City Strategies Research Articles

Community kitchen tandoors (CKT)-a potential candidate for air pollution mitigation strategies?

Community kitchen tandoor (CKT) is a clay-based hollow cylindrical device commonly used in South Asian and Middle Eastern countries for baking flatbreads and cooking meat. These CKTs, generally fuelled by charcoal or wood, contribute significantly to the pollution loads in ambient air along with occupational exposure hazards. CKTs, being a part of the informal sector, lack emissions and safety guidelines. This study surveys 139 restaurants in CKT hotspots of New Delhi, India, to understand tandoor design and operational parameters and to assess PM2.5 and CO exposure concentrations at representative field restaurants. PM2.5 and CO exposure concentrations from traditional CKT wasfound to be several-folds higher than safe indoor air quality levels. Further, the traditional CKT was evaluated for different improved fuels (like briquettes and pellets) in the laboratory for PM2.5 and CO microenvironment concentrations. It was found that the fuel improvements in traditional CKT could not improve microenvironment concentrations to the desired levels; hence, an automated pellet-fed forced-draft improved tandoor with an improved combustion chamber design is demonstrated. The results of the laboratory trial of improved tandoor were compared with traditional tandoor (using pellets) and have shown 84% and 94% reductions in PM2.5 and CO concentrations, respectively, indicating significant benefits to the environment and health. We recommend implementing such improved CKT, on a large scale, combined with other identified control options, as a potential candidate under air pollution mitigation strategies in cities' action plans under National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).

Smart city and smart destination planning: Examining instruments and perceived impacts in Spain

The impact of technology on tourist cities and destinations has led to the emergence of renewed management approaches that seek to adapt the planning processes to new challenges and opportunities derived from the smart scenario. The smart city and smart tourist destination approaches are aimed at improving efficiency in management, the quality of life of the residents and the tourist experiences. However, little is known about how these ideas are being translated into real policies and whether they are having a real impact. The objective of this paper is to understand how the smart approach is being deployed in the planning processes of Spanish tourist cities and destinations, and its implications in terms of the governance, sustainability and data-driven public management. The planning instruments that guide the smart strategies of different Spanish cities are identified and analysed. This is complemented with a questionnaire administered among managers of the smart city and smart destination initiatives. The findings reveal the diversity of smart initiatives, their benefits and limitations. The results contribute to generating a necessary debate on the implications of the smart discourse for urban and tourism planning and enrich the international debate around this approach.

Monitoring theSustainable Development Goalsin cities: Potentials and pitfalls of using smart city data

Smart city strategies highlight the potential to generate new type of data through new technology, for example crowdsourced data. Based on an empirical study, we show the potentials and limits of using new data for monitoring urban sustainability and especially theSustainable Development Goals.The latest debate on smart cities and sustainability is underpinned by the United Nations’2030 Agendaand their accompanyingSustainable Development Goals (SDGs),which place urban data and monitoring systems at the forefront. Therefore, there is a strong need to assess the data-driven capabilities that will help achieve theSDGs. To fill the capability gaps between existing tools andSDGindicators, new smart city data sources are now available. However, scant indicators and assessment criteria have been empirically validated. This paper identifies some of the challenges alongside the potential of using new local data in urban monitoring systems. A case study of anSDGmonitoring platform implementation in a district of Berlin is examined, and the results show that the use of locale-specific, and unofficial data not only improves data availability, but it also encourages local public participation. Based on our empirical findings, we determine that the incorporation of new data for urban sustainability monitoring should be treated as a complex social process.

THE FIRST FLUSH ANALYSIS OF STORMWATER RUNOFF IN A HUMID CLIMATE

This study focuses on the pollutants from urban runoff to Zarjoob River, which is one of the rivers leading to Anzali International Wetland, which was listed in the Montreux Record in 1993 as a site in need of priority conservation. Storm water runoff from a residential area in Rasht (the largest city on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast) was monitored in this study during thirteen rainfall events, with a total of 58 storm runoff samples collected from 2018 to 2019. In most rainfall events, the mean concentration of total suspended solids (TSS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) were higher than the other pollutants. The event mean concentrations (EMC) of TSS loads ranged from 57.3 mg/L to 682.5 mg/L and from 46.7 mg/L to 590.4 mg/L for COD. The site mean concentrations (SMC) for TSS, COD, total phosphorus (Total P), nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N), and total lead (Pb) were 219, 205, 1.91, 20.63, and 0.25 mg/L, respectively. The first flush coefficient (b) was used to evaluate the first flushing of various events. The results of the study confirmed that the first flush occurred in all events, and the average ranking of first flush strength among the pollutants was COD > NO3-N > TP > Pb > TSS. Controlling one-third of the initial runoff volume appeared to be critical for managing the quality of urban rivers in humid regions. The findings of this study can be applied to urban runoff management strategies in cities with similar climatic conditions.

