Shape Of Cities Research Articles

Does urban spatial structure affect labour income? – research based on 97 cities in China

The purpose of the research is that: In the context of China’s rapid urbanisation in recent 20 years, to discuss about how the spatial structure elements such as the size of city, density, pattern and so on influence the staff’s remuneration. Research method: Using American ‘Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’ night-time light data and Land- Scan population distribution data, three urban distance indicators are calculated to quantify the city geometric shape and urban sprawl indices are measured in order to illustrate the urban spatial structure. China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) data from household surveys are also used to investigate how the city shape affects individual wages with method Instrument Variable (IV). When individual characteristics are controlled, we find that a larger population size and a higher density are conducive to higher labour incomes due to agglomeration advantages, while a ‘worse’ city shape is significantly correlated with lower wages, suggesting that the city shape influences urban agglomeration and the mechanisms through TFP of firms prevails. Further discussion shows that urban density matters less for those working in the secondary sector, while the adverse effect of poor urban geometry can be alleviated in cities with a lower density and in those with a larger extension of highways per capita.

Combining expert and crowd-sourced training data to map urban form and functions for the continental US

Although continental urban areas are relatively small, they are major drivers of environmental change at local, regional and global scales. Moreover, they are especially vulnerable to these changes owing to the concentration of population and their exposure to a range of hydro-meteorological hazards, emphasizing the need for spatially detailed information on urbanized landscapes. These data need to be consistent in content and scale and provide a holistic description of urban layouts to address different user needs. Here, we map the continental United States into Local Climate Zone (LCZ) types at a 100 m spatial resolution using expert and crowd-sourced information. There are 10 urban LCZ types, each associated with a set of relevant variables such that the map represents a valuable database of urban properties. These data are benchmarked against continental-wide existing and novel geographic databases on urban form. We anticipate the dataset provided here will be useful for researchers and practitioners to assess how the configuration, size, and shape of cities impact the important human and environmental outcomes.

Cities in Bad Shape: Urban Geometry in India

The spatial layout of cities is an important feature of urban form, highlighted by urban planners but overlooked by economists. This paper investigates the causal economic implications of city shape in India. I measure cities’ geometric properties over time using satellite imagery and historical maps. I develop an instrument for urban shape based on geographic obstacles encountered by expanding cities. Compact city shape is associated with faster population growth and households display positive willingness to pay for more compact layouts. Transit accessibility is an important channel. Land use regulations can contribute to deteriorating city shape. (JEL O18, R14, R23, R52, R58)

Urban heat island circulations over the Beijing-Tianjin region under calm and fair conditions

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has experienced severe urban heat island (UHI) effects in recent decades. Using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and the new World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) land-use dataset, the urban heat island circulations (UHICs) and other local atmospheric circulations over Beijing and Tianjin were studied during a severe UHI event in 2012. It was shown that in the daytime, various UHICs over Beijing and Tianjin developed separately under a southerly background wind. Two of these UHICs formed over Beijing due to multiple hot regions, involving a chain flow mechanism in which the outflows from one UHIC over nearby mountains were connected to the inflows to the other UHICs in a west-to-east direction. At night, more robust UHICs occurred and a chain flow mechanism again formed over the Beijing-Tianjin region, as the upper-level outflows from the UHIC over Tianjin were connected to the inflows of the UHIC over Beijing. Moreover, the rotary air movements formed by the flows over the mountain and the down-slope winds formed a convergent region in the northwest of Beijing. In particular, sensitivity experiments replacing either Beijing or Tianjin with cropland grids revealed that the presence of either of those urban areas modified the penetration of the sea-breeze circulation. The city shape was found to affect the UHIC over Beijing at night, as the convergent zones were distributed diagonally and the wind speeds were higher in the diagonal direction.

Developmental spaces? Developmental Psychology and urban geographies of youth in sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT While urban geographies play a critical role in shaping youth development, existing literature has focused primarily on the ways in which young people use, navigate and shape cities. This has overlooked the depth and complexity of Africa’s urban youth crisis. This paper introduces a new analytic framework, based on principles of Developmental Psychology, outlining the four critical psychosocial processes of building foundations, building blocks, building support structures and building aspirations that young people must draw upon as they navigate their futures. It then explores the ways in which the city and its economic, social and political landscapes have undermined these across the African continent. Cities shape poverty and hardship, but also transform social norms and practices in ways that constrain, undermine or erode these developmental processes. Where social support and socioeconomic status cannot protect young people in tough economic contexts, city life is detrimental to young people’s psychosocial well-being, development and long-term futures.

