Cities Face Research Articles

The importance of Environmental Graphic Design in urban spaces

Environmental graphic design (EGD) from its creation has proven that its development has emerged to serve the needs of modern society and in particular of the part of the population living in urban centers. EGD is being recognized for its role in humanizing and simplifying the complexities of the built environment. Well-designed signage and environmental graphic programs help improve the aesthetic and psychological aspects of an environment, in addition to fulfilling their communication role of informing, directing and identifying. At the core of the growing demand for Environmental Graphic Design are the demands of the modern world. Cities face a variety of challenges as a result of the negative effects of globalization. EGD can be used to «humanize» a city, create connections between citizens and with the city and to make a city or a neighborhood more pleasant and functional for them. Visual pollution, prevented by the uncontrolled display of signs, is another problem that cities face. Implementing guidelines for sign control is essential to maintaining and improving the visual quality of historic places. EGD is used to create a legible city. The goal is to provide easily understandable information at every single step and to improve the overall city experience for both visitors and citizens.

Climate Change Governance in India: Mapping the Role of the Cities

Cities are at the forefront of climate action as never before: they concentrate risk but also provide opportunities to innovate. Situated at the crossroads of extensive urbanization, unequal development, and high climate vulnerability, Indian cities face an urgent imperative to governance to current and projected climate change impacts. While the poor and marginalised who live in multidimensional poverty and face acute deprivation bear the brunt of the consequences. Climate change not only exacerbates their existing inequalities, but also leads to disproportionate sharing of climate change risks, necessitating a shift from mere climate change mitigation to climate change adaptation and recognition that the involvement of all government levels, particularly local governments, has become a sine qua non for climate change adaptation to work because the impacts of climate change are manifestly local. This article argues that Indian urban local governments must occupy a definitive role in the Indian multi-lateral climate change governance framework. It argues that despite the important role played by urban local governments in combating climate change through adaptation strategies, multi-level governance framework is completely skewed in favour of the dominant and decisive role played by national and state governments. This article examines the role of Indian cities in climate change and scrutinizes the multi-level governance.

A Cyberphysical System for Data-Driven Real-Time Traffic Prediction on the Las Vegas I-15 Freeway

Mobility and transportation services in modern large-scale cities face traffic congestion as one of the main sources of discomfort and economic losses. In this context, taking preventive measures based on traffic predictions looks like an appealing alternative to mitigate congestion. The increasing availability of detectors in the transportation infrastructure has allowed tackling the traffic prediction problem by using a purely data-driven approach, where deep learning models have excelled. Unfortunately, the implementation of these techniques in real time is still under development. This work presents the implementation of a real-time traffic prediction application in the Las Vegas, NV, USA, urban area, built as a cyberphysical system with real-time data streaming from field sensors to a cloud-like environment where deep learning-based traffic predictors are hosted. Implementation results show the feasibility of doing traffic prediction in real time with the current technology and the usefulness of periodic retraining to maintain prediction accuracy.

“Eles não param pra analisar que isso que a gente tá reciclando tá vindo da casa deles”: Caminhos dos resíduos e catadores autônomos em Santos-SP, Brasil

Abstract Among the many socio-environmental issues that Brazilian cities face, one of the most pressing is the excess of waste. This article relates two poles of this problem: 1) the pathways travelled by waste in the city of Santos, in the state of São Paulo, as apprehended from institutional mapping, documentary research and interviews with those responsible for waste management in the city; (2) the vulnerability of autonomous waste-pickers from the stilt-favela of Dique da Vila Gilda. By listening and wayfaring observation, the article reports on how these subjects perceive and deal with waste and those who discard it, what difficulties they face and how they understand nature and technology. By observing them in movement we conclude that initiatives for dealing with the excess of waste must include these agents of socio-environmental protection in decision-making processes and the administration of public policies.

