Large European Cities Research Articles

Investigating temporal and spatial correlates of the sharp decline of an urban exploiter bird in a large European city

Increasing urbanisation and human pressure on lands have huge impacts on biodiversity. Some species, known as “urban exploiters”, manage to expand in urban landscapes, relying on human resources. The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is the perfect example of a human-commensal species. Surprisingly, this urban exploiter has been declining all over Europe over the past decades. The proximate causes of this decline remain poorly understood. We particularly lack understanding about urban habitat characteristics that are particularly unfavourable for House Sparrows. In the present study, we analysed fine-scale habitat characteristics of House Sparrow population sizes and trends using a fifteen-year House Sparrow census (2003–2017) covering the urban diversity of Paris (nearly 200 census sites), one of the densest European cities. We documented for the first time the dramatic decline (−89%) of the species in Paris over the study period. The temporal decline over the whole city correlates with the concomitant increase in the number of breeding Sparrowhawks. We could not detect statistical influences of annual variations in weather conditions and pollution. The decline of House Sparrows is spatially heterogeneous. Indeed, site-scale analyses revealed sharpest declines at sites that initially hosted the largest numbers of sparrows, which are areas with a relatively high proportion of green spaces and new buildings. Further experimental studies are now needed to disentangle the exact impact of specific characteristics of the urban environment on House Sparrow populations.

Affective map of Warsaw: Testing Alexander’s pattern language theory in an urban landscape

A pattern language is a set of recipes, described by the architect Christopher Alexander, to help design spaces that will appeal to everybody and satisfy basic human needs. In this paper, we tested (1) whether the presence of patterns in an urban landscape is associated with a positive affect and aesthetic appreciation, and (2) what kind of emotions (low or high arousal) are elicited by settings with identified patterns and thus whether pattern theory is a manifestation of the conservative (enclosed, with continuous identity and offering rest) or the progressive (open, dynamic, and promoting social interaction) meaning of place. Participants evaluated 1310 panoramic pictures covering the entire area of a large European city (Warsaw), according to the four types of elicited affect (relaxation, excitement, irritation, and boredom), aesthetics (pretty vs. ugly settings), and liking. Expert judges estimated the presence of 68 patterns in the same pictures. The findings show that the presence of patterns in an urban landscape was associated with increased positive affect, aesthetic appreciation of the setting, and more liking. The effects of the presence of patterns were not eliminated by the content of the pictures (e.g., the presence or lack of nature). The dominant emotion was that of relaxation, suggesting that pattern language theory is rooted in the conservative (essentialist) rather than the progressive (anti-essentialist) concept of place. Except for the strictly defined downtown, Warsaw was judged as a mostly relaxed, and somewhat boring city. Alternative explanations and suggestions for future studies have been presented.

Comparative urban performance assessment of safe cities through data envelopment analysis

AbstractSustainable urban development calls for a balanced package of conditions that induce a high quality of life (including safety and security) in cities. We argue that modern cities have to develop knowledge‐ based strategies for smart, safe and sound (3‐S) city development, supported by urban performance assessment (UPA) as a framework for sustainable urban planning. The present study builds on these strategic notions and articulates the message that smart urban policy should look into input resources in relation to output performance. Particular attention will be paid to the constituents and the role of multiple safety indicators in urban performance analysis. Next, an appropriate method from the industrial management literature, namely, super‐efficient data en591elopment analysis (SE‐DEA) will be utilized in order to undertake a comparative performance assessment of safety conditions in 57 world cities, followed by a similar analysis for 14 large European cities. Both world‐wide and Europe‐wide, there appear to be significant differences in safety performance of cities, which means that there is much scope for strategic and effective safety policy in many cities.

Do major climate change-related public events have an impact on consumer choices?