Urban Environmental Acupuncture for Improving the Sustainability of Dense City Areas – Polish Experiences from the SALUTE4CE Project

Abstract The idea of urban environmental acupuncture postulates, that in areas with no space available for green spaces, sustainability and climate resistance can be improved by small green spots in key locations. The project SALUTE4CE established pilot environmental acupuncture strategies in Central-European cities. The author was responsible for elaborating an Action Plan for the functional area of Chorzów, Ruda Śląska and Świętochłowice, Poland. The project aimed at finding spots with potential outcomes in terms of sustainability, reducing urban heat islands and improving comfort and quality of spaces, with nature based solutions: from planting climate resistant vegetation and restoring biodiversity, through improving local retention, to green roofs or vertical walls. The concept assumes, that acting in many small places can bring synergic effects and contribute to urban regeneration. Four pilot spots have been constructed so far, and other interventions shall be realized in the coming years. So far the project results have been disseminated in project documents and reports. This paper aims at a summary of project experiences and perspectives in regard to participating Polish cities.

Comparing the cooling effectiveness of operationalisable urban surface combination scenarios for summer heat mitigation

Extreme summer heat in cities exacerbates the vulnerability of urban communities to heatwaves. Vegetative and reflective urban surfaces can help reduce urban heat. This study investigated the impacts of urban trees, green roofs and cool roofs on heat mitigation during average and extreme summer conditions in temperate oceanic Melbourne, Australia. We simulated the city climate using ‘The Air Pollution Model’ (TAPM) at a 1 km spatial resolution over 10 years, which according to our review of the literature, was the most prolonged period for simulation in Melbourne. During a widespread heatwave event, some of the tested scenarios with combined surface parameters could reduce the extreme values of the energy budget components- sensible heat, latent heat, and storage heat fluxes up to seasonal averages compared to the existing situation for Melbourne (control). The scenario with the highest (reasonable maximum) ground-level vegetation, green roofs, and cool roofs could reduce air temperatures up to 2.4 °C. The simulations suggest that a combined strategy with vegetative and high-albedo surfaces will deliver higher effectiveness with maximum cooling benefits and cost-effectiveness than individual strategies in cities. These results suggest the importance of collaborative strategic planning of urban surfaces to make cities healthier, sustainable, and liveable.

Assessment of local climate strategies in Hungarian cities

Climate change is a critical challenge for cities, so urban communities are increasingly responsible for climate protection. Hungarian cities started thinking and acting to reduce their GHG emission and carbon footprint in the late 2000s. Thanks to the increasing focus on environmental issues and the European Green Deal, this process received a new impulse after 2018. In our research, we analyzed and compared the local climate strategies (LCSs) of 14 cities by scoring method to explore their goals and planned actions. In addition, we assessed the commitment of local governments and conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with city officials and experts to further highlight the challenges of climate protection. Findings reveal that the mandated climate planning process and the dependence on EU funds negatively impact the quality of the LCSs, with features and practices such as reverse mainstreaming and minimal room for maneuvering to make efficient climate actions at the local level. The common features of LCSs are the high degree of uniformity, the lack of local innovation, and in many cases, the lack of accurate detail that makes it doubtful that they can adequately fulfill their intended role. Instead, they create the possibility of drawing financial resources from the EU.

