City Movement Research Articles

Smart regional spaces: ready set go!

ABSTRACT Smart cities have come to dominate international academic, political and industry discourse. In contrast, limited attention has been given to the ‘smartisation’ of regional and rural areas. However, simply applying smart city thinking is not the way forward. Many of the social, economic, and environmental initiatives generated by the smart city movement respond to the challenges of dense urban living. These do not necessarily translate to the spatial scales, assets, budgets, and distinct, and often opposite challenges faced by regional and rural areas, including the substantial divide in digital inclusion compared to their urban counterparts. Digital connectivity is a prerequisite for a smart transition. Parallel to improved connectivity, regional and rural areas need context-specific place-based strategies, projects, programs, and tools, to successfully engage with the smart places movement and the opportunities and benefits it has to offer. The Smart Regional Spaces: Ready Set Go! project aims to pivot the smart places movement into regional and rural New South Wales (NSW). The project pilots new tools and techniques to upskill, and empower regional councils and their communities to directly engage with smart technologies and reduce the digital divide.

Environmental Impacts of COVID-19 Lockdown: National and Global Scenario

The unforeseen COVID-19 has spread over the world, affecting almost 5 million people in 213 countries. Lockdown measures havebeen implemented in several nations, limiting people to their homes and substantially curtailing economic and social activity. Theimplementation of lockdown halted all the industrial, social, and commercial activities, and had a positive impact on environmentalparameters viz., air, water, noise, biodiversity, and wildlife. The decrease in PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2were recorded with an average value of43, 31, 10, and 18%, respectively because of the reduction in transportation and industrial emission in India. Considerable recovery ofwater quality in lotic ecosystems was observed at several places in the world. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the global lockdown hasalso dropped the noise level ranging from 2.1 dB to 6 dB at several places viz., Europe, Colombia and USA. Wildlife and biodiversity ofthe world had responded to the COVID-19 shutdown. Human movements in national parks and metropolitan cities through vehiclesand other transportation have decreased by 75% to 95%, due to which various wildlife and other creatures had faced fewer humaninterferences. During the pandemic, China and Lebanon had produced 240 metric tons and 1.3 tonnes of biomedical waste, respectivelyper day. India has generated around 28,747.91 tonnes of biological waste during the pandemic lockdown. The global pandemiclockdown has given Mother Nature a chance to replenish, but the policy and strategies are required immediately for the confinementof biomedical waste generation and further scientific management.

PENGEMBANGAN SMART INFRASTRUCTURE PADA ASPEK PRASARANA PERKOTAAN DI KOTA BANDARLAMPUNG

The city of Bandar Lampung, which is the capital of Lampung Province, which is currently not included in the 100 smart city movement in Indonesia, has tried to keep up with and make Bandar Lampung a smart city. Marked by the vision of the City of Bandar Lampung, namely "Bandar Lampung is healthy, intelligent, faithful, cultured, superior and competitive based on the people's economy" (RPJMD Bandar Lampung City, 2016-2021). The increasing number of residents in Bandar Lampung City causes basic infrastructure services to be improved in order to meet the needs of the community. The concept of smart infrastructure that has been implemented in various countries has been able to help fulfill and maximize city infrastructure services to be effective and efficient. Research on smart infrastructure in Bandar Lampung City is still new and relatively early, so it is very important to know the position of smart infrastructure development in Bandar Lampung City. This development can be identified by examining the stages of the city's smart infrastructure (Royal Academy of Engineering, 2017 in Ogie et al, 2019). The purpose of this study is to examine the development of smart infrastructure in urban infrastructure aspects in Bandar Lampung City. This research was conducted using a qualitative deductive approach, while the research data were analyzed using content analysis techniques and qualitative descriptive analysis. The result of this research is that the urban infrastructure of Bandar Lampung City is at an early stage towards the concept of smart infrastructure, which is still between the traditional stage and the semi-intelligent stage.

Cittaslow Movement as a Tool to Strengthen the City Image: Case Study of Osmaneli (Bilecik)