Urban borderwork: Ethnographies of policing

This special issue introduces a conceptual framework for ethnographies of urban policing that foregrounds how defining features of the city produce police work, and in turn, how police work produces the city. To address how the mutually productive relationship of policing and the city shape current transformations in the ordering of urban space, the notions of borders and bordering are invoked. In contemporary cities across the global North and South, borders and bordering practices are reconfigured to address mobilities and flows deemed to threaten social order and have thus become manifestations of fear and anxiety linked to these mobilities and flows. At the core of our framework is the argument that urban policing is principally a practice of bordering. By approaching urban policing as a practice of bordering that is informed by material and imaginary manifestations, tensions between (de)territorializing and (de)stabilization are highlighted as both the vehicle and outcome of bordering practices. These tensions, we propose, can be captured through the concept of trembling. Trembling implies both a physical and emotional response to anxiety, excitement and frailty that is paradoxically built into borders and bordering practices.

On the influence of density and morphology on the Urban Heat Island intensity

The canopy layer urban heat island (UHI) effect, as manifested by elevated near-surface air temperatures in urban areas, exposes urban dwellers to additional heat stress in many cities, specially during heat waves. We simulate the urban climate of various generated cities under the same weather conditions. For mono-centric cities, we propose a linear combination of logarithmic city area and logarithmic gross building volume, which also captures the influence of building density. By studying various city shapes, we generalise and propose a reduced form to estimate UHI intensities based only on the structure of urban sites, as well as their relative distances. We conclude that in addition to the size, the UHI intensity of a city is directly related to the density and an amplifying effect that urban sites have on each other. Our approach can serve as a UHI rule of thumb for the comparison of urban development scenarios.

IDENTIFIKASI MORFOLOGI KAWASAN PESISIR PANTAI DI KOTA SEMARANG DAN PERKEMBANGANNYA (STUDI KASUS : PANTAI MARINA)

<p><em>The city and its development is one of the complex things that occurs in the arrangement of spatial activities. The city's shape and dynamic city developments are influenced by physical and non-physical aspects such as social, economic, cultural, and technological evolving over time and following human needs. The change in the city form called the morphology of the city will never finish and become perfect such as building architecture, circulation system, open space, and urban infrastructure facilities. The city's morphological approach in identifying and identifying the shape of the city is not only covering the physical appearance, but also involves non-physical elements that contribute to the process of changing the city.</em></p><p><em>The city of Semarang as a big city in Java Island is included in the coastal areas whose morphological development from time to time is very dynamic which grows expanding to the surrounding area. It is no exception at Marina Beach which located at PRPP Complex, Tawangsari district. This area is a residential development and settlement area planned by the developer and is now an important area for the economic growth of Semarang, with the new international airport, the airport Ahmad Yani International So this area is interesting to do a study of morphological identification and how it develops. The purpose of this research is to identify the morphology and architecture of the city in the coastal areas of Semarang in the pre-independence period, post-independence to the present. </em></p><p><em>The step that will be done is to identify the pattern of the Marina coastal area based on satellite imagery and then three methods of analysis, namely the historical analysis of the region, the analysis of the area pattern, the analysis of the City room product City image analysis, townscape analysis, and building style analysis and building type. From the results of the analysis will be conducted morphological identification and how the development of coastal areas of Semarang especially in Marina beach.</em></p><p><em> </em></p>

Social relations in the urban space in the Pueblo de Santa Fe, Mexico City

This research refers to two main tasks: the first is a theoretical discussion of space in the city as a molder of social relations from urban sociology and, second, on the observations and results of a study in a neighborhood of Mexico City that accounts for the change of relational dynamics in the city. The methodology used was qualitative in-depth interviews that were used in addition to obtaining visual evidence. The main result of this discussion is that the present city shapes relationships between individuals, especially in the urban space, in which the same individual does not have the capacity to intervene physically, but only in a symbolic way.