Recent literature is increasingly highlighting the role of individual behaviours for tackling societal challenges like Climate Change. Indeed, the largest source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is related to electricity and heat production, with residential and commercial buildings being responsible for 60% of global electricity demand. At the same time, the agri-food system is also very energy and carbon intensive and it is responsible for a considerate amount of GHG emissions. Individual behaviours related to electricity, heat, and food consumption may have strong impacts on GHG emissions opening interesting opportunities for climate change mitigation among end-users. In this direction, this paper aims at investigating the impact (if any) of two important 2015 events on consumer behaviour and awareness about the climate and environmental impacts of their everyday choices. Indeed, in current society, media coverage of events has shown to be relevant in affecting consumer perceptions and behaviour. The events analysed are: the release of Pope Francis' encyclical ‘Laudato si’ - On Care For Our Common Home’ about environmental issues and climate change; and the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) with the signature of the Paris Agreement. Data were collected via interviews with a sample of consumers in the context of Milan, a large European city. Data were analysed by means of descriptive statistics and ordinal regression models. Results indicate that such events have had an effect, mostly on people that have a positive attitude towards such events but were not so much aware about the related discussions beforehand. Policy implications highlight the role of opinion leaders in engaging the segments of population that are not already proactive on the matter, which is indeed the target of well-aimed policies.

A case of urban integration: Vienna's port area and the Ottoman merchants in the eighteenth century

AbstractStudying the Ottoman subjects in eighteenth-century Vienna helps to understand better the process of integration of the different districts of the city in a fast-changing context, especially around its Danube port area. Despite the withdrawal of the Ottoman empire from central Europe after 1683, Ottomans were fully a part of the history of Vienna and their presence has to be explored within the specific urban dynamics of a city: the reconfiguration of its economic sectors and social places, the tensions at play between the socio-economic groups by which a city was made and the evolution of its urban planning. Focusing on the Ottoman merchants operating in Vienna allows us to identify and to analyse the workings of the port area of the fourth largest city in Europe and to explore the social spaces of Viennese markets, streets, courtyards and coffeehouses.

ДИСКУРСНЕ ПОЛЕ ПРОБЛЕМАТИКИ ФОРМУВАННЯ МЕХАНІЗМІВ ДЕРЖАВНОГО РЕГУЛЮВАННЯ ПОЖЕЖНОЇ БЕЗПЕКИ

The article deals with the discourse field of problems of formation of mechanisms of state regulation of fire safety. It is stated that, during the Middle Ages, the largest cities in Europe were constantly affected by devastating fires. Moscow and Kiev were repeatedly devastated by fire, and Strasbourg burned down eight times in the fourteenth century. Berlin completely burned out twice. In London, on September 2, 1666, such a grand fire began, which could not be extinguished for five days. The devastating element destroyed nearly 13,000 homes and 87 churches. It is noted that during the medieval wars there were frequent fires, but still the main cause of the fire is the human factor, combined with primitive building technologies, a large number of flammable materials for construction and the inability of man to adequately resist fire. It has been determined that, understanding the fatalities of fires, the state apparatus, at first, chaotically and haphazardly, undertakes the introduction of mechanisms of state regulation of fighting fires and their consequences. Small towns are formed, following the example of military wives. They are united for the purpose of combating fire on their own - ladders and buckets deliver water to places of fire, extinguish fires by improvised means. It is noted that the constant looming threat of fire in crowded cities, and especially in the summer, required people to take precautionary measures. At the same time, the first state-approved rules emerge to determine what people should do to prevent a fire, minimize its effects, and bear responsibility for the careless handling of fire. Analyzing the experience of the states of the ancient world, it is determined that the military units, because of the high degree of their organization, were the main tool for extinguishing fires. This practice has taken place not only in Ancient Rome and China, but also in Babylon, Egypt, Iran and others. Thus, in the mechanisms of state regulation of the development of fire safety, there are two main directions: prevention of fires and organization of fire fighting.