Intense urbanization movements, unconscious usage of energy sources, along with rural-urban migration based on various reasons and rapid population growth are the common problems of today’s cities. The natural results of such problems can be summarized as the emergence of environments that are naked of aesthetics, changes in the habits of urban-dwellers with regards to their life styles and cultures, along with the negative impacts on the life quality of people. With this study, it is aimed to analyze the suitability of Osmaneli town to be a part of the Cittaslow Movement through the questionnaires to be conducted, along with identifying the physical effects of participating in this movement on the development of Osmaneli’s urban image, and developing planning & design suggestions. The historical and natural landscape elements of Osmaneli surviving to date, along with its characteristics that strengthen the city image, are analyzed within the scope of the study. Field surveys have been carried out within the scope of the study method. In this direction, questionnaire study was carried out in order to detect the elements that bear the city image characteristics and brand value, while also measuring the participation and compliance rate of the public in case of becoming a part of Cittaslow Movement. A city that wants to join the Slow City Movement must meet certain conditions and undertake to provide others. Osmaneli settlement is in a lucky position in this context. Since it is a small settlement in Bilecik, it was not affected much by urban interventions and preserved its original texture. In addition, strengthening the city image of Osmaneli and increasing its tourism potential will provide economic development to the city. In this context, various determinations and suggestions have been developed and a tourism route has been created for the identity elements of the city.

Understanding tourists' policing attitudes and travel intentions towards a destination during an ongoing social movement

PurposePolicing activities aim to provide a safe environment for tourists. With the recent major protests that have erupted around the world, and the novel use of excessive police force against protestors, people may wonder if the policing deployment is for destination safety or to deter tourists from visiting. This paper aims to investigate anti-police and pro-police attitudes and tourists' behavioural responses towards a popular destination experiencing an ongoing social movement.Design/methodology/approachData were collected between December 2019 and January 2020 (during the social movement). An online survey with a snowball sampling method was adopted to reach international tourists who were aware of the social movement in Hong Kong.FindingsThe results revealed that an individual with an anti-police attitude was found to be related to cognitive and affective destination images and perceived risks while those holding a pro-police attitude were more concerned with destination images only. No significant correlation was found between attitudes towards policing and travel intention.Originality/valueThis research presents a first attempt to investigate the relationship between tourists' policing attitudes and their behavioural responses during an ongoing social movement in a popular destination city.

Development of a planning support system to evaluate transit-oriented development masterplan concepts for optimal health outcomes

There is growing consensus that planning professionals need clearer guidance on features of the built environment that promote health benefits. Concomitantly, the smart city movement has created renewed opportunity and interest in data-driven urban modelling to support land use planning. Planning Support Systems (PSS) are spatially enabled computer-based analytical tools incorporating health-related metrics that apply empirical evidence on built environment relationships with health-related outcomes to inform real-world urban design, urban planning and transportation planning decisions. This paper presents the development of the Urban Health Check PSS to use local empirical data to explore and predict relative health impacts associated with proposed urban design planning changes from alternative new station precinct masterplan concepts. We present a case study where we compare a baseline scenario with alternative design concepts for a new train station precinct in Perth, Western Australia, that incorporated possible built environment interventions. Subsequently, we discuss potential future applications of health impact PSS for the translation and application of health evidence into practice.

Religious Character Education in the Hijrah Community in Manado as a Muslim Minority Region

The development of religious character is not only within the scope of formal education but must target non-formal education, such as in the hijrah community. The phenomenon of the hijrah community now dominates the da'wah movement in various cities, including Manado as a Muslim minority city. This study aims to determine religious character education in the hijrah community and its activities in Manado. This study uses a descriptive method with a qualitative approach and qualitative content analysis techniques. This study indicates that religious character education in the hijrah community is carried out by learning activities about basic knowledge of Islam and social activities. The findings of this study also show that the hijrah community in Manado carries out social activities by collaborating religious values with the values of local wisdom.

Seeing like a Zone: Privately deputized sovereignty within Toronto’s Sanctuary City

Scholarship is split between seeing the Sanctuary City movement in a progressivist light of anti-border civil society movements, or, viewed as another iteration of citizenship controls. Critics point out how Sanctuary Cities, wherein municipalities provide services regardless of immigration status, do little to guarantee security for undocumented peoples who are at constant risk of deportation. Those who are optimistic about the movement’s emancipatory potential celebrate Sanctuary Cities’ ability to challenge the policing of migration. Why are the interpretations of Sanctuary City policies so polarized? I argue Sanctuary City literature suffers from trying to resolve the contradictions of state-based citizenship, devolving the challenge to the city, thus obscuring how state officials, business, and civil society actors can each possess local sovereignty control over urban space. My paper develops the metric of ‘private deputized sovereignty’ to trace how local policy discretion can implement or contest control over citizenship enforcement powers. I investigate how ‘private deputized sovereignty’ emerges from zoning technology inherent to urban spatial production. Conceptually, I introduce ‘seeing like a zone’ as a heuristic to challenge methodological nationalism and cityism which assume sovereignty resides with corporeal structures. In applying zoning analysis to Toronto’s Sanctuary City policy, the paper identifies economic and sanctuary zones where jurisdictional exceptions empowers local authorities, civil society, and/or private actors to either grant amnesty or exile migrants. Toronto being located within an immigrant federal state and being a global city offers a case for multiscalar analysis where migrants’ well-being and harm depends on the ‘privately deputized sovereign’s’ zoning choices in workplaces, healthcare, schools and the street.