Potential Performance Assessment of Coastal Urban Sewer Network according to Sea Level Rise

The rise in sea levels due to climate change causes a decrease in the discharge capacity of sewer pipes and an increase in the risk of urban inundation due to the encroaching of outfall to the coast. Therefore, it is crucial to quantitatively evaluate and predict the increasing degree of risk to properly respond to the risk of inundation that is aggravated by the effects of rising sea levels. In this study, two research areas were selected in consideration of the regional characteristics of the coastal area and the sea level rise scenarios. In the selected research areas, the performance of the sewer network was quantified through a reliability technique. Accordingly, the change in the Disaster Prevention Performance Target Rainfall according to the sea level rise was analyzed and reevaluated. The results showed that the target rainfall for disaster prevention performance by rainfall duration in Wando was 35.6% to 41.7% and in Sacheon, it was 36.7% to 67.5% under the influence of the approximate highest high water. This study presented a plan to adjust the target rainfall for disaster prevention performance, which should be raised in consideration of the sea level rise to meet the current target rainfall for disaster prevention performance. In response to the flood risk of coastal cities increasing due to rising sea levels, the results of this study are expected to serve as basic data to establish disaster reduction strategies for coastal cities.

Making Transportation Systems in U.S. Cities Smarter and More Inclusive: A Synthesis of Challenges and Evaluation of Strategies

Smart City (SC) strategies developed by local governments reflect how governments and planners envision SC and apply smart technologies, and what challenges they face and try to address. Little attention, however, has been given to investigating SC strategies or applications, especially in the U.S. context. Moreover, there is insufficient attention paid to whether SC strategies address social issues such as equity and public participatory opportunities. Based on the documentation from the U.S. Department of Transportation 2015 Smart City Challenge, we developed a framework to evaluate SC strategies on urban transportation systems using six standards: Safety, Mobility, Sustainability, Opportunity, Efficiency, and Equity. In addition, we synthesized the challenges U.S. smart cities encounter, and SC strategies proposed by local municipal governments to tackle them. Our findings show that most SC strategies aimed to improve Efficiency (78%) and Mobility (57%), while less attention has been given to providing Equity (8%) or Opportunity (7%). The most well-acknowledged challenge that the local governments face is the limited data and tools for decision-making, with 416 SC strategies (27%) proposed to address related issues. Our framework and results contribute to the future SC strategy evaluation and inclusive smart city development. Our study also identified a broad spectrum of available SC strategies planners and policymakers can refer to when designing an SC or overcoming SC challenges.

Adaptation strategies for future coastal flooding: Performance evaluation of green and grey infrastructure in South Korea

Climate change is contributing to an increasing frequency and intensity of floods in Korea. This study predicts areas with a high probability of flooding in coastal areas of South Korea owing to future climate change, which is likely to cause extreme rainfall and sea-level rise, using a spatiotemporal downscaled future climate change scenario with random forest, artificial neural network, and k-nearest neighbor techniques. In addition, the change in coastal flooding risk probability according to the application of different adaptation strategies (green spaces and seawalls) was identified. The results showed a clear difference in the risk probability distribution in the absence and presence of either adaptation strategy. Their effectiveness in moderating future flooding risks is subject to change owing to strategy type, geographic region, and urbanization intensity and the results show that green spaces are slightly more effective than seawalls when forecasting for 2050. This demonstrates the importance of a nature-based strategy. Moreover, this study highlights the need to prepare adaptation measures according to regional characteristics to mitigate the impact of climate change. Korea is surrounded by seas on three sides that have independent geophysical and climate characteristics. The south coast has a higher risk of coastal flooding than the east and west coasts. In addition, a higher urbanization rate is associated with a higher risk probability. This implies that climate change response strategies for coastal cities are necessary as the population and socioeconomic activities of coastal urban areas are likely to increase in the future.

Anticolonial realism: The defensive governing strategy of a Black city in white space

ABSTRACT School systems in Black-majority urban cores have been restructured as neighborhood schools have been closed and corporate charter schools have expanded. Drawing on the case of Newark, New Jersey, I interrogate the governability of this agenda. I ask: how does a municipal government elected to reinvest in public schools end up supporting the growth of privately managed charter schools? The answer requires understanding how a Blackled government of a multiracial city negotiates its position in a majority-white, suburban state. Newark’s governing regime has built a practical hegemony, rooted not in visionary idealism but the negotiation of racialized constraint. Its focus is on mitigating the dispossessions wrought by a school reform agenda it did not devise but argues that it has no alternative but to manage given central government coercion. This disposition, which I call “anticolonial realism,” points to how race and place matter in sustaining, revising, and, potentially, undoing neoliberal hegemonies.