Smart cities as promoters of quality of life, physical activity, and health: Analysis of the city hosting COP 30 - Belém

This study analyzes urban habitability and the potential of Smart Cities in Belém, considering social, environmental, and technological factors. The justification for this research lies in the challenges growing cities face, which require sustainable solutions to improve citizens' quality of life. In this context, Smart Cities emerge as alternatives that can integrate technological innovations to address urban needs. The relevance of this study is to understand how factors such as green infrastructure, social capital, and technology influence urban habitability and citizens' well-being in Belém. The methodology involves developing a questionnaire based on theoretical concepts, which will be administered in the city's neighborhoods. These data will be analyzed to assess residents' perceptions of the Smart City's status and quality of life. The main expected results include identifying the factors contributing to urban habitability in Belém and evaluating the feasibility of the city becoming a Smart City. The results may also highlight the importance of green infrastructure and social capital in enhancing citizens' well-being. In conclusion, this study aims to contribute to understanding the relationships between urban habitability, green infrastructure, and technology, offering valuable insights for sustainable urban planning in Belém and other growing cities. Additionally, it may guide local authorities in creating policies that promote citizens' quality of life by integrating innovative and technological strategies.

Largo da Peça in Benguela (Angola) and the Municipal Market in São Tomé (Sao Tomé and Príncipe)

African cities face complex dilemmas and transformation processes, related to social, environmental, and political-economic dimensions, these affect the quality of life of their citizens. Public spaces are one important indicator of urban quality of life and an essential tool for spatial planning and land-use management. They are a symbol of collective power and the link between citizens and government, as here publicness is practised and experienced. This contribution aims to provide insights into how public spaces in Angola and Sao Tomé and Principe that have been neglected by the governments are still places of socialisation and interaction. The cities of Benguela and São Tomé share common historical paths; created during the Portuguese colonial time, they became the centre of their regions. We take a public space in each city to discuss the usability and from this to address the potential and development challenges. The two cases are the Largo da Peça (Angola), whose name was taken from a cannon placed here in 1846. The cannon is a reminder of the Portuguese defence against the attacks of the native people. The second case refers to the surroundings of the Municipal Market Hall in the city of São Tomé (Sao Tomé and Príncipe). The Market Hall is one of the first modernist projects in the art deco architectural style built in the small insular country. Backed by documentary research and field observations this study provides insights on the current use of public spaces and the challenges public space development face in post-colonial African cities. The analysis suggests that although the lack of an effective public policy for public space management and development, both spaces have become places of collective interaction.

The Saharan Landscape: between threats and developments. Case of the City of Tozeur (South West Tunisia)

The city of Tozeur (South West Tunisia) is among the areas most affected by high anthropization and environmental problems. The forms of pollution as well as the degradation of oasis and agricultural lands, encourage us to think of the city differently. This is through the landscaping where the different characteristics of the site; urban constraints; and climatic specificities would be taken into account. To do this, the study proposes a landscape approach as a paradigm for developing the city’s green spaces, including creating a linear landscape course located in a new urban center of the city of Tozeur. The methodology adopted is based on developing a landscape assessment followed by a development proposal using design, modeling, and mapping software. According to this study, anthropogenic pollution, anarchic urbanization and environmental problems threaten the living environment of the inhabitants. The proposed linear landscaping would help the localities in question to reduce the effect of the various problems that the city faces. The results made it possible to highlight the role of such landscaping in the Saharan regions and to underline the importance of this project and the opportunities it will offer to boost Saharan tourism in the country's south and enhance the image of the Tunisian Sahara.

Flood risk assessment of loss of life for a coastal city under the compound effect of storm surge and rainfall

Many coastal cities face the risk of compound floods induced by multiple factors such as storm surge and rainfall. Flood risk assessment helps mitigate and manage flood disasters in coastal cities. In current literature, study about compound flood risk assessment of loss of life is limited. This study assesses the risk of loss of life in compound floods under storm surge ad rainfall in the Macao Peninsula which is a coastal city. The joint probability for storm surge and rainfall occurrence was analyzed by copula function. The coupled hydrodynamic model of drainage and overland flow was established to simulate the compound flooding process. The risk of loss of life is quantitatively assessed based on the mortality function for flood scenarios with different probabilities. The western coastal area of Macao Peninsula is the most vulnerable area to flooding with higher mortality. Although the most area of Macao Peninsula has low mortality, there is still a serious loss of life in extreme floods due to high population density. This study provides guidance for quantitative compound flood risk assessment and risk management of loss of life in coastal cities.