Empirical characterisation of agents’ spatial behaviour in pedestrian movement simulation

Route choice behaviour is a key factor in determining pedestrian movement flows throughout the urban space. Agent-based modelling, a simulation paradigm that allows modelling individual behaviour mechanisms to observe the emergence of macro-level patterns, has not employed empirical data regarding route choice behaviour in cities or accommodated heterogeneity. The aim of this paper is to present an empirically based Agent-Based Model (ABM) that accounts for behavioural heterogeneity in pedestrian route choice strategies, to simulate the movement of pedestrians in cities. We designed a questionnaire to observe to what degree people employ salient urban elements (local and global landmarks, regions, and barriers) and road costs (road distance, cumulative angular change) and to empirically characterise the agent behaviour in our ABM. We hypothesised that a heterogeneous ABM configuration based on the construction of agent typologies from empirical data would portray a more plausible picture of pedestrian movement flows than a homogeneous configuration, based on the same data, or a random configuration. The city of Münster (DE) was used as a case study. From a sample of 301 subjects, we obtained six clusters that differed in relation to the role of global elements (distant landmarks, barriers, and regions) and meaningful local elements along the route. The random configuration directed the agents towards natural elements and the streets of the historical centre. The empirically based configurations resulted in lower pedestrian volumes along roads designed for cars (25% decrease) but higher concentrations along the city Promenade and the lake (40% increase); based on our knowledge, we deem these results more plausible. Minor differences were identified between the heterogeneous and homogeneous configurations. These findings indicate that the inclusion of heterogeneity does not make a difference in terms of global patterns. Yet, we demonstrated that simulation models of pedestrian movement in cities should be at least based on empirical data at the average sample-level to inform urban planners about areas prone to high volumes of pedestrians.

A cooperative strategy for optimizing vehicle relocations and staff movements in cities where several carsharing companies operate simultaneously

Carsharing has become a popular travel mode owing to its convenience of use, easy parking, and low cost of using a car by those who only need it occasionally. However, because of the inadequate location of carsharing stations (station-based systems) or vehicles (free-floating systems), effectively requiring expensive and complex relocation strategies, a number of customers are lost, and some carsharing companies are facing bankruptcy. This study proposes a data-driven, dynamic, multi-company relocation method, which aims to reduce relocation costs and increase profit in one-way carsharing station-based systems through cooperative strategies. The method starts from the prediction of carsharing inflows and outflows at each station throughout the day using a new deep learning algorithm designated as “the attention-enhanced temporal graph convolutional network”. It adopts an encoder-decoder structure to simultaneously capture the temporal and spatial carsharing usage patterns. A two-phase integer programming model is proposed to optimize the process of vehicle relocation and staff rebalancing with cooperative relocation strategies: the sharing of relocation staff, the sharing of vehicles and stations among the different companies. An adaptive large neighborhood search based heuristic approach is implemented to solve the two-phase model. Based on the 6-month travel records from four carsharing companies operating simultaneously in Fuzhou, China, the proposed model and cooperative strategies are assessed. The results show that the total profit of the four carsharing companies can be increased by 25.49% with the cooperation of staff and vehicles. In addition, we prospect the future relocation with automated vehicles, whereby the profit can be increased by 46.69% without the need to employ the relocation staff.

Proposing bus transit fares: buy the service project by ministry of transportation, Indonesia (case study from Palembang, South Sumatera)

Abstract Numbers of private vehicle movement in city caused negative externalites. Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation tend to facilitate Palembang city mobility with public transportation called Bus Transit Buy The Service Project. This research aims to identify the equilibrium in passenger willingness to pay and ability to pay as proposing the suitable tariff. Shown in this research, is about 2.400 - 3.500 rupiahs is the range of effective bus transit fares.