The role of city geometry in determining the utility of a small urban light rail/tram system

In this work, we show the importance of considering a city's shape, as much as its population density figures, in urban transport planning. We consider in particular cities that are circular (the most common shape) compared to those that are rectangular: For the latter case we show greater utility for a single line light rail/tram system. We introduce the new concepts of Infeasible Regions and Infeasibility Factors, and show how to calculate them numerically and (in some cases) analytically. A particular case study is presented for Galway City.

The “Smart Safe City”: Gendered Time, Speed, and Violence in the Margins of India’s Urban Age

Speed is fundamental to shaping visions of the modern city and of contemporary urban life. Notions of speed and acceleration have produced distinct conceptualizations of rapid urbanization as a rush toward progress and opportunity. In this article, I examine what speed looks like from the margins, when seen through the struggles of young women in the urban peripheries who are coping with the precarity of working in the city, while negotiating deeply entrenched gender power relations within the home. By examining how speed is conceptualized through the trope of the “smart safe city” and what this means for those living in the digital and urban margins, I examine how a negotiation of time becomes fundamental to gendered life in the urban periphery. Using methods of time-mapping, participatory workshops, WhatsApp diaries, and in-depth interviews, I argue that for those in the margins, everyday life is entrenched in time struggles between the rhythms of the city and the rhythms of family life. Although the focus on the “smart safe city” in India mobilizes the logics of a technological fix, for young women the mobile phone is a significant technology to cope with daily time struggles. This article concludes that although transformations of ideas of speed and time in the smart safe city shape practices of measuring, visualizing, and representing violence against women through technology, those in the urban peripheries encounter and negotiate its spatiotemporalities through a slow violence of life that is invisible and unfolding over time and space.

Effects of urban forms on energy consumption of water supply in China

More than half of the energy consumed for urban water utilities is for the water supply system (including water distribution and secondary water supply systems). Urban form (defined as city shapes and population distribution) is found to have significant impacts on energy used by the water supply system. This study aimed to explore the integrated impacts of urban forms on energy consumption for water supply by employing empirical analysis methods and virtual city modeling. In total, three types of city shapes (i.e. radial, grid and satellite) and three types of population distributions (i.e. uniform, monocentric and polycentric) were identified. The results reveal that population distribution has more significant impacts on the energy for water distribution and secondary water supply than city shapes. Energy consumed by secondary water supply accounts for more than 80% of total energy consumption. It is found that radial-uniform cities consume the least energy for water supply (up to 89% lower). The findings of this study shed light on enhancing overall sustainability in the urban water supply system. For future urban planning and governance, radial/monocentric urban form is encouraged when secondary water supply is not widely applied or needed, radial/uniform urban form is recommended when secondary water supply is required, and the entirely pressurized pumping system is suggested for secondary water supply in order to reduce energy use.

Commuting Time and the Gender Gap in Labor Market Participation

This paper investigates the contribution of increasing travel times to the persistent gender gap in labor market participation. In doing so, we estimate the labor supply elasticity of commuting time from a sample of men and women in US cities using microdata from the Census for the last decades. To address endogeneity concerns, we adopt an instrumental variables approach that exploits the shape of cities as an exogenous source of variation for travel times. Our estimates indicate that a 10 minutes increase in commuting decreases the probability of married women to participate in the labor market by 4.6 percentage points. In contrast, the estimated effect on men is small and statistically insignificant. We also find that women with children and immigrant women originating from countries with more gendered social norms respond the most to commuting time variations. This evidence suggests that the higher burden of family responsibilities supported by women may magnify the negative effect of commuting on their labor supply. From our findings, we conclude that the increasing trend in travel times observed in the US and in many European countries during the last decades may have contributed to the persistence of gender disparities in labor market outcomes.