Energy saving and emission reduction effects of urban digital economy: technology dividends or structural dividends?

As a new economic form, the digital economy provides new opportunities to save energy and reduce emissions, but it may also become a booster for increasing energy consumption and pollutant emissions, making the sustainable development of cities face serious challenges. It is controversial whether the digital economy contributes to energy saving and emission reduction, and it is unclear what role technological progress and structural transformation play in the relationship between the digital economy and energy saving and emission reduction. In this study, the energy saving and emission reduction effects of the digital economy in cities and its mechanisms are empirically examined from the perspective of technological progress and structural transformation using the two-way fixed effect model and the mediating effect model. The results show that the digital economy increases urban energy consumption and reduces pollution emissions. The energy saving and emission reduction effects of the digital economy are more significant in northeastern cities, large cities, and resource-based cities. The mechanism test shows that the digital economy promotes urban energy saving and emission reduction through green technological progress, mainly because the energy saving from green technological efficiency improvements exceeds the energy rebound from green technological innovation. However, the digital economy has not shown energy saving and emission reduction effects by promoting industrial structural transformation. Specifically, the structural transformation of the secondary industry contributes to urban emission reduction, while the structural transformation of the primary and tertiary industries leads to efficiency loss of energy saving and emission reduction. Our findings provide valuable insights into the synergistic governance of "energy saving" and "emissions reduction" in cities in the digital economy.

OPEN EDUCATION IN STUDYING SCIENCES – DEVELOPING OF A EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK

The article presents in detail the main outcomes of a recent action – research project PULCHRA – Science in the city (https://pulchra-schools.eu/), funded by Horizon 2020 EU program, promoted by the University of Athens and a consortium of ten academic and research European institutions, including the Education Research Unit from Romania. The project was inspired by the open education principles (Abrioux, 2009) and creates a complex learning by doing framework for secondary students of 14 to 17 years old. The perspective of City as ecosystem creates for the involved partner schools various opportunities for exploiting inquiry-based methods and addresses real life problems (Pedaste, et al., 2015). After three years of implementation, PULCHRA developed a specific methodology, by promoting real life experiments during science classes, in collaboration with community representatives and the support from partners, experts, and other stakeholders. By using a variety of resources, materials, and teaching approaches, specific science teams managed to research,develop, produce and promote solutions to several common issues/opportunities that European cities face due to increased urbanization. Out of the six environmental, social and economic thematic areas of the project, Romanian schools focused on regenerating urban space to connect people in a healthyenvironment. The article explores the outcomes at grass-root level, as documented by monitoring and evaluation activities conducted in six upper secondary schools from Romania. In particular, we highlight the contribution of the project in building students’ good scientific knowledge, in promoting expert and community participation and encouraging active engagement in shared living environments and futures. The contribution of the project on development of STEM competences, in relation with the national curriculum, is also explored. In the context of COVID pandemics, the article will highlight the importance of the City Challenges Platform, set up to facilitate the learning and collaboration of the members of the city science teams and wider network. The contributionto sharing digital educational material, design relevant experiments and develop distance-learning courses on cities as urban eco-systems will also be documented.

Exploring Key Aspects of an Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategy in Greece: The Case of Thessaloniki City

Even though efforts have been made in recent decades to revive urban areas in the European Union (EU), the contemporary challenges that mostly large cities face require continuous support and adjustments in urban policies. Under the EU Cohesion Policy for the 2014–2020 programming period, the integrated territorial development of various specific areas is pursued by the Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI). In Greece, many of these programs concern Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies (ISUDSs). One of these is the ISUDS of Thessaloniki, which is perhaps the most complex in terms of management and implementation in Greece, mainly due to the chosen managerial approach and the size of Thessaloniki, the second largest city in the country. Thessaloniki’s ISUDS is managed by the Urban Authority (UA), which has already evolved into a separate model of metropolitan governance administration. The aim of this paper is to identify the determinants in its design and implementation, as well as the effects of the strategy on urban development through the assessment of its strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and prospects of strategy through the Delphi approach.