Understanding the Benefits from Green Areas in Rome: The Role of Evergreen and Deciduous Species in Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Capability

Urban areas are a major source of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions because of road traffic and local heating with natural gas, oil or coal. Rome is among the largest European cities (129,000 ha) with a large volume of green areas (69.6% of the total Municipality area). The CO2 sequestration (CS) capability for the greenery extending for about 300 km2 inside the area delimited by the Great Ring Road (GRA) in Rome was calculated combining satellite data with CS data measured in the field. Data from Sentinel-2 were collected and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was computed on a pixel-base. Three plant classes homogeneous in terms of annual NDVI profile were identified: deciduous trees (DT), evergreen trees (ET) and meadows (M) covering an area of 14,142.027 ha within the GRA, of which M had the highest percentage (48%), followed by DT (27%) and ET (25%). CS ranged from 428,241,492.9 Tons CO2 year-1 (ET) to 263,072,460.6 Tons CO2 year-1 (M). The total CS of the greenery inside the GRA was 1049,490,355.4 Tons CO2 year-1 resulting in an annual economic value of $772,424,901.6/ha. The CO2 sequestration capability of the considered plant classes could be incorporated into the national greenhouse gas emission budget to calculate the contribution of CO2 sequestration to the economy of Rome.

В объятиях музыки любви. К юбилею Дж.Б. Виотти

The article explores the biography of Giovanni Battista Viotti—the outstanding violinist of the turn of the 18th-19th centuries whose work and life have received little attention in Russia. Valuable archival documents discovered by foreign scholars in recent decades shed light on Viotti’s creative life. Of considerable interest is the formation of his performing career, associated with the years Viotti spent in Turin under the patronage of Prince della Cisterna. The article provides curious facts about the concert tour undertaken with the teacher G. Pugnani around Russia and the largest European cities that was crowned by Viotti's brilliant debut in Paris. Until now, little has been known about Viotti's life and work in London, where he spent half of his life after his flee from the French capital. While in London, Viotti composed the concerts for violin and orchestra No. 20 D-major, No. 22 a-minor, and No. 23 G-major. Today, these well-known concerts form the basis of educational repertoires. At the end of the 20th century, the Australian scientist D. Yim discovered Viotti's correspondence with the famous English aristocratic family of Chinnery. The discovery was a sensation. The finding reveals a lot about Viotti’s life and work in London and provides a better understanding of the deep emotional experiences hidden behind his beautiful creations.

ХІХ ғасырдағы Мысыр қалаларының даму тарихы

Egypt has always attracted the attention of researchers as one of the oldest centers of civilization; many historical, geographical, cultural and religious studies have been devoted to its study. Taking into account the fact that the Arab Republic of Egypt occupies a leading position in the modern Arab East, more attention in historical and cultural studies is paid to the problems of the formation of Egypt, the history of its political, socioeconomic, cultural, literary and religious movements of modern and modern times. However, the processes of urbanization in Egypt today are on the periphery of sociocultural research, they are not given due attention. The beginning of the 19th century and the reforms of Muhammad Ali, as well as the construction of the Suez Canal, can be considered a conventional starting point for urbanization. The scientific article shows a direct relationship between the construction of the Suez Canal and the processes of Europeanization of the country launched by Muhammad Ali and his successors. The creation of large European cities, the impetus for the development of which was given by the construction of the Suez Canal, was subjected to a detailed analysis.

Compact and green urban development—towards a framework to assess urban development for a high-density metropolis

This paper proposes a framework for measuring compactness and urban green accessibility in a high-density transit-oriented metropolis and uses Taipei City and its surrounding outskirts, New Taipei City, as a case to illustrate the measurement framework. Two indices, urban compactness index (UCI) and urban green accessibility index (UGAI), are developed to illustrate various aspects of a sustainable urban built environment, with UCI including density of residents and commercial activities, land use mix, street connectivity, access to center/subcenters, and access to transit stops, and UGAI measuring access to public urban green spaces. We found that while great spatial variations exist among different parts, our study area has a distinguished polycentric pattern of UCI index with three distinct clusters around the center and sub-centers illustrating higher index values in 2015. When compared to UCI, UGAI has a similar polycentric but more dispersed spatial pattern, as well as linear patterns along river corridors. We found that most areas of medium or high UCI values are located in areas of either plan-induced or plan-expanded development. UCI values in areas of plan-expanded development are generally higher than that of areas of plan-induced development. UCI and UGAI are spatially correlated to a certain extent. We found that most centers and one particular subcenter have high UCI and UGAI, moving towards both compactness and good green accessibility. Two subcenters with high UCI and low UGAI, i.e. Banqiao and Yonghe, call for planning to provide green spaces for residents living in these rising subcenters. UCI and UGAI can be applied and used to assess compact and green urban development of other cities and they are particularly useful to dense urban environment of large cities in Europe and Asia.