URBAN MOBILITY AND TRANSPORTATION STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE CITIES: A CASE STUDY IN KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

— In recent decades, the rates of urbanization, motorization, population growth, and population density have increased. Congestion has detrimental effects on the efficiency of transportation, as well as on travel times, air pollution levels, and fuel consumption. Kabul is the most crowded city in Afghanistan. Unrestrained urbanization and motorization often lead to a socially, economically, and ecologically unsustainable urban land use and transportation system. In developing nations, urban mobility systems are quite diverse, taking into consideration their components in terms of transport modes and the development path associated with urban expansion. As a case study, this article examines Kabul, the most populated and economically significant city in Afghanistan. This study starts by doing a literature review on sustainable transportation systems to help the reader comprehend the link between sustainable development and transportation. The article then assesses the present transportation and infrastructure system, national transportation regulations, and urban transportation initiatives to see whether the current paradigm is shifting toward or away from sustainable mobility. Furthermore, the principles for sustainable urban transportation are designed to determine the importance that national transportation policies have given to urban transportation from the standpoint of sustainable transportation. Finally, I proposed several public transportation alternatives and strategies for Kabul city, the implementation of which may result in a more sustainable urban development and transportation system in the future.

Carbon Offset Service of Urban Park Trees and Desirable Planting Strategies for Several Metropolitan Cities in South Korea

Urban parks are essential for offsetting high carbon emissions in cities, which are known to be high emitters. This study quantified carbon uptake and storage in Daejeon and Daegu, two major metropolitan cities in South Korea, and explored planting strategies to promote carbon offset services. Mean carbon uptake and storage per unit area in the study parks were 2.6 ± 0.1 t/ha/yr and 29.9 ± 1.7 t/ha, respectively. The urban park trees of a metropolitan city in South Korea were estimated to annually sequester and store 50 kt/yr and 572 kt of carbon, respectively. This carbon uptake equaled 1.5% of the total annual carbon emissions from residential energy consumption. The economic value of the carbon uptake was equivalent to $3.3 million/yr, which is 1.50% of the annual establishment budget of urban forests of the Korea Forest Service. Planting strategies included reducing unnecessary grass and pavement areas, the active planting of trees in the potential planting space, multilayered planting, and planting tree species with high growth rates. These results are expected to guide policies related to carbon credits, which have recently emerged as major concerns, and to provide useful information for quantifying carbon offset services in greenspace establishment projects.

Leveraging popular music heritage as sustainable cultural infrastructure in small cities

ABSTRACT Popular music and its heritage increasingly feature as a component of creative city strategies and urban regeneration agendas. However, local governments of small cities face challenges in replicating the cultural policies and strategies popularised by big cities. Focusing on two Australian small cities – Wollongong, New South Wales and Redcliffe, Queensland – this article draws on examples of popular music heritage activity including the Bee Gees Way and Steel City Sound. What emerges is a discussion of the different ways in which these small cities have leveraged their music histories as cultural infrastructure as well as the disparity of support between the two cases from respective local governments. The case studies demonstrate the need for local governments to adopt approaches that cut across the continuum of heritage practice – bringing together unauthorised, self-authorised and authorised discourses and activities that foster passion and support from a range of stakeholders of popular music’s past. The article highlights that capitalising on and sharing resources, expertise and networks, and a commitment to continued investment by local government and the wider community, is essential for creating sustainable cultural infrastructure in small cities.

Design Principles for Strategic Alignment in Smart City Enterprise Architectures (SCEA)

Smart Cities are complex systems where digital innovations are applied to design enhanced city services and enable public value creation across various domains (e.g., mobility, energy and infrastructure, environment, and so). Such complexity challenges the alignment between city strategies with city services and underlying information systems, leading to providing services that may fail to achieve city goals and meet the needs of citizens. This paper defines a set of design principles to ensure strategic alignment in Smart City Enterprise Architectures (SCEA). The design principles were derived from the literature and validated by smart city domain experts, following a design-oriented research approach. The main contribution of this paper is the formulated design principles that deepen the knowledge of Enterprise Architecture design in the smart cities field. These design principles can be used by researchers and practitioners to guide the design of innovative digital services aligned with urban strategies.