Modelling a Sustainable Smart City

This article presents the development of a model of a sustainable smart city. The model demonstrates the use of sustainable forms of energy and incorporates Internet of Things functionalities to simulate energy efficiency, monitoring of air quality, and safety. The city was designed to raise awareness about problems people living in cities face, as well as to inspire relevant technology-based innovative solutions in the context of the Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).

Geospatial analysis of flood emergency evacuation sites in Accra.

This research is useful as mapping could increase awareness of evacuation sites to speed up rapid response to immediate impacts of flood events. The findings of the study will facilitate future decisions for demarcating potential flood emergency evacuation sites. The overall aim of this study is to contribute to literature, policy, spatial analysis and the practice of flood risk management in the study area. The research findings can also be applied to other flood-prone areas with similar contexts as the study site.

Transforming existing Egyptian cities into sustainable cities

Existing Egyptian cities face many challenges and problems that hurt the quality of life, which made it regress in the sustainable cities index, so this research aims to formulate a set of general frameworks that enable the existing Egyptian cities to transform into sustainability and achieve advanced levels in the sustainable cities index, by using of the theoretical framework of sustainable cities and the analytical framework of some models of sustainable global cities that were suffering from many problems and challenges, they became topping the lists of sustainable cities index by effective planning. The research analyzes the issues and challenges of the existing Egyptian cities and compares them with global sustainable cities, which proves that it is not impossible to reach sustainability to determine the shortcomings of the existing Egyptian cities in achieving sustainability.

Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans: implementation process and indicators to evaluate effects on physical activity.

Active mobility and public transport increase physical activity (PA) levels. With varying intensity and effectiveness, European cities implement Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) to spur transport-related PA. Therefore, we aim to examine drivers and barriers to SUMP implementation and assess its influence on PA across European cities. We screened policy reports to gain insights into SUMP implementation in one Danish, two German and two Polish cities. Further, we conducted semi-structured interviews with SUMP stakeholders in these cities to explore their experiences with SUMP implementation. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts was applied to identify similarities and differences across cities. To assess the effect of SUMP implementation on PA, we searched for data on indicators of transport-related PA. All investigated cities are committed to sustainable mobility. Nonetheless, complex institutional structures, the dominant role of motorized traffic as well as complex regional and local policy integration hamper SUMP implementation. Danish, German and Polish cities face different contexts in terms of financing, national guidelines and the prominence of sustainability as a policy objective. Each city adopts unique indicators for monitoring the effects of SUMPs on transport-related PA. The variety of indicators and limited data availability impede a comparative evaluation across cities. Constrained by this restriction, we identified motorization rate, modal split and public transport ridership as suitable indicators. Local idiosyncrasies need to be accounted for when assessing the implementation of SUMPs. Nonetheless, consistent indicators and data transparency are essential for comparing the effectiveness of SUMPs and their impact on PA.

Implementing just climate adaptation policy: An analysis of recognition, framing, and advocacy coalitions in Boston, U.S.A.

Cities face intersectional challenges implementing climate adaptation policy. This research contributes to scholarship dedicated to understanding how policy implementation affects socially vulnerable groups, with the overarching goal of promoting justice and equity in climate policy implementation. We apply a novel framework that integrates social justice theory and the advocacy coalition framework to incrementally assess just climate adaptation in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. Boston made an ambitious commitment to address equity as part of its climate planning and implementation efforts. In this paper, we evaluate the first implementation stage over the period 2016–2019 during which Boston developed coastal resilience plans for three neighborhoods. Despite Boston's commitment to equity, we find injustice was nevertheless reproduced through representation and coalition dynamics, the framing of problems and solutions, and a failure to recognize the priorities and lived experiences of city residents. The assessment framework presented can be adapted to evaluate how other climate adaptation initiatives advance social justice and highlights the need for incremental evaluation over short time periods to inform ongoing implementation efforts.

Spatial aspects of the supply-demand gap and its change in childcare services in Naha City, Japan.

