Shape Of Cities Research Articles

Cities Shape the Diversity and Spread of Nonnative Species

The globalization of trade and increased human mobility have facilitated the introduction and spread of nonnative species, posing significant threats to biodiversity and human well-being. As centers of global trade and human populations, cities are foci for the introduction, establishment, and spread of nonnative species. We present a global synthesis of urban characteristics that drive biological invasions within and across cities, focusing on four axes: (a) connectivity, (b) physical properties, (c) culture and socioeconomics, and (d) biogeography and climate. Urban characteristics such as increased connectivity within and among cities, city size and age, and wealth emerged as important drivers of nonnative species diversity and spread, while the relative importance of biogeographic and climate drivers varied considerably. Elaborating how these characteristics shape biological invasions in cities is crucial for designing and implementing strategies to mitigate the impacts of invasions on ecological systems and human well-being.

ALADURA IN THE CITY: EXPLORING HOW THE CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM NAVIGATES CITY DYNAMICS IN NIGERIA

This paper discusses how the Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S) navigates the complex city dynamics within the context of time and space and how both the church and the city shape and reshape one another in Nigeria. The C&S is a major brand of Aladura Christianity, which emerged as a prayer group and metamorphosed into major and countless number of minor strands of churches that bear the name “Cherubim and Seraphim” as prefix or suffix. The C&S navigates a diverse, competitive, and dynamic religious landscape where the changing city life of modernisation and globalisation influence how the church practices its faith. Such influence offers the church a wide range of opportunities and challenges in every city where it exists. Education, media technologies, social services, security challenge and economic depression are major indicators of how the church negotiates its relevance and visibility within the city. The paper posits that the interaction between the C&S and its cities of existence stimulates considerable resilience and positive impacts on the both sides.

Urban system and complexity. Socio-spatial fragmentation as a systemic process of inequality

The shape of cities has historically been the expression of complex processes of material and energy differentiation. Like any open and self-regulating system, it needs to evolve by exchanging flows of information and matter with its environment based on non-linear interactions made up of hierarchies and complementarities necessary for its adaptation. In order to establish causality with the phenomenon of socio-spatial fragmentation, structural inequality has been analyzed as a stratifying factor of spatialities in urban space. The dialectical hermeneutic method has allowed the modeling of concepts from information theory and thermodynamics to explain the interaction logic of the operating subsystems and their consequences in the hybrid structuring of urban space. The identification of cycles and morphogenetic causality in the production of spatialities forms a theoretical-conceptual contribution to the study of urban dynamics when spatial proximity coexists with social distance as a norm.

The Impact of the Carbon Neutral Era on City Branding and Response Strategies

Against the backdrop of increasingly severe global warming, carbon neutrality has become a common goal for all countries, and carbon emission reduction has become an urgent action that all countries and cities need to take. As the center of human activities, cities are the main source of global greenhouse gas emissions, bearing tremendous responsibilities and challenges, and are crucial to promoting carbon neutrality and sustainable development. To achieve the goal of carbon neutrality and sustainable development, more and more cities have adopted various carbon emission reduction strategies to reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality, and enhance the quality of life for citizens. Urban branding is not only a reflection of the image and reputation of the city, but also an important tool for attracting talents, investments, and tourism. As an important component of urban image, urban branding and communication also need to be adjusted and optimized under the background of carbon neutrality era to adapt to and meet the needs of society and citizens. This article aims to explore the strategies and methods of urban branding and communication in the era of carbon neutrality, in order to help cities shape and disseminate competitive and attractive brand images under the carbon neutrality era, and provide suggestions and guidance for relevant urban managers and marketers on urban brand building and development, thereby promoting the sustainable development of urban brands.