Preservation and development of historical heritage of gardens and parks in large European cities

The aim of the research is the study of the historical architectural and planning heritage, modern concepts of development of open and green urban spaces. A comparative analysis was made, which allowed to supplement the idea of changes in approaches and tools for creating park architecture, recreational urban areas. The sources for this article were cartographic, literary, photographic materials (historical and modern, made during field studies). As a result, the main stages of evolution of gardens and parks of some European cities, modern trends of adaptation of urban gardens and parks to modern requirements are revealed. parks in most cases occupy the largest percentage of the historical environment of the city. Changes in the planning and construction of cities began in the XIX century, when there was an active appeal to the capital’s architectural models, which in turn contributed to the renewal of the traditional architecture of parks. The study of the history of the evolution of green spaces in the planning system showed the stratification of many historical and modern urban planning and spatial solutions.

The importance of hybrid vehicles in urban traffic in terms of environmental impact

Many large cities in Europe are currently trying to reduce the amount of harmful substances for the residents. Road transport is also an important source of air pollution. One way to reduce pollutant production is to operate more environmentally friendly vehicles. The paper analyses data obtained during practical tests of a hybrid vehicle in urban traffic. The individual components of the exhaust gases are calculated in g/km and they are compared with the values for conventional vehicle propulsion. The data was obtained through a commercially available exhaust gas analyzer and a calculated amount of emissions produced from available data from the engine control unit. The results shown that using of this type of propulsion has its importance in cities with increased air pollution. During urban operation, the hybrid-powered vehicle was powered by an electric engine up to 67.70 % (75.40 % of the time). As a result of operating such a vehicle in the city, emissions of CO2, HC and NOx are significantly lower.

Gentrification, transnational gentrification and touristification in Seville, Spain

Increased international tourism in large European cities has been a growing social and political issue over the last few years. As the number of urban tourists has rapidly grown, studies have often focused on its socio-spatial consequences, commonly referred to as touristification, and have linked this to gentrification. This connection makes sense within the framework of planetary gentrification theories because the social injustices it generates in cities have a global pattern. However, gentrification is a complex process that must be analytically differentiated from tourism strategies and their effects. Whereas gentrification means a lower income population replaced by one of a higher status, touristification consists of an increase in tourist activity that generally implies the loss of residents. Strategies to appropriate and marketise culture to sustain tourism-led economies can also shape more attractive places for foreign wealthy newcomers, whose arrival has been theorised as transnational gentrification. Discussions on the relationship between gentrification, transnational gentrification and touristification are essential, especially regarding how they work in transforming an urban area’s social fabric, for which Seville, Spain’s fourth largest city with an economy specialised in cultural tourism, provides a starting point. The focus is set on the processes’ timelines and similar patterns, which are tested on three consecutive scales of analysis: the city, the historic district and the Alameda neighbourhood. Through the examination of these transformations, the article concludes that transnational gentrification and touristification are new urban strategies and practices to revalorise real estate and appropriate urban surplus in unique urban areas.