Given the recent increase in the number of working mothers, Japanese cities face a shortage of childcare services. In response to this problem, Japan's central government has attempted to expand childcare facilities by implementing a comprehensive support system for children and child-rearing. However, a geographical approach is needed to evaluate the impact of the new system from the viewpoint of territorial justice in order to reconcile efficiency and equity in public service provision. Therefore, this study examines the spatial aspects of the supply-demand gap in childcare services following the implementation of the new system. The area studied was Naha City in Okinawa Prefecture, where the number of children awaiting enrollment in licensed childcare centers is exceptionally large. Since 2015, the city authorities have provided financial assistance to transform unlicensed childcare facilities into licensed ones to increase the provision of childcare services. As a result, the number of children awaiting enrollment in licensed childcare centers has reduced. Nevertheless, a spatial analysis of the supply-demand gap in childcare services using a geographic information system proves that a regional imbalance in childcare provision still exists in Naha City.

Developing a 3D City Digital Twin: Enhancing Walkability through a Green Pedestrian Network (GPN) in the City of Imola, Italy

Predominantly, dense historical cities face insufficient pedestrian-level greenery in the urban spaces. The lack of greenery impacts the human thermal comfort on the walking paths, which contributes to a considerable reduction in pedestrian flow rate. This study aims at developing a model to assess pedestrian-level thermal comfort in city environments and then evaluate the feasibility of creating a green pedestrian network (GPN). Imola, as a historical city in Italy with a compact urban pattern, is selected as the case study of this paper. To accomplish this, a three-dimensional digital twin at city scale is developed for the recognition of real-time shade patterns and for designing a GPN in this city. The 3D model of the proposed digital twin is developed in the Rhinoceros platform, and the physiological equivalence temperature (PET) is simulated through EnergyPlus, Honeybee, and Ladybug components in grasshopper. This study provides the city with a digital twin that is capable of examining pedestrian-level thermal comfort for designing a GPN based on real-time PET in the compact urban morphology of Imola. The PET model indicates that during the hottest hour of the 25th of June, pedestrians in open spaces can experience 3 °C more than on narrow shaded streets. The results are validated based on in situ datasets that prove the reliability of the developed digital twin for the GPN. It provides urban planners and policy makers with a precise and useful methodology for simulating the effects of pedestrian-level urban greenery on human thermal comfort and also guarantees the functionality of policies in different urban settings.

Blockchain-of-blockchains: An interoperable blockchain platform for ensuring IoT data integrity in smart city

We propose a hierarchical blockchain-based platform for ensuring the integrity of smart city Internet-of-Things (IoT) data and blockchain interoperability in this paper. The well-defined structural hierarchy of managing organizations in a smart city face several data management issues. The integration of emerging technologies, such as (IoT), has introduced more complexity to data maintenance in the smart city. At present, cloud-based information systems have become the norm for managing IoT data. Due to the centralized administrative control, the cloud-based information management is untrusted. Hence, it fails to guarantee the integrity of IoT data and traceability of operations to achieve transparency within the smart city organizations. Adoption of blockchain-based information systems can be viable solution to address these challenges. However, it introduces a new challenge of interoperability of transactions among different smart city organizations. In this paper, we introduce a decentralized hierarchy of blockchains, named Blockchain-of-Blockchains (BoBs), for ensuring data integrity and blockchain interoperability at the same time. We implement the proposed concept using Hyperledger Fabric and Ethermint as a proof-of-concept for evaluating the performance of the proposed concept.

Climate Change Adaption between Governance and Government—Collaborative Arrangements in the City of Munich

Growing cities face severe land use conflicts. Urban expansion and the densification of existing built areas are increasing the pressure on green spaces, which are key for climate change adaptation. Planning procedures embroiled in these land use conflicts are often complicated and slow. This is due to the increasing complexity in planning processes, which involve a multitude of stakeholders and decision-makers, whose responsibilities are not always entirely clear. Governance-oriented forms of decision making with horizontal structures are often required, but these also entail challenges. In our study, we ask how climate adaptation through urban green spaces can be integrated into planning processes. The study is based on a methodological combination, including document analysis and qualitative interviews with administrative staff. The City of Munich, a rapidly growing German city, serves as a case study. The results show different collaborative arrangements in four planning arenas and demonstrate how these structures support or hinder climate change adaptation mainstreaming. We conclude that hierarchical structures impede horizontal collaborative arrangements and shed lights on mechanisms reinforcing these structures. For large administrations, informal meetings and coordinating units are effective in fostering interdepartmental cooperation.