers em um ano. Um enorme aliado à eficiência na movimentação hidroviária é o enorme rio Yangtzé, que atravessa grande parte da China Oriental. Bilhões de dólares em mercadorias navegam pelo canal todos os anos para serem transportadas mundo a fora, porém, com a evolução do tamanho das embarcações e a deficiência na profundidade do rio, a China encontrou a solução perfeita, a concepção do maior porto de terminais marítimos de águas profundas e fluviais. Este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar o porto de Yangshan, mostrar a sua importância no contexto do transporte internacional e as características que o fazem ser um dos portos mais eficientes e promissores do mundo.

EVALUATION OF HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL AREAS AS A TOOL FOR CITY MARKETING: CASE OF ESKİŞEHİR PROVINCE

In the modern world, with rapidly developing technologies and increasing competition, it is very important to apply current approaches for cities and the development of cities not only among enterprises but also regions. While trying to be at the top of the ranking of cities in the region, country or world, most cities do not always use the available resources and competitive advantages. In recent years, inadequacy of traditional techniques for urban development has emerged. City marketing is recognized as one of the modern tools to create and strengthen a city brand worldwide. The aim of this study is to evaluate the cultural areas in Eskisehir destination as a means of city marketing. In order to construct the conceptual framework, secondary data sources compiled from Eskisehir Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism were used and the study was carried out with literature search. According to the findings of the study, Eskisehir has a positive cultural contribution with its rich cultural areas. At the same time, the cultural values of the region will increase the interaction of tourism actors and will contribute to the region in economic, socio-cultural and environmental terms.

Who wants their city to become a world city? Comment on “Expanding the international trade and investment policy agenda: The role of cities and services”

In proposing a role of economic diplomacy on behalf of cities, Cote, Estrin and Shapiro (2020) take it as read that promoting a city in the ranks of world cities, of key centers of corporate headquarters, business services, and new technology, is a good thing for that city. A city, however, is made up of heterogeneous actors, and in any particular city that grows in this way many of those actors will become worse off. Moreover, if we consider the problem from the standpoint of a national economic system, or of the global system as a whole, the growth of world cities may be due not so much to the conduct of mutually beneficial trade as to the appropriation of monopoly rents. Business policy researchers should identify the stakes for the likely winners and losers, and also take market structure issues into account. Policies based simply on promoting a city’s growth and international standing make inequality within and between a country’s cities worse, and implicitly embrace the growth of market power as a worthy objective.

The Rank-Size Rule and Challenges in Diversifying Commercial Real Estate Portfolios

The strategy of geographically diversifying a portfolio of commercial real estate assets is an intuitive approach for risk management. However, due to high concentrations of these assets in major metropolitan areas, investors may face additional constraints in the portfolio optimization process. The rank-size rule, a log-linear relationship between city rank and size, provides one of the greatest empirical regularities in regional science. As such, it serves as a possible theoretical guide to the weights given to properties by location in a commercial real estate portfolio. This paper sets forth some ideas relating to the concentration side of portfolio variance and the limiting effect that large concentrations may have on the ability to diversify risk. Two variants of the rank-size relationship – the Zipf distribution and the parabolic fractal distribution – are fitted to a variety of datasets to provide a sense of the degree of concentration in the commercial real estate industry. These empirical findings suggest the presence of limitations to geographical diversification that have varying degrees of severity across different property types or sectors of the commercial real estate market.

Key performance indicators for Smart Campus and Microgrid

Attempts have been made to enhance the smartness of a campus from various perspectives such as obtaining real-time statistics on reduction in energy consummation, increased percentage of power generation from renewable resources, improved campus traffic flow, air quality, and monitoring buildings health etc. However, to the best of our knowledge a comprehensive list of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for smart campus and smart microgrid is yet to be developed. In this work, we study smart cities, smart microgrids, city ranking systems, and literature on smart campuses for extracting a list of relevant KPIs as well as propose new KPIs where needed to support the main business process of a university campus. Accordingly, 74 KPIs have been listed which are measurable, achievable, relevant, and time phased. We divide these KPIs among 15 service areas consisting of smart microgrid, smart buildings, intelligent transportation, economic growth, smart governance, propagation model, pollution & waste management, climate resilience, water resource management, financial sustainability, entrepreneurial leadership, enhanced teaching and learning, security and privacy mechanisms, health care provision, and public participation. In addition, we present an example of a university campus from energy consumptions and carbon footprint perspectives. We also highlight the need for long distance, low power communication architecture to support 2-way communication of microgrid and infrastructure with devices installed at remote locations. The aim of this work is to establish a mechanism that allows campus management to monitor the smartness of their university campus in general, and microgrid in particular.