Commuting Time and the Gender Gap in Labor Market Participation

This paper investigates the contribution of increasing travel times to the persistent gender gap in labor market participation. In doing so, we estimate the labor supply elasticity of commuting time from a sample of men and women in US cities using micro-data from the Census for the last decades. To address endogeneity concerns, we adopt an instrumental variables approach that exploits the shape of cities as an exogenous source of variation for travel times. Our estimates indicate that a 10 minutes increase in commuting decreases the probability of married women to participate in the labor market by 4.6 percentage points. In contrast, the estimated effect on men is small and statistically insignificant. We also find that women with children and immigrant women originating from countries with more gendered social norms respond the most to commuting time variations. This evidence suggests that the higher burden of family responsibilities supported by women may magnify the negative effect of commuting on their labor supply. From our findings, we conclude that the increasing trend in travel times observed in the US and in many European countries during the last decades may have contributed to the persistence of gender disparities in labor market outcomes.

İmar Planlarının Peyzaj Ekolojisi Yaklaşımı ile Değerlendirilmesi: Niğde Kenti Örneği

Dünyada olduğu gibi ülkemizde de yaşanan hızlı nüfus artışı kentsel yerleşim alanlarının büyümesini zorunlu kılmaktadır. Yerleşim alanlarındaki bu büyüme, kentlerin içerisinde ve çevresinde yer alan ekolojik yapının bozulmasına neden olmaktadır. Bu nedenle kentlerin büyümesinde ve şekillenmesinde önemli bir yere sahip olan imar planları, kentlerin sahip olduğu ekolojik yapının sürdürülebilirliği açısından önemlidir. Yasal mevzuat kapsamında hazırlanan imar planlarında mevcut ekolojik yapının dikkate alınması, kentsel gelişimin ekolojik yapı üzerindeki etkisini azaltacaktır. Bu kapsamda araştırmanın amacı, nüfus artışına bağlı olarak ortaya çıkan kentsel büyümenin ve yayılmanın şekillenmesinde önemli bir rol oynayan imar planlarının peyzaj metrikleri kullanılarak peyzaj ekolojisi yaklaşımıyla değerlendirilmesidir. Niğde kentine yönelik gerçekleştirilen araştırmada, araştırma alanına ait veritabanı ArcGIS programında oluşturulmuştur. Veri tabanı üzerinden Avrupa Birliği Corine Arazi Sınıflandırma Sistemi I./II. düzey temel alınarak mevcuttaki (13 Temmuz 2017 tarihine ait uydu görüntüleriyle) ve imar planındaki arazi örtüsü/arazi kullanımı tipleri gruplandırılmıştır. Elde edilen gruplara yönelik analizler Fragstats 4.2 yazılımı aracılığıyla belirli peyzaj metrikleri (sınıf düzeyinde 7 ve peyzaj düzeyinde 1) kullanılarak gerçekleştirilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, imar planlarında çok sayıda yeşil alan planlanmış olmasına rağmen, zaman içerisinde artan yapılaşmaya bağlı olarak ortalama yama büyüklüğündeki azalış kentin ekolojik yapısını olumsuz etkileyecektir.

Splintering disaster: relocating harm and remaking nature after the 2011 floods in Bangkok

In the wake of the costly 2011 floods, the city of Bangkok struggled to respond to the water inundating Thailand’s major hub. In response, Thai leaders primarily blamed the external forces of nature and climate change. Depoliticising disasters and absolving national leaders of responsibility, these discourses about nature and climate change as the main cause of flooding led policymakers to primarily build infrastructure to block and drain water. We argue that the location and patterns of flood protection infrastructure reflect flows of power and the circulation of capital. We build upon Graham and Marvin’s notion of ‘splintering urbanism’ to develop the concept of ‘splintering disaster’. We do so to make sense of the spatially dispersed, but ideologically unified strategy of flood protection adopted in Bangkok. We argue that the splintered nature of flood infrastructures demonstrates the varied and complex factors that produce new regimes of urban water control in the wake of disasters. As we demonstrate, flood mitigation projects do not foreclose future floodwater, but instead, redistribute nature, risk and injury. The city both shapes and is shaped by this spatially fragmented response to water. We aim to use this concept to develop a conceptual vocabulary for understanding post-disaster infrastructural politics.