Improving Waterfront Slow Greenway's Environmental Perception and Strategy for Healthy Cities: Xiaodong River Case Study in Maoming City

Improving Waterfront Slow Greenway's Environmental Perception and Strategy for Healthy Cities: Xiaodong River Case Study in Maoming City

Planning the foodshed: Rural and peri‐urban factors in local food strategies of major cities in Canada and the United States

AbstractMany North American cities seek to increase access to locally sourced foods. But to what degree are cities planning for and supporting peri‐urban and rural food production? We examined this question by analyzing 25 documents from 22 major United States and Canadian cities (>300,000 residents) with local food strategies or action plans, focusing on social, ecological, and technological factors relevant to local food production. Our review suggests that the following topics are often overlooked: farmland access and quality, farm viability, agricultural training and workforce, environmental and public health, processing infrastructure, climate change adaptation, and particular needs pertinent to those concerns among marginalized groups, including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Just under half of the cities defined how success or progress toward reaching their food‐related goals would be monitored and measured. Many municipalities considered collaboration as an important governance tool for realizing their strategies toward local food systems, including with actors from within the city and beyond, as cities’ governance scope, resources, and power are often limited. Besides illustrating ongoing municipal efforts to enhance local food systems, our study identifies focus areas in food policy and planning to avoid overlooking social and environmental trade‐offs in local foodsheds, including potentially overestimating self‐sufficiency capacity.

The innovation effect of administrative hierarchy on intercity connection: The machine learning of twin cities

Do cities with higher administrative hierarchies always enjoy higher intercity connections? Based on an innovation of twin cities (Chengdu-Chongqing) in China, this paper uses machine learning methods (linear model, support vector machines, neural network and random forest) to predict the innovation effect of a new administrative hierarchy on intercity connections. The key findings indicate the following. (1) The innovation effect of administrative hierarchy on intercity connections is asymmetric in twin cities. (2) For the city with a later-higher administrative hierarchy (LHC, Chongqing in this case), the innovation effect of the administrative hierarchy on intercity connections is initially negative (approximately 10 years for Chongqing) and then becomes positive. (3) For the city with an initially higher administrative hierarchy (IHC, Chengdu in this case), the innovation effect is continually positive. (4) The underlying mechanism of the reverse trend for LHC is due to more financial independence, investment in transportation infrastructure and less transaction cost of market access associated with the new administrative hierarchy, which have an innovative effect after a time lag (approximately 10 years for Chongqing). (5) However, IHC enjoys a continual net-positive innovation effect on the intercity connection due to its first-mover advantage on administrative hierarchy and the diffusion effect of LHC. These findings shed light on practical implications that for intercity connections, the primary concern and dominant strategy of innovation is cooperation with the trickle-down rather than the siphon effect. We should tailor different intercity connection strategies for the separate cities in a twin-city pair. This can provide new contributions to the innovation of intercity connections only if the twin cities see one another politically as “siblings” rather than as a “divorced couple”.

Analyzing Potential Impacts of Motorcycle Travel Demand Management Using an Activity-Based Travel Demand Model for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

This paper analyses the potential impacts of motorcycle travel demand management strategies for Ho Chi Minh city, a motorcycle dominant city of Vietnam. Four scenarios on managing the use of motorcycle are analyzed using an activity-based travel demand model called FEATHERS-HCMC. The model is adapted from the FEATHERS model developed for Flanders, Belgium and based on the household travel survey in Ho Chi Minh City. The modeling framework of FEATHERS-HCMC is a combination of the heuristic rules and the econometric models. The simulation results suggest that a strong enforcement on motorcycle use would significantly reduce motorcycle trips and induce the rearrangement of location and time-of-day for daily activities. These results provide empirical evidence that shows several advantages of using activity-based travel demand models comparing to the current four-step models. FEATHERS-HCMC is a promising tool to support decision-making process for assessing sustainable transportation policies, not only for HCMC but for other regions with similar characteristics.

СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ РАЗВИТИЯ НАУКОГРАДА БИЙСК

The article discusses the social problems of the Biysk science city. Gaps have been identified in a number of areas of development: education, healthcare, culture, as well as the infrastructure of the city. The all-Russian problems associated with the decline of the population, the outflow of young people to other cities, insufficient funds to maintain the social sphere, and the deterioration of urban infrastructure are emphasized. The study revealed that by a number of indicators Biysk is below the regional and district values, despite the high status of the city of science and the existing scientific and production potential. A comparative analysis of the socio-economic development strategy of the science city and the plan for its implementation revealed a number of issues that either were not included in the plan and strategy for the development of the science city, or to which formal attention was paid. It is suggested that the degradation of the city is associated with a decrease in annual subsidies from the federal center, with the inability to socially build a successful model of a science city, with the existing inconsistency of management processes and their practical effect only in relation to economically successful regions.