CITY-STATE IN THE TREATISE BY J. V. ANDREAE: A VISION OF HARMONY AND ORDER

The article highlights the features of the architecture and urban planning structure of the utopian city-state described by the German theologian Johannes Valentinus Andrea in the treatise «Description of the Republic of Christianopolis» which was written in 1619. The aim of this article is a detailed analysis and graphic reproduction of the urban planning and architectural features of the utopian city described by J. V. Andreae. One of the tasks is to compare the structure of the city-state he recreated with the layout of the utopian settlements of T. More, T. Campanella and A. F. Doni, as those written in approximately the same period and depicting utopian states located on remote islands. Republic of Christianopolis is built in the shape of a perfect square, symbolizing order and rationality. Each side of the city is of equal length, and all the streets are laid out to form a regular, neat grid. In the center of the city there is a large square with a temple. This temple serves as the spiritual and civic nucleus of the city, underscoring the significance of religion and communal life in a utopian society. The city-state is divided into different zones according to their functional purpose. There are separate plots for residential buildings, administrative buildings, scientific institutes and agricultural areas. Such planning reflects a desire for efficiency and organization. Residential buildings are organized in such a way that each family has adequate housing with sufficient space for comfortable living. Gardens are located around the houses, which helps to create a public space for communication and interaction between residents. Despite the utopian nature of the society, the city has defensive structures such as walls and towers, which indicate a desire to protect the city from external threats. The article depicts a schematic general plan of the city of Christianopolis, conventional plans and sections of buildings. A review of the urban design features in J.V. Andreae's utopia compared to those in the works by T. More, A. F. Doni, and T. Campanella reveals common tendencies typical for that era, such as the ideal city shape, a preference for symmetry and centralized planning. It should be highlighted that in the treatise «Description of the Republic of Christianopolis», there is a more distinct zoning of areas and division of the population. J. V. Andrea created a utopian society where scientific knowledge and Christian faith are harmoniously combined. Christianopolis is depicted as a place where education and spirituality are integrated, reflecting the ideals of its era and the pursuit of knowledge. Keywords: utopia, symmetrical planning, urban structure, city fortifications, residential buildings.

Urban mobility in the future: text analysis of mobility plans

Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) or similar documents from 17 European capitals (published between 2010 and 2021) and the European SUMP guidelines have been analysed to understand how cities shape mobility and their transport systems. Text analysis is applied to identify development tendencies in a time- and cost-effective manner, without relying on traditional deep semantic analysis techniques. In addition to traditional statistical indicators, we introduce Category Term Frequency (CTF) as a new measure in text analysis. CTF reveals the number and proportion of words belonging to the same content group, namely specific mobility-related categories. The results indicate that categories describing general aspects such as the future, general transport, environment, and society are more prominently represented compared to more forward-looking categories like automation, electromobility, and sharing. The aggregated CTF of categories describing these emerging aspects is highest in the mobility plans of Copenhagen, Helsinki, Luxembourg, and Vienna, which are considered forerunners in their implementation. In general, the analysis concludes that despite recent technological developments and new business models, the examined mobility plans barely mention terms that would imply radical changes by the 2030s. Strategic documents and, thus, urban mobility developments suggest only a slow transition towards the expected levels of sustainable and smart urban mobility. These findings may contribute to understanding and (re)considering urban and transport development strategies in Europe. Furthermore, this text analysis framework provides planners and other experts with a novel tool to identify the focal areas of mobility-related (or other) documents.

앱솔루트보드카 시티시리즈에 나타난 도시정체성 특성 연구

In the era of city competition, value and role of visualized city identity is getting bigger. The study aims to methods for building and visualizing city identities through city series advertisement campaign by Sweden Absolut bodka brand to make premium image. The study is done by literature research and case study. Absolut releases creative advertisements to break up Russian low-graded image of bodka for penetration toward US market. City series ads of Absolut combining unique bottle shape and symbolic images of cities help to build premium brand image and penetrate global market. Images of cities represented on ads can be categorized as landmark. symbolic objects, historical events, representative artists, city culture, national objects, While ads using concrete objects such as architecture and product can be understood easily, ads using history and culture require higher leveled visual metaphor. Absolut ads show the diversity of city identies and importance of visual communication using creative expression. In order to build city identities effectively, collaboration with consumer brand and creative expression are required.

