Urban Modernity Research Articles

Unveiling health dynamics: Exploring the impact of CO2 emissions, urbanization, and renewable energy on life expectancy and infant mortality in SAARC countries (1990–2022)

AbstractThis study examines the intensifying threat to public health caused by increased CO2 emissions from energy and modern urbanization. In this connection, we focused on SAARC countries from 1990 to 2022. The study explores the dynamic association among urbanization, CO2 emissions, renewable energy, and key health indicators, namely life expectancy and infant mortality. It offers nuanced insights by highlighting the requirement for sustainable policies to meet health challenges associated with CO2 emissions and urban development in SAARC economies. To achieve the study objectives, the authors utilized panel auto regressive distributed lag for assessing short‐term and long‐run effects, and the method of moments quantile regressions to check these effects across different quantiles. The empirical results underscore the positive impact of renewable energy, urbanization, GDP, and industrialization on life expectancy. Conversely, CO2 emissions exhibit a detrimental impact on life expectancy, leading towards numerous diseases in both the short and long term. Notably, in the case of infant mortality, the study discloses that renewable energy, urbanization, GDP, and industrialization negatively affect infant mortality, while CO2 emissions positively impact infant mortality in both short and long‐run scenarios. Fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares further fortified our findings, supporting the results derived from panel auto regressive distributed lag and method of moments quantile regressions. The study's policy implications highlight the imperative for governments and policymakers to prioritize renewable energy and sustainable urbanization, mitigating the adverse health effects of CO2 emissions from non‐renewable energy sources. The study's findings further endorse a strategic shift towards renewable energy sources, positioning them as substitutes for conventional forms such as fossil fuels. Additionally, the emphasis is on planned and sustainable urbanization, facilitating improved access to health facilities and overall public health.

Counter-discourses to social inequalities and urban modernity: Subaltern women in post-2000s Chinese science fiction

ABSTRACT The issues of resurgent class and gender inequalities, rapid urbanization, and huge regional disparity were a notable focus of many post-2000s Chinese science fiction, which vividly created images of subaltern females. This paper looks at how contemporary Chinese sci-fi authors seek social justice by representing the experiences of various subaltern women within the specific genre of science fiction. It argues that the images of socially and culturally marginalized women were used as effective tools for questioning the intersectional social inequalities in contemporary China. The works discussed in this article all problematize the nature and influences of urban modernity by revealing the intersections, tensions, and contradictions between subaltern women and the classed, gendered modernization process. The sci-fi realist portrayal of subaltern agency and gender struggle also helps to generate powerful counter-discourses to urban modernity and technological utopia.

Travel Characteristics of Urban Residents Based on Taxi Trajectories in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Wuhan

With the advancement of urban modernization, more and more residents are flocking to large cities, leading to problems such as severe traffic congestion, uneven distribution of spatial resources, and deterioration of the urban environment. These challenges pose a serious threat to the coordinated development of cities. In order to better understand the travel behavior of metropolitan residents and provide valuable insights for urban planning, this study utilizes taxi trajectory data from the central areas of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Wuhan. First, the relationship between daytime taxi drop-off points and urban amenities is explored using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). Subsequently, Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) techniques were applied to identify spatial differences in these urban drivers. The results show that commonalities emerge across the four cities in the interaction between external transport stops and commercial areas. In addition, the average daily travel patterns of residents in these four cities show a trend of “three peaks and three valleys”, indicating the commonality of travel behavior. In summary, this study explores the travel characteristics of urban residents, which can help urban planners understand travel patterns more effectively. This is crucial for the strategic allocation of transport resources across regions, the promotion of sustainable urban transport, and the reduction in carbon emissions.

Путь эстетика в искусстве (К юбилею Е.Н. Устюговой)

<span lang="EN-US">The article is dedicated to E. N. Ustyugova, a famous Russian scientist, specialist in the field of aesthetics and philosophy of culture. The article indicates the main areas of research by E. N. Ustyugova, including: the </span><span lang="EN-US">history of aesthetics, </span><span lang="EN-US">the history of artistic styles, the art and aesthetics of the Russian avant-garde, environmental aesthetics, ethical and aesthetic problems of modern urbanism, the city as a unity of the ecology of nature and the ecology of culture, etc. It is noted that E. N. Ustyugova is a constant organizer and participant of such significant scientific events </span><span lang="EN-US">as the Russian Aesthetic Congress, </span><span lang="EN-US">the scientific conference “Kaganov Readings” (Institute of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University), the international scientific conference “Polylogue and synthesis of arts: history and modernity, theory and practice” (St. Petersburg State Conservatory named after N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov), scientific and practical seminar “Current Aesthetics” (Institute of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University) and many others. The article is based on impressions from the author’s personal acquaintance with Professor E. N. Ustyugova in the period from 2009 to the present.</span>