A Decade of C40: Research Insights and Agendas for City Networks

AbstractIn the last decade, there has been a marked growth in formalised city networks. City networks of late have transcended beyond municipal collaborations towards more complex networked governance arrangements. City networks are noted also to raise the level of ambition among cities learning from and competing with each other with regard to the deployment of low‐carbon technologies and policies. Over the last two decades, at least nine urban climate networks have been established around the world. This article consolidates the academic literature on C40 within the context of three key themes that are drawn upon from earlier work of Davidson et al. with the goal of drawing out the key implications of researching, and putting into practice, urban studies in an age of increasingly networked urban governance and the role of city networks. We conclude the paper with articulating a new research agenda that places a focus on the effects of city networks on institutional relevance of traditional planning in ways that have not yet been considered in practice and scholarship. We argue a key challenge is to align and potentially synthesise these traditional and new forms of city shaping in an urban age era of rapidly unfolding endangerment.

Introduction: Cities on Paper: On the Materiality of Paper in Urban Planning

This introduction to this special section, “Cities on Paper: On the Materiality of Paper in Urban Planning,” explores the vital role played by paper documents in the practice of urban planning linked to the shaping of modern cities in Europe and the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This introductory essay considers recent literature on the materiality of paper to show the significance of examining the visual and written information transcribed on its surface in concert with assessing how it has been assembled, organized, reproduced, circulated, distributed, and archived. By exploring such uses of paper documents in urban planning practices, such cartography, arboriculture, maintenance, and the production and dissemination of expert knowledge, the five essays in this section demonstrate the relevance of the material culture of paper within the municipal and national bureaucracies that spearheaded dramatic urbanization campaigns in modern cities.

Scottish architects, imperial identities and India’s built environment in the early twentieth century: the careers of John Begg and George Wittet

Two Scottish architects, John Begg and George Wittet, created some of the most famous of Mumbai’s landmarks and notable buildings elsewhere in India in the early twentieth century. They were also instrumental in the development of architectural education in India through their involvement with the Sir Jamshetji Jeejeebhoy School of Art. Both men made major contributions to the colonial built environment as well as to the future of the architectural profession in India. In this regard, they are highly significant but under-studied Scottish participants in the history of the British Empire. Scottish architects and their role in the shaping of imperial cities around the world have remained largely absent from much of the rich history of Scotland and empire. This article uses the examples of Begg and Wittet to analyse the career trajectories of these two Scottish architects. Through close analysis of Begg’s numerous writings, it becomes clear that in the professional sphere, Begg sought to champion the notable minority of trained British architects serving in India, and to bring their work to the attention of the metropole. In this regard, their professional identity was that of the British imperial architect, while they simultaneously maintained Scottish social and religious connections. Like many Scots before them, they forged fluid Scottish, British, and imperial identities while serving in India.

Urban bumblebees are smaller and more phenotypically diverse than their rural counterparts.

With urbanization identified as being one of the key drivers of change in global land use, and the rapid expansion of urban areas world-wide, it is relevant to evaluate how novel ecological conditions in cities shape species functional traits, which are essential for how species interact with their environments and with each other. Despite the many comparative studies on organisms living in urban and non-urban areas, our knowledge on species responses to urban environments remains limited. For one, much of the ecological research has assumed that the environment changes in a linear fashion from the city core to the city edges, whereas in reality the environments within the cities are highly heterogeneous. Furthermore, studies on species responses to these highly variable ecosystems are often based on interspecific mean trait values, which ignore the potential for high levels of intraspecific variation among individuals in key functional traits. The current study investigated intraspecific functional trait differences for four functional traits associated with body size, mobility and resource selection among rural and urban populations of two common bumblebee species, Bombus pascuorum and Bombus lapidarius, in urban centres and adjacent rural areas in Switzerland. We document shifts in functional traits towards smaller individuals and higher multidimensional trait variation in urban populations compared to rural conspecifics of both species. This shows that urban individuals for both species are on average smaller sized but populations are distinctively different from rural population by increasing their trait richness and diversifying their trait combinations. In addition, we found bimodality in tongue length within urban B.pascuorum populations. Our results suggest that urban and rural populations possibly experience differential selection pressures resulting in trait differences across and among populations. We argue that variations in the respective foraging landscapes in cities leads to smaller sized but phenotypically more diverse populations, and drive functional trait divergence.