Developing an annual building volume dataset at 1-km resolution from 2001 to 2019 in China

ABSTRACT Urban vertical features are crucial for understanding urban morphology. However, long-term information on three-dimensional buildings, which are important fundamental data for studying on the historical urbanization processes, remains scarce in China. In this study, we proposed a Random Forest model to generate an annual 1-km resolution building volume dataset covering mainland China from 2001 to 2019, by integrating the nighttime light data, population demographics, electricity consumption records, carbon dioxide emissions data, and various optical and statistical datasets. This new building volume data are highly consistent with that derived from Baidu Maps on 1-km scale, with Pearson’s correlation coefficient (R) of 0.847, root mean square error (RMSE) of 9.17 × 105 m3/km2 and mean absolute error (MAE) of 5.86 × 105 m3/km2. Notably, cross-validation indicate that the blooming problem was greatly improved when compared with previous model-based building three-dimensional data. The proposed method holds significant advantages, benefiting form low-cost implementation based on free open-source data and providing extendable algorithm to estimate the 3D shape of cities in the future. The time-series historical building volume data offer comprehensive insights into the historical development of urban structures, and provide valuable fundmental data for future urban planning, urban climate models and land use projections.

Geospatial analysis of the territory for solving urban planning problems

The purpose of the study is to conduct a geospatial analysis of the territory, taking into account urban planning characteristics, for the location of a shopping center. The study characterizes the factors that turn cities into diverse and complex forms of settlements that are constantly changing. The process of urban settlement, which is reflected in their space, is analyzed. It is determined that spatial factors lead to differences in the scale and shape of cities, types of development and methods of spatial planning. The necessity of studying the spatial structure of cities, which has the characteristics of a relatively complete theoretical justification and wide coverage, is established. It is determined that the process of spatial development of cities is multidimensional and complex, which is manifested in spatial planning, transformation of many functions and expansion of the territory. The direction of research on the spatial analysis of the selected city territory is determined. Various characteristics of the site are considered, including views, transport links, access and other constraints that may affect the future development of each approach to the shopping center. A spatial analysis of the shopping center location was conducted. This analysis determines the transport accessibility of the shopping center, the accessible distance to residential development, service areas, etc. It also determines which parts of the territory are suitable for a particular type of use. The results are obtained regarding the location of the shopping center in the city. The estimated number of regular visitors to the projected shopping center is determined, provided that the level of its attractiveness is the same as that of its competitors. The increase in the level of attractiveness of the projected shopping center in comparison with competitors is calculated. Based on the results of the geospatial analysis, the stages of design and survey work were developed to draw up a large-scale topographic basis for the development area.

Does City Shape Affect China's Economic Development?

AbstractThis paper constructs a general equilibrium spatial urban model and measures city geometric compactness using the patch‐shape index based on evidence from satellite imagery and basic vector maps of China. It adopts the ordinary least squares and instrumental variable approaches to examine the effect of city shape on the urban development of 279 Chinese cities at or above the prefecture level. The empirical results show that there was a significant negative correlation between city shape and economic outcomes. Specifically, every 1 percentage point increase in the patch‐shape index led to a decrease in city‐scale GDP by 0.009 percent, housing prices by 0.044 percent, and wages by 0.024 percent. More compact urban layouts attracted an inflow of households and firms, stimulated city economic growth, and were associated with increased housing prices and wage rates. The paper considers the cities' initial conditions, trends in population changes (expanding, shrinking, and stagnant cities), and geographic factors, and finds that the results are robust. An array of policy implications can be drawn from the research.

Urban airflow prediction by pix2pix trained on FFD

Existing computer-aided design tools render insufficient in their capacity to enable architects and engineers to efficiently evaluate alternative designs during early design phases due to their computationally expensive nature, which is especially the case for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. One of the greatest bottleneck for integrating CFD analysis into early design phases is the limited potential for parametric analysis, where a number of design alternatives need to be quickly generated and evaluated. In this context, the present study investigates the use of the generative deep learning method “pix2pix”, which leverages conditional generative adversarial networks (cGANs) for image-to-image translation, for prediction of airflow characteristics in different representations. The evaluation proposes statistical metrics to judge the fitness of the approach in performing urban airflow prediction. Our study demonstrates that the proposed method to be implemented, trained and validated successfully for different representations of the flow field prediction under parametric city shapes by incorporating building height and vectorial information (either components or magnitudes) into the pix2pix image inputs. The findings of the study reveal that the vortical flow fields can be predicted with a high accuracy in space and magnitude in all model variations tested. Adding building height information to the input images also significantly improves Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence compared to using uniform building heights as inputs. Using vectorial information in the form of decomposed u, v, w-vector fields during training enabled pix2pix to additionally generate vectorial predictions instead of magnitudes only.