Observed Trends in Thermal Stress at European Cities with Different Background Climates

Intensification of extreme temperatures combined with other socioeconomic factors may exacerbate human thermal risk. The disastrous impacts of extreme weather during the last two decades demonstrated the increased vulnerability of populations even in developed countries from Europe, which are expected to efficiently manage adverse weather. The study aims to assess trends in the exposure of European populations to extreme weather using updated historical climatic data in large European cities of different local climates and a set of climatic and bioclimatic indices. Colder cities experience higher warming rates in winter (exceeding 1 °C/decade since the mid-1970s) and warmer cities in summer. Hot extremes have almost tripled in most cities during the last two or three decades with simultaneous advancing of hot weather, while northernmost cities have experienced an unprecedented increase in the heat waves frequency only during the last decade. Bioclimatic indices suggested a robust tendency towards less cold-related stress (mainly in cold cities) and more heat-related stress in all cities. A doubling or tripling in the frequency of heat-related ‘great discomfort’ was found in southern cities, while in the cities of northern Europe, heat-related ‘discomfort’ conditions are becoming increasingly more frequent and have nearly quadrupled during the last decade.

Schools are segregated by educational outcomes in the digital space.

The Internet provides students with a unique opportunity to connect and maintain social ties with peers from other schools, irrespective of how far they are from each other. However, little is known about the real structure of such online relationships. In this paper, we investigate the structure of interschool friendship on a popular social networking site. We use data from 36, 951 students from 590 schools of a large European city. We find that the probability of a friendship tie between students from neighboring schools is high and that it decreases with the distance between schools following the power law. We also find that students are more likely to be connected if the educational outcomes of their schools are similar. We show that this fact is not a consequence of residential segregation. While high- and low-performing schools are evenly distributed across the city, this is not the case for the digital space, where schools turn out to be segregated by educational outcomes. There is no significant correlation between the educational outcomes of a school and its geographical neighbors; however, there is a strong correlation between the educational outcomes of a school and its digital neighbors. These results challenge the common assumption that the Internet is a borderless space, and may have important implications for the understanding of educational inequality in the digital age.

Emerging divided cities in China: Socioeconomic segregation in Shanghai, 2000–2010

Compared with North America and Western Europe, Chinese cities used to feature a low extent of socioeconomic segregation. However, systematic analysis of the changes in socioeconomic segregation after the end of the provision of welfare housing is needed. Using residential-committee-level data from the fifth and sixth censuses of Shanghai, for the first time, this article systematically charts changes in socioeconomic segregation in Chinese cities over the period 2000–2010. Along with the emergence of high-status neighbourhoods and migrant neighbourhoods, Shanghai has grown more divided based on individual socioeconomic status. The extent of socioeconomic segregation in Shanghai was comparable to that of large US and European cities. While patterns of sociospatial divisions are different across central and suburban areas, the level of educational segregation becomes greater than that of hukou segregation. The crucial role of housing commodification in driving these changes highlights the importance of contextual and institutional factors in understanding the dynamics of segregation.

Fast methods for finding significant motifs on labelled multi-relational networks

Abstract A labelled multi-relational network (or labelled multigraph, for short) is one in which nodes have labels and a pair of nodes may be connected by an edge with one or more labels. For example, in an airline route database, ‘large European city’ may be the label on the Paris node and ‘large Asian city’ may be the label on the New Delhi node and the edge between the two cities may be labelled by several carriers. This article presents an analytical method to compute the p-values of labelled subgraph (sub-network) motifs in such labelled multi-relational networks (multigraphs). The method (and a fast approximation to the method) works for both directed and undirected graphs and extends to large subgraphs. We have validated these methods on a dataset of medium size real networks (up to tens of thousands of nodes and hundreds of thousands of edges) of different types (biological, infrastructural and collaboration networks). The pure analytical model is faster than a randomized simulation model by a factor of approximately 1000 in most of our experiments. This improvement in performance is greater for larger graphs. The approximate analytical model avoids the calculations of statistical variance and achieves nearly the same precision and recall as the pure analytical model while being several times faster. To test the scalability of our methods, we run our algorithms on synthetic and real datasets from protein–protein interaction networks, airline flight paths, the internet infrastructural network and the IMDB movie network. We also illustrate a use case of this form of analysis on a large relationship network of people involved in the Panama papers scandal, retrieving frequently used money laundering patterns. labelled multigraphs motif enumeration; motif statistical significance; random network models; multi-relational networks; multigraphs.