Ecological City Planning and Construction Research

In the process of modern urbanization, the construction of ecological city has become an inevitable trend. With the improvement of economic level, people are increasingly demanding a higher quality of life. Cities are the broadest living space for human beings and the foothold for improving the quality of life. The planning and construction of eco-cities satisfy the harmonious relationship between cities and ecological environment, which is of great significance for the sustainable development of urbanization and conforms to the urbanization requirements of harmonious coexistence between human and nature. There have been a lot of researches on eco-city, mainly involving the path exploration of eco-city construction, the practice situation, and the research related to different factors. At present, the construction of eco-city is in the initial stage of exploration, and still faces some development problems. This paper summarizes the connotation of eco-city, analyzes the problems existing in the current stage of eco-city construction, and puts forward some solutions to these obstacles, aiming at promoting the steady development of eco-city construction.

Spatiotemporal evolution of urban landscapes in Chinese historic water towns (1918–2021)

This study explores the spatiotemporal evolution of urban landscapes in 19 Chinese historic water towns in the northern Zhejiang plain. Utilising historical maps and remote sensing images, we derived 2-D morphological patterns from town ground plans in 1918, 1969, 2000, and 2021 to represent urban landscape fractions (buildings, lands, and waters). Morphology-based landscape metrics reveal three distinct periods of urban landscape dynamics over the past century: stabilisation (1918–1969), accelerated growth (1969–2000), and high-speed growth (2000–2021). Our findings present a diminishing role of rivers in shaping land fragments and urban riverscapes, behind which is the weakening conventional water-human relationship during water towns’ modern urbanisation. The results offer insights into shifting water town landscape patterns and regional landscape heterogeneity, prompting further considerations of hydrology-oriented urban design and planning to conserve historic urban landscapes.

Effect of Different Water-Retaining Agents and 1-Aminobenzotriazole Rooting Powder on the Survival of Ornamental Tree Transplants

Tree transplanting has become a crucial technical tool in both national afforestation projects and the development of garden greening. The demand for creating green ecological urban environments has significantly increased with the development of modern urbanization and improved living standards. Consequently, there is an increasing need for ornamental trees in urban construction. Ensuring higher survival rates in tree transplantation technology is of utmost importance. Given that temperature strongly influences tree growth, it is imperative to investigate how different water-retaining agents (WRAs) and 1-aminobenzotriazole (ABT) rooting powder impact the survival rate of transplanted ornamental trees. After transplantation, ornamental trees were subjected to varying dosages of WRAs and concentrations of ABT rooting powder, and their cold tolerance (CT) was evaluated using the conductivity method and growth test. The results revealed that the application of rooting powder significantly enhanced the CT of willow trees by 24.4%, 14.7%, and 30.2% in September, December, and March, compared with untreated ones. For the same months, the CT of magnolia trees increased by 57.4%, 23.7%, and 16.8%. Additionally, during those months, the CT of cypress trees treated with WRAs showed remarkable improvement, increasing by 108.9%, 108.9%, and 108.9%, respectively, with enhancements of 6.6% and 27.3% compared to untreated cypress trees. These findings highlight the crucial importance of investigating the impact of various WRAs and ABT rooting powder on the survival rate of transplanted ornamental trees, establishing a crucial benchmark for future advancements in this domain.

Circadian Rhythms of Body Temperature and Locomotor Activity in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats under Frequent Changes in Light Conditions.

Changes in lighting accompany modern urbanization trends and can lead to various pathologies based on circadian disturbances. In this study, we assessed the changes in the circadian rhythm of core body temperature (Tcore) and locomotor activity of Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY) and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) following exposure to different lighting conditions: extended light phase of the day (16 h-8 h, 20 h-4 h, 24 h-0 h), light pollution, monochromatic light, and bright light therapy. The telemetry data was collected after experimental lighting conditions during periods with standard lighting (12 h of light and 12 h of darkness) and was processed using linear and cosinor analysis. The daily rhythms of rats' parameters persisted in accordance with the standard lighting regime. Tcore changes were observed in both groups compared to the initial period: in WKY, a decrease in Tcore during the darkness and an increase during the light; in SHR, the opposite trend, with Tcore increased during the darkness and decreased during the light phase of the day. A relationship between Tcore and activity was observed with weak correlation. WKY exhibited more pronounced signs of adaptive variation and desynchronization compared to SHR, which could be associated with a wider range of functional capabilities of the organism without cardiovascular pathology.