THE LOST OF OLD DEMAK SULTANATE CITY PATTERN

This article reveals that the problem of sedimentation on the coast causes the loss of the old city. Sedimentation caused the Demak sultanate (1478–1586) no longer be on the coast and lose its power as a Maritime kingdom. What was the old Demak city shape? Historical records state that the strait had become a swamp and experienced frequent flooding. After going through three generations from 1478–1546, the fourth king moved the Demak to Prawata Hill (1546– 1549 AD). Due to the lack of maps and historical data, we analyze the old Demak using maps and pictures of contemporary Javanese sultanate cities such as Cirebon (1506-present) and Banten (1526–1815). We also use its predecessor kingdom, Majapahit (1293 to 1527 AD) as a reference and the successor sultanate as an analytical tool. The long-lasting sultanate had a city centre that grew and developed with complete urban facilities and infrastructure. The sultanate had a short life; the city core was still intact as the city nucleus, like Demak. Due to geological problems, the king needed more time to complete the city plan with city facilities. Demak was a transitional city from the Hindu/Buddhist-Islamic concept and coastal city to the inland concept.

Does compact city shape matter to residents' happiness?

This paper investigates the impact of city shape variation on residents' happiness in Chinese cities. We first measure the city shape index of Chinese cities between 2000 and 2015 using matched data from the European Space Agency Global Land Cover dataset and the Chinese administrative map to delineate the changes in city shape in China's urbanization. Then we use a reduced-form estimation strategy to examine the causality between city shape variation and urban residents' happiness using our city shape dataset and the microsurvey data of CHIP (Chinese Household Income Project). We find that city shape exerts a negative influence on the happiness of urban residents. Such an effect is more pronounced in large cities. However, well-developed public transportation infrastructure can mitigate the negative impact of a non-compact city shape. Turning to the mechanism, commute time to the workplace and amenities is the main channel through which city shape works. We find that bad shape significantly increases the commute time between residential, workplace, and commercial amenities and therefore makes urban residents unhappy.

Emerging Issues in Cannabis Law: Big Business and Equity Challenges

The cannabis industry continues to evolve at a dizzying pace. Across the United States, states and cities shape and reshape their cannabis policies and regulations, cannabis businesses jockey for position and profit, and consumers sift through a marketplace brimming with cannabis products. It is difficult for many stakeholders to make sense of these rapid changes, and by the time they do, the landscape will likely shift again. This article identifies and explores some emerging legal challenges facing the cannabis industry and its stakeholders. It begins with a breakdown of the state of legalization initiatives in the United States as well as the less than ironclad nature of federal prohibition. Next, the article explores the business of cannabis, considering the size of the industry, the interplay between regulated and unregulated markets, and the regulatory challenges facing cannabis businesses today. Finally, the article explores notions of justice and equity as they relate to the cannabis industry and the role governments can play to right the wrongs of the war on drugs while spreading the benefits of legalization equitably.

An optimization method for surface urban heat island footprint extraction based on anisotropy assumption

The footprint (FP) is the main indicator used to quantitatively analyse the surface urban heat island (SUHI) effect. Currently, SUHI FP extraction methods ignore the interference caused by the city shape and are mostly based on the isotropic expansion assumption, resulting in an exaggerated range. Therefore, a new approach for an optimization schema that leverages the assumptions of angle segmentation and anisotropy is proposed herein. This method divides an urban area and its buffer rings into 16 sectors with equal central angles and selects appropriate land surface temperature (LST) curves for an exponential decay fit. The final FP was determined using the SUHI extension distance and the reference rural LST. To verify the effectiveness of this method, SUHI FPs of 27 cities in the central region of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) were extracted during the summer of 2019, and the results were compared with those derived from traditional methods. The results showed that the FPs calculated using this method were more detailed because they minimized the influence of urban shape, topography, and the surrounding landscape. Moreover, this method played a vital role in revealing the effect of the land use allocation outside urban area on the SUHI effect. This state-of-the-art method is useful for unveiling SUHI spatial distribution patterns and for providing scientific support for land planning for sustainable urban development.