Infraestructuras urbanas y Modernidad. Nuevas necesidades y nuevos servicios de una España urbana moderna, 1900-1936

En el último tercio del siglo XIX el crecimiento demográfico y la expansión urbana agravaron los problemas de hacinamiento y salubridad en las grandes urbes europeas. La nueva sociedad urbana demandó el desarrollo de las infraestructuras y los servicios públicos. Sin redes de abastecimiento de agua y alimentación, sin sistemas de eliminación y tratamiento de residuos –sólidos y líquidos-, sin una red de salud pública que solventara los problemas de salubridad y sanitarios, sin nuevos sistemas de transporte que permitieran la movilidad interior de las metrópolis en construcción, la sociedad urbana de comienzos del siglo XX hubiera colapsado, incapaz de hacer frente a los retos de su expansión acelerada. En España este proceso se desarrolló durante el primer tercio del siglo XX, el crecimiento urbano fue acompañado por la mejora de las infraestructuras y la expansión de los sistemas de transporte público y privado, en los años treinta la sociedad urbana española lideraba la gran transformación que acercaba al país a la modernidad y a los parámetros de las modernas sociedades europeas

Cosmopolitan Immigration Attitudes in Large European Cities: Contextual or Compositional Effects?

Europe is geographically divided on the issue of immigration. Large cities are the home of Cosmopolitan Europe, where immigration is viewed positively. Outside the large cities—and especially in the countryside—is Nationalist Europe, where immigration is a threat. This divide is well documented and much discussed, but there has been scant research onwhypeople in large cities are more likely to have favorable opinions about immigration. Debates about geographic differences generally highlight two explanations: contextual or compositional effects. I evaluate the two with data from the European Social Survey, the Swiss Household Panel, and the German Socio-Economic Panel. Results support compositional effects and highlight the importance of (demographic and cultural) mechanisms that sort pro-immigration people into large cities. This has several implications for our understanding of societal divisions in Europe; most notably that geographic polarization is a second-order manifestation of deeper (demographic and cultural) divides.

The 18th And 19th Century Industrialization Process as The Main Aspect of City Creation and Its Impact On Contemporary City Structures: The Case of Lodz

The article analyses the 18th and 19th century industrial towns transformation and the development in their structures. Due to science and technological advancement occurring in the industrial era, medieval and renaissance methods of city planning became inefficient. Industrialization forced great changes in urban planning and usage of natural resources in the most of the European towns. The case of Lodz – little agricultural town which changed into one of the biggest textile production centers in continental Europe over less than a century – indicates the importance of industry-related developments on its unique appearance and local identity at present. Lodz was transforming from craftsman town into the metropolitan area with the use of semi-rural layout from the early stage of industrialization. As a result, the city developed into a mixture of public spaces with strict planning law of iron-grid pattern surrounded with independent production centers as well as suburban residential structures without unified urban plan. As a result, a large European city emerged. It urban structure was subject of further extensions and transformations, especially in the second half of the 20th century. The most important were the changes in usage of public spaces and the emergence of new means of transport. Due to these transformations streets had to be widened, causing demolition of buildings, which resulted in destroying the compact urban structure. Another reason of the city deterioration was economic problems connected with political issues. In 1962 Lodz was one of the biggest manufacturing center where 58,8% of employment was recorded in the textile industry which show how that part of economy was connected with city. Some thirty years later at the early stage of post-communist transformation the textile production decline and a lack of new investments led to regression. The city created by industry underwent a metamorphosis. The factory closures badly affected not only the local economy but also traditional urban structure, and as a result caused the loss of identity and destroyed emotional links of local society with the city. The main aspect of article is to discuss how spatial organization of the industrial city, its urban structure and its way of functioning affected urban planning after the deindustrialization process, and how these factors shape the existing as well future city structures.