An investigation on the relationship between slowness level of Cittaslow perceived by tourists, voluntary simplicity lifestyle and environmental sensitivity: the case of Cittaslow Seferihisar

ABSTRACT Urban and town life, which has begun to disappear due to globalization, has been replaced by megacities, people's lifestyles are changing day by day, food culture, daily social activities, and many other areas are under the influence of speed. The slow city movement has emerged as a new movement against this speed and uniformity. The primary purpose of this research is to develop a scale to determine the perceived slowness level of slow cities from the tourist perspective. It is also aimed to analyze the level of slowness perceived by tourists regarding slow cities and the variance of these evaluations according to their willingness to adopt a voluntarily simple life and environmental sensitivities, in the case of Seferihisar, Turkey. It has been revealed that the perceived slowness level of Seferihisar is high, and there is a positive relationship between the slowness perceptions of the tourists and their voluntary simplicity (VS) lifestyles and environmental sensitivities. Also, it has been determined that the profiles of people who have different perceptions of slowness levels differ in their VS levels, environmental sensitivity, and socio-demographic characteristics. Determining the slowness levels of slow cities from the tourists’ eyes will help reveal the cities’ deficiencies and successes.

Effect of Urbanization on Presence, Abundance, and Coinfection of Bacteria and Protozoa in Ticks in the US Great Plains.

Urbanization alters components of natural ecosystems which can affect tick abundance and tick-borne disease prevalence. Likely due to these changes, tick-borne pathogen prevalence has increased in many U.S. urban areas. Despite the growing public health importance of tick-borne diseases, little is known about how they are influenced by urbanization in North America, especially in the central U.S. where several pathogens occur at or near their highest levels of incidence nationally. To determine whether urban development influences tick infection with bacteria and protozoa, we collected ticks at 16 parks across a gradient of urbanization intensity in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA and tested them using a variety of PCR assays. Adult ticks tested positive for Rickettsia parkeri, R. amblyommatis, R. rhiphicephali, 'Candidatus R. andeanae', Ehrlichia chaffeensis, E. ewingii, Panola Mountain Ehrlichia, 'Borrelia lonestari', Theileria cervi, Babesia spp. Coco, and Cytauxzoon felis. These results indicate the presence of a high diversity of tick-borne bacteria and protozoa across an expanding urban area in the U.S. Great Plains. Although there appeared to be some risk of encountering tick-borne microorganisms across the entire urbanization gradient, E. chaffeensis, E. ewingii, and T. cervi-infected ticks and microbe diversity decreased with increasing urbanization intensity. We identified a low rate of coinfection between different microorganisms, with coinfected ticks mainly collected from sites in the least-urbanized areas. This study suggests the need for awareness of tick-borne disease risk throughout urban areas in the central U.S., and highlights a need for studies of tick host habitat use and movement in cities.

Development and evaluation of healthy cities

The Healthy Cities and Sustainable Development Goals are interlinked, and the Healthy Cities movement has received widespread response and support worldwide over the past 30 years. The European Healthy Cities Networks covers about 1,400 cities. China started the Healthy Cities Movement in 1994 and put forward the Healthy China Strategy in the report of 19th national congress of CPC. Based on the impact of COVID-19 and Henan floods on urban health, it is necessary to incorporate some unconventional indicators into the Healthy Cities evaluation indicator framework. In addition, structured data cannot fully describe certain indicators, so the collection of unstructured data is equally important.

Smart Cities in the Global System of City-Regions: The French Regulation School’s Perspective

The study aims to analyse the rise of the smart city as part of the global trend of the rise of city-regions in late capitalist society. By using the methodology of the French Regulation School (FRS), the authors show that political and economic significance of smart city projects are based on their unique role in revamping the failing consumption characteristic of the ongoing crisis of the late capitalist, or as the FRS theorists call it, the post-Fordist regime of accumulation. Through the analysis of the smart city’s role in stimulating innovations and maintaining the consumption patterns needed for the continuing market growth, the present research postulates the hypothesis of the rise of the city-centred system of global developmental governance as a necessary move along the existing trajectory of transition toward the post-Fordist system of production and regulation. The authors argue that the worldwide rise of the smart city movement should be seen through the lens of stabilization of the late capitalist mode of development. A key shift in evolution of the existing global political and economic system is the formation of networked organizations that connect smart cities of the first, global, and the second, regional, echelon into a unified system of governance, which represents a new mode of regulation for the post-Fordist society.

‘Nobody ever cuddles any of those walkers’: the material socialities of everyday mobilities in Santiago de Chile

ABSTRACT In this article I bring forward the notion of ‘material socialities’ to make sense of the sensory and affective relationships between walkers and the materials of places that emerge in everyday walking practices in Santiago de Chile. Materials not only make possible everyday movement in cities, as they have been usually addressed by mobilities studies, but they are also constitutive of mobile experiences and practices in sensory and affective ways. Based on ethnographic fieldwork I undertook in Santiago between 2015 and 2016, I describe relevant materials for those people who walk habitually in a context of urban sociospatial inequality and I distinguish forms of socialities related to walkers’ feelings of being welcomed or repelled by the places in which they walk. By detailing how materials of places create forms of sensory and affective socialities through habitual encounters, my article enlarges the conceptual toolbox of mobilities to consider materials as constitutive elements of mobile practices and, in this way, I respond to the call made by mobilities’ scholars for a more materially sensitive approach to envisage the complexities of mobile situations.