Expanded narratives of gentrification: Mobility, infrastructure and urban change in 1970s London literature

This article revisits Ruth Glass’s essay ‘Aspects of change’ (1964), in which the urban sociologist reputedly coins the term gentrification. Whereas other readers are content merely to quote Glass’s description of gentrification, I consider how she situates the phenomenon within a broader complex of urban change. Doing so, I suggest, provides a useful optic for considering later literary engagements with gentrification in London. I examine two fictional texts – Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Innocent and the Guilty (1971) and Maureen Duffy’s Capital (1975) – and argue that they follow Glass by providing ‘expanded narratives’ of gentrification. This narrative mode is distinctive for the way that it frames highly visible and seemingly localized phenomena, such as gentrification, within broader cultural, geographical and historical contexts, in order to ask larger questions about the nature of urbanity. A concern with mobility and infrastructure defines these expanded narratives, which illuminate how these aspects of the city shape perceptions of urban change. I conclude by outlining how expanded narratives might also provide the basis for a useful reading strategy which contrasts with the extractive procedures that characterize readings of Glass and certain scholarly approaches to urban literature.

Fractal Organization of Chilean Cities: Observations from a Developing Country

Urban forms are human-made systems that display a close connection with fractal objects, following organisation patterns that are not as random as believed. In this context, fractal theory can be seriously considered as a powerful tool for characterizing land-use planning. By applying the box-counting method and image-processing methods, the morphology and fractal metrics of urban networks of Chilean cities were measured. This dimension shows a close correlation with area, population and gross domestic product of each entity, revealing significant asymmetries regarding their distribution throughout the country. Such asymmetries have influenced the current shape of cities, issues concerning economic and social inequalities of urban development that still remain in the territory and explained by social segregation process and the historical evolution of cities. Additionally, some interesting allometric scaling laws obtained from these urban forms are also reported. Our results suggest that the use of fractal metrics can be a meaningful and cheap tool for characterizing the complexity of urban networks, providing useful and quick information about the organisation and efficiency of urban planning in developing countries.

Human population growth and accessibility from cities shape rangeland condition in the American West

Human population growth and accessibility from cities shape rangeland condition in the American West

Commuting time and the gender gap in labor market participation

Abstract In this article, we investigate the contribution of increasing travel times to the persistent gender gap in labor market participation. In doing so, we estimate the effect of commuting times on the labor supply of men and women in the USA using microdata from the censuses of the last two 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-min increase in commuting time decreases the probability of married women participating in the labor market by 4.4 percentage points. In contrast, the estimated effect on men is small and statistically insignificant. When exploring potential mechanisms behind the gender asymmetry in our results, we do not find evidence that differences in labor market productivity within couples contribute to the larger penalty of commuting times on women. However, we do find that the negative effect on women increases with the number of children and is larger among those originating from countries with more gendered social norms. Based on this evidence, we conclude that in a context of increasing commuting costs the presence of gender norms that attribute to women the role of main caregivers may prevent gender convergence.

Unsatisfying Transfer of Climate Research to Urban Planning: The Regulatory Trap in the Triple Helix

Abstract Making urban areas more sustainable by transferring scientific results into the building, shaping, and governance of cities is a complicated process which involves – amongst other dimensions – science, local governance, and regulatory processes. There are non-linear interactions within each of these three dimensions which are influenced and enhanced by interactions between the three dimensions. After a short analysis of different sustainability concepts, this conceptual paper considers each of the three dimensions and finally tries to find some suggestions as to how these dimensions could interact more smoothly also considering Triple Helix theory. One basic suggestion is that without updating laws, norms, and standards, urban administrations will often not be able to integrate new scientific findings into procedures for more sustainable cities. That is, all three dimensions need to be aligned in the process of building sustainable cities.