The Difficulties and Explorations of Old Community Retrofitting Based on the Sponge City Concept - The case of 240 community in the old urban area of Xi'an

The rapid development of China's urban modernization has become an important driving force for the flourishing of various economic, social and cultural sectors. At the same time, the process of urbanization has led to the serious phenomenon of "urban diseases", particularly urban water problems. To effectively mitigate the negative impacts of urban floods and droughts, China has proposed a nature-based solution - the sponge city concept. Furthermore, urban renewal initiatives and the Old Urban Renewal Programme (OURP) are vital components in sustainable development to ensure quality urban development and enhance residents' health and well-being.

Incipient Salinization: A Case Study of the Spring of Asclepieion in Lentas (Ancient Lebena), Crete

Sanctuaries devoted to Asclepius were established and operated for almost a thousand years in various Greek and Roman cities throughout the Mediterranean region. The Asclepieion sanctuary in Lentas (formerly known as Ancient Lebena) in Crete was famous for receiving water from a sacred spring. In Ancient Lebena, Levinaion was a famous centre for hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, and a psychiatric hospital. In the present paper, we aim to assess the hydrochemical status of this sacred spring that holds a prominent position in archaeological and historical studies. The main objectives of this study are: Initially, to present supervisory evidence (archaeological, geological, hydrochemical) of an area that was a water resource management model for many centuries, carrying out therapeutic work. The second objective is to present and compare hydrochemical data in the last century, i.e., from 1915 to 2021. The third objective is to highlight and warn of an incipient saltwater intrusion in the area along the Lentas coast. The fourth objective is to propose an alternative and sustainable form of water resources management in the region that requires the study and rational utilization of the sporadic small water springs in the region. Our study focuses on a basic hydrochemical analysis of spring and borehole water in the remains of Levinaion in the Lentas region, and their comparison with sparse historical data of the sacred spring water, aiming to interpret the impact of the changes in the spring water resources that occurred in recent decades due to urban modernization. Our results highlight (i) visible fluctuations in chemical composition of borehole water samples; (ii) a neutral to alkaline pH in borehole waters and an alkaline pH in spring waters; (iii) undetectable arsenic in Lentas borehole water, unlike historical data of Lentas spring water; (iv) low values of dissolved radon in Lentas borehole water and the spring water of Kefalovrysa; and (v) a timeless constant and hypothermic nature of the water of both the sacred spring and borehole of Lentas, and also of the Kefalovrysa spring. The recorded historical data, i.e., from 1915 to 1957, due to the absence of substantial anthropogenic activity in the area, can be used as reference values (natural background levels, NBLs) for the Lentas area. Our findings emerge with the need to bring again the flowing spring water of the sacred spring of Lentas in its original form through sustainable management and re-discover its beneficial therapeutical effects.

Agriculture and the ideals of urban modernity: the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

ABSTRACT This article studies the policy dynamics of irrigated agriculture in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, based on stakeholder interviews and a literature review. We found that irrigated urban agriculture receives a positive reception supported by a discourse that values productivity, but this is increasingly challenged by a discourse that focuses on health and modernity. Whereas authorities aim for modern farming models, most urban farmers contribute to the city’s economy and food system based on informal and insecure access to land and water. These two types of urban agriculture exemplify the tension between planning ideals and urban reality.

Advanced Smart Grid Architecture for Sustainable Energy Integration in Modern Urban Environments

Advanced Smart Grid Architecture for Sustainable Energy Integration in Modern Urban Environments

Title: “Unreal, Purely Formal Relations”: Realism in Christian Schad’s Drawings of Queer Nightspots for Ein Führer durch das ‘lasterhafte’ Berlin (1931)