‘You really do become invisible’: examining older adults’ right to the city in the United Kingdom

AbstractA global ageing population presents opportunities and challenges to designing urban environments that support ageing in place. The World Health Organization's Global Age-Friendly Cities movement has identified the need to develop communities that optimise health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age. Ensuring that age-friendly urban environments create the conditions for active ageing requires cities and communities to support older adults’ rights to access and move around the city (‘appropriation’) and for them to be actively involved in the transformation (‘making and remaking’) of the city. These opportunities raise important questions: What are older adults’ everyday experiences in exercising their rights to the city? What are the challenges and opportunities in supporting a rights to the city approach? How can the delivery of age-friendly cities support rights to the city for older adults? This paper aims to respond to these questions by examining the lived experiences of older adults across three cities and nine neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom. Drawing on 104 semi-structured interviews with older adults between the ages of 51 and 94, the discussion centres on the themes of: right to use urban space; respect and visibility; and the right to participate in planning and decision-making. These themes are illustrated as areas in which older adults’ rights to access and shape urban environments need to be addressed, along with recommendations for age-friendly cities that support a rights-based approach.

On the Impact of Information Technologies Secondary-School Capacity in Business Development: Evidence From Smart Cities Around the World.

Smart City initiatives across the globe have spurred increasing demand for high-skilled workers. The digital transformation, one of the main building blocks of the Smart City movement, is calling for a workforce prepared to develop novel business processes. Problem-solving, critical and analytical thinking are now the essential skills being looked at by employees. The development of the so-called STEM curriculum, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics is being given a lot of attention by educational boards in response to preparing young generations for the Smart City work market. Based on the IMD Smart City Index, PISA, and World Bank reports, we develop a model for assessing the impact of the IT secondary school capacities on Smart-City business developments. The model reveals the relationship between the technological capacity of the secondary-school, and the business activity of a Smart City. Moreover, the study shows the existence of a positive relationship between the IT capacity of secondary schools and the resulting entrepreneurial activity of the city. Our results are of interest to decision-makers and stakeholders responsible for designing educational policies and agents involved in the digital transformation and development of Smart Cities initiatives.

Cities in Flux

Abstract From Singapore to New York, via New Delhi, Johannesburg, London, Glasgow and Buenos Aires, “Cities in Flux” registers some of the most profound impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on cities around the world. Narrated in different styles, the individual pieces draw on theories of global cities in neoliberal times as well as on the phenomenological truths of inhabiting these disparate places bound together by a global crisis. The pieces make use of a plethora of urban signs—flashing images, sounds of silence and emergency vehicles, Whatsapp chatter, billboards, found objects, and media noise—to reflect on experiences that are both deeply personal and embodied as well as reflective of a common urban predicament. Even as the pandemic exacerbated problems of housing, transport, health, schooling, employment, environment, and food supply, it also created feelings of waste, loss, and loneliness. All the pieces draw inspiration from a range of urban projects such as the Hot City Collective in New York, the Workers’ Stories Project in Glasgow, the Black Lives Matter movement in London, the Feminist Assembly in Buenos Aires, the C-19 People's Coalition in Johannesburg, and the anti–citizenship law protests and the farmers’ movement in Indian cities. Against the multiplying crises of cities during the time of the pandemic, the different pieces in this pod come together to hope for an urban commons that is based on justice and freedom.

Smart City Implementation and Citizen Engagement in Indonesia

The smart city concept has been implemented in countries worldwide as the solution for various urban problems. In Indonesia, the smart city movement was initiated in 2017 to create 100 smart cities. Previous studies identify challenges to the implementation and that smart people or smart citizens are essential dimensions of a smart city. This study aims to gain insights into the smart city implementation and citizen engagement in Indonesia through the online social network by conducting a focus group discussion (FGD) with four academicians and in-depth interviews (IDIs) with six representatives of the related government institutions. FGD and IDIs indicate that the implementation of smart cities should be adjusted according to the local situation. The critical success factors of the implementation are namely, local wisdom, transformational leadership, sustainability, and political content. The results also reveal that, in general, the city residents have been involved in implementing of the smart city through the online social network. However, a kind of incentive system is still required to ensure that the city residents are encouraged to solve the city problems.