Art historian Benjamin Buchloh influentially framed the career of German artist Christian Schad (1894–1982) as exemplifying the “return to realism” undertaken by many formerly avant-garde European artists post-World War I. In 1917, as an adherent of Zürich Dada, Schad created the first intentionally abstract photograms. However, by the 1920s, the newly Berlin-based Schad turned to copiously realistic paintings of urban modernity’s paradigmatic figures – including, uniquely among his fellow Neue Sachlichkeit painters, denizens of the German capital’s then-burgeoning queer social spaces. By analysing in-depth Schad’s pen-and-ink illustrations of Berlin’s queer nightspots for Curt Moreck’s sensationalistic 1931 tour-guide Führer durch das ‘lasterhafte’ Berlin, this paper will, for the first time, connect Schad’s return to illusionistic pictorial representation to his representation of queer communities. Positioning Schad’s figuration not as regressive or reactionary but as defined by the hollowing out of realist mimetic conventions and their humanist ideological underpinnings, I propose Schad’s ink lines both denied and asserted their capacity for spatial illusion. Historicising this self-negating realism through Siegfried Kracauer and Georg Simmel’s writings on urban spatial alienation, I argue Schad pictured these nightspots as paragons of the general impossibility of intimate connection under Weimar modernity, popularly attributed to sexual desire’s perceived rampant commodification and dramatised in his drawings through the insistently non-reciprocal play of gazes between their figures. Ultimately, I contend Schad’s portrayal of queer nightspots as privileged sites of a generalised sexual alienation neither indicted nor celebrated Weimar Berlin’s sexual and gender minorities. Rather, their alienated atmosphere reflected Schad’s incapacity, in a fundamentally incoherent society, to forge a self-contained aesthetic whole from the dizzying array of social and sexual experience in Weimar Berlin, that “city of many possibilities and impossibilities.”

Jeddah strategic approaches to sustainable urban development and vision 2030 alignment

Abstract This research article provides an in-depth look into the urban development trajectory of Jeddah, a historic port city in Saudi Arabia, which has developed into a vibrant urban center that reflects its rich past and ambitious future. The study systematically explores Jeddah’s journey through different lenses—its strategic geographical location as a maritime and pilgrimage gateway, its historical development dating back to the seventh century and its transformation influenced by diverse cultural and economic interactions. It comprehensively analyzes Jeddah’s social and economic fabric, demographic trends and the impact of these factors on the city’s urban landscape. This article examines the governance and regulatory frameworks that shape development policies in Jeddah and addresses how these frameworks are designed to meet the challenges of modern urbanization, including rapid population growth, infrastructure requirements and environmental sustainability. The research also examines the city’s response to these challenges, focusing on strategic planning, infrastructure development and sustainable urban initiatives that align with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030. This article provides an in-depth understanding of urban dynamics in Jeddah, presenting it as a case study for managing growth and modernization in rapid urban environments.

Urban Space and the Cultural Construction of Modern Subjectivities: Tehran’s Women in Novels

Exploring Tehran’s urban modernity through the Iranian novel, this paper argues that the identities of modern urban space and modern female subjectivities are constructed in an intertwined relation. Focusing on two novels that depict life in Tehran in the early twentieth century, I investigate the idea of the street as a new urban space, and wandering on the street as a new urban practice, particularly as understood by the novels’ female characters. The portrayal of the “modern woman” through her practices of using urban space, her visibility on the street - or the lack of it - and her relationship to the consumption of commodities presents two contrasting modes of Iranian modernity, one intellectual, the other concerned with the liberation of the body. I suggest that these novels both identify and help to create versions of “desirable” and “undesirable” modernity that remain relevant in the Iran of today.

Deep-Learning-Based Real-Time Visual Pollution Detection in Urban and Textile Environments

The environmental physiognomy of an area can significantly diminish its aesthetic appeal, rendering it susceptible to visual pollution, the unbeaten scourge of modern urbanization. In this study, we propose using a deep learning network and a robotic vision system integrated with Google Street View to identify streets and textile-based visual pollution in Dhaka, the megacity of Bangladesh. The issue of visual pollution extends to the global apparel and textile industry, as well as to various common urban elements such as billboards, bricks, construction materials, street litter, communication towers, and entangled electric wires. Our data collection encompasses a wide array of visual pollution elements, including images of towers, cables, construction materials, street litter, cloth dumps, dyeing materials, and bricks. We employ two open-source tools to prepare and label our dataset: LabelImg and Roboflow. We develop multiple neural network models to swiftly and accurately identify and classify visual pollutants in this work, including Faster SegFormer, YOLOv5, YOLOv7, and EfficientDet. The tuna swarm optimization technique has been used to select the applied models’ final layers and corresponding hyperparameters. In terms of hardware, our proposed system comprises a Xiaomi-CMSXJ22A web camera, a 3.5-inch touchscreen display, and a Raspberry Pi 4B microcontroller. Subsequently, we program the microcontroller with the YOLOv5 model. Rigorous testing and trials are conducted on these deep learning models to evaluate their performance against various metrics, including accuracy, recall, regularization and classification losses, mAP, precision, and more. The proposed system for detecting and categorizing visual pollution within the textile industry and urban environments has achieved notable results. Notably, the YOLOv5 and YOLOv7 models achieved 98% and 92% detection accuracies, respectively. Finally, the YOLOv5 technique has been deployed into the Raspberry Pi edge device for instantaneous visual pollution detection. The proposed visual pollutants detection device can be easily mounted on various platforms (like vehicles or drones) and deployed in different urban environments for on-site, real-time monitoring. This mobility is crucial for comprehensive street-level data collection, potentially engaging local communities, schools, and universities in understanding and participating in environmental monitoring efforts. The comprehensive dataset on visual pollution will be published in the journal following the acceptance of our manuscript.

Research on the Business Model and Development of NetEase Cloud Music

With the rapid development of the internet in today's world, there is a growing demand for online music streaming, accompanied by the formation of a substantial user base. According to statistical data, the majority of users belong to the 90s and 00s generations. It is precisely these younger customer segments that have transformed the characteristics of music products from a singular playback format to a more mobile and social experience. Presently, the market features prominent music streaming applications such as NetEase Cloud Music, QQ Music, and Xiami Music, each offering similar functionalities along with their unique preferences. This paper focuses on the business model, marketing strategies, and potential cross-industry offline operational models of NetEase Cloud Music, a subsidiary of NetEase. The paper employs SWOT and 4Ps analysis methods to explore the strengths, weaknesses, and growth prospects of this application as well as its marketing model. Additionally, this paper envisions a cross-industry offline development model for NetEase Cloud Music that integrates the lifestyle needs of a youthful user base and adheres to the operational dynamics of modern urbanization.

Choreographing urban ambulance in Britain, c.1870–1920: movement, gender, biological time and the city

ABSTRACT Modern British ambulance originated during the late 1800s in the country’s metropolitan areas. The fast-urbanising cities of Glasgow and London recognised that biological-temporal need required the time between injury and specialist care to compress. This was nowhere more urgent than in the large number of burn injuries that occurred in the cities’ homes and workplaces. In tracing the origins and choreography of ambulance – a set of skills; a body of trained responders; and emergency service vehicles – in Glasgow and London, this article argues that the rollout of ambulance technologies was a key moment in urban modernity. Using first aid publications, newspapers, police and fire brigade reports, and London Ambulance Service log books, we reveal how much of the early development of first aid was improvised by enterprising individuals. This led to the formation of voluntary organisations, the St John and St Andrew’s Ambulance Associations in England and Scotland respectively, followed by municipal services at the turn of the twentieth century. This early choreography of ambulance was organised on strictly gendered lines, which shut women out of public-facing roles before the First World War, and we discuss the ways in which this was achieved, from clothing to learning.

Employable femininity and multisensorial hierarchies: becoming aesthetic citizens in Nepal’s aviation training industry

ABSTRACT This article discusses Nepal’s private airhostess training industry and trainees’ bodily and personal transformations in relation to hegemonic norms and practices of citizenship. Drawing on ethnographic research in Kathmandu, it examines everyday encounters in a training institute where young women learn to become flight attendants for international and domestic airlines. The article demonstrates that interactions between instructors and trainees make visible and (re)shape notions of employability, urban modernity, and the Nepali nation in relation to bodily appearance, grooming practices, and self-presentation. By acquiring new orientations and habits, trainees are encouraged to overcome some gendered norms while adhering to others in order to embody a particular vision of employable femininity. Analysing how becoming an aesthetic and modern citizen is put into practice in the aviation training industry, the article centres the role of embodied aesthetics and the senses, thereby contributing to a conceptualization of ‘aesthetic citizenship’ as multisensorial.

Restoration and integration of the Huang Family Garden within the contemporary urban fabric of Shanghai

<abstract> <p>In the backdrop of Shanghai's century-long urbanization and modernization, traditional private gardens have undergone a profound transformation influenced by Western lifestyles, concepts, and garden characteristics. This transformation, marked by an East-meets-West fusion, deviates from the conventions of traditional gardens. In this study, we delved into the historical evolution of these private gardens into urban parks against the canvas of evolving urban life and point out that the construction of the city-park interaction mechanism hinges on how to consolidate transformation motives and empower urban space. Focusing on the case study of the Huang Family Garden owned by the Qing Gang tycoon Gold Wing and employing a spatial culture research perspective, we illuminated how the metamorphosis of a private garden into an urban park catalyzed the development of an urban area and scrutinized the spatial transformation of the Huang Family Garden amid Shanghai's urban modernization. Furthermore, our results revealed the inherent public nature of the Huang Family Garden's evolving garden space, along with the continuous manifestation and strengthening of this characteristic through successive urban renovations. The results emphasized the role of gardens in urban resilience and sustainability, highlighting the contribution of garden spaces as public domains. The features exhibited during the transformation of private gardens into urban parks create conditions for enhancing urban resilience, while providing insights into the significance of understanding garden traits in the evolution of cities.</p> </abstract>