Provision Of Urban Services Research Articles

Chiefs and floods: hybrid governance and co-production of flood risk adaptation in Tamale, Ghana1

ABSTRACT Climate change is changing physical and social risks facing people in African cities. Emerging awareness is beginning to stimulate a wide range of adaptive responses. These responses are playing out in a complex institutional and governance context which shape their effectiveness and legitimacy. Employing a hybrid governance approach, we investigate the development of flooding and flood protection in the context of urban development in Tamale, Ghana. We argue that the interplay between traditional and state-based authority shapes the market for land, the regulation of land use and the provision of urban services, including flood protection. Hybrid governance influences the types of knowledge applied to urban problem-solving, the legitimacy of choices made, the human and other resources that can be deployed in building community resilience and the willingness to act in the provision of public goods by communities. We suggest how the existing hybrid governance setting could be strengthened to achieve more effective and legitimate adaptation to dynamic flood risks under climate change in Tamale, with lessons for other West African contexts.

Segregated by whom? Examining triple neighbourhood disadvantages and activity spaces in Seoul, South Korea

This study explores the potential mechanisms by which neighbourhood isolation is created and reinforced in non-home activity locations. The existing discussion on neighbourhood isolation, its consequences, and the subsequent reproduction of interactions between individuals and their environment has focused on their residential locations. However, the vitality of a neighbourhood depends not only on its own socioeconomic conditions but also on the conditions of the other neighbourhoods its residents visit and are visited by. Residential locations are only one of the many spaces in which individuals engage in their activities; therefore, to fully comprehend people’s everyday experiences of integration and isolation, it is imperative to look at interactions within both home and non-home activity spaces. Building on this extended perspective, we examine: (1) whether residential neighbourhood isolation is intensified by socioeconomic conditions individuals’ encounter in consumption and commuting activity spaces; and (2) which socioeconomic group drives the association between residential neighbourhood isolation and activity spaces—whether both disadvantaged and privileged groups contribute to isolation through the differential use of urban space or either group predominantly leads this association. We use Seoul as a case study, characterised as a city that is highly populated, contains multiple economic centres, functions with a highly affordable and efficient public transportation system, and suffers from increasing socioeconomic segregation. The results suggest that mobility patterns in activity spaces tend to reinforce neighbourhood isolation through potential forces driven by neighbourhood homophily. Isolation in the use of urban spaces appears to be driven mainly by the self-seclusion of the most advantaged neighbourhood group, while neighbourhoods in the lower socioeconomic status groups indicate broader cross-interactions across status groups, probably because of Seoul’s transit-friendly environment. Our study contributes to enhancing the understanding of spatial-societal inequalities in Korea and beyond and could assist in formulating policies for a more balanced provision of diverse urban social services and infrastructure.

Evaluating Urban Services in Neighbourhoods Through the Inequality Lens in Khulna City, Bangladesh: A Geographic Information System Approach

This article delineates the development of an integrated assessment tool to understand inequality in the provision of urban services among neighbourhoods in Khulna city, Bangladesh. The study considers eight key indicators to evaluate basic urban services related to the physical environment of the city. We use primary and secondary sources of information as well as geographic information system (GIS) to summarise the results in a scientific fashion. Additionally, we adopt the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique to distribute weights among the considered indicators and categorise the neighbourhoods as ‘good’, ‘average’ or ‘poor’ in terms of service availability. Results from the study demonstrate that a majority of the neighbourhoods lack basic urban services. Only 10 per cent of the neighbourhoods are equipped with basic urban services, whereas 74 per cent face difficulties with ‘average’ quality of services and nearly 16 per cent of neighbourhoods fail to provide basic services to city dwellers. Our study may be useful to development authorities, city corporations and local governments to visualise the neighbourhoods struggling for basic urban services and bring them under immediate attention to deliver the required resources. Further, the study provides an assessment model to understand urban service inequality in cities with similar characteristics in other parts of the world.

On the suitability of dispersion models of varying degree of complexity for air quality assessment and urban planning

The development of integrated urban services requires the implementation of informative tools that provide a balance between quality, time and costs for air quality assessment. Within this framework, three modeling techniques with different levels of complexity were compared during a winter inversion episode against PM10 concentrations measured in a built-up area in Prague (Czech Republic) characterized by heavy traffic. Although the Gaussian model ATEM satisfied the common statistical-performance criteria, the predictions poorly represented the spatial variability of concentrations in the study domain. The Lagrangian model GRAL provided a better simulation of the effects of terrain and vortice formation inside street canyons, but tended to overpredict the influence of these phenomena. Finally, the most sophisticated of the three models, the Large-Eddy Simulation model PALM, demonstrated the best performance based on an exhaustive analysis of the model outputs in the temporal and spatial dimensions. After model comparison, a sensitivity test of the selected models to the driving meteorology and emissions inputs was carried out. While advanced models can simulate complex urban environments, their suitability for use in urban planning is subject to further considerations, such as computational cost, user expertise, and the usefulness of the output. Thanks to increasing computation power and intensive work on the entire modeling chain, sophisticated models could become routine tools for use in regulatory applications, contributing to future integrated urban service provision.

Unlocking Artificial Intelligence Adoption in Local Governments: Best Practice Lessons from Real-World Implementations

In an era marked by rapid technological progress, the pivotal role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly evident across various sectors, including local governments. These governmental bodies are progressively leveraging AI technologies to enhance service delivery to their communities, ranging from simple task automation to more complex engineering endeavours. As more local governments adopt AI, it is imperative to understand the functions, implications, and consequences of these advanced technologies. Despite the growing importance of this domain, a significant gap persists within the scholarly discourse. This study aims to bridge this void by exploring the applications of AI technologies within the context of local government service provision. Through this inquiry, it seeks to generate best practice lessons for local government and smart city initiatives. By conducting a comprehensive review of grey literature, we analysed 262 real-world AI implementations across 170 local governments worldwide. The findings underscore several key points: (a) there has been a consistent upward trajectory in the adoption of AI by local governments over the last decade; (b) local governments from China, the US, and the UK are at the forefront of AI adoption; (c) among local government AI technologies, natural language processing and robotic process automation emerge as the most prevalent ones; (d) local governments primarily deploy AI across 28 distinct services; and (e) information management, back-office work, and transportation and traffic management are leading domains in terms of AI adoption. This study enriches the existing body of knowledge by providing an overview of current AI applications within the sphere of local governance. It offers valuable insights for local government and smart city policymakers and decision-makers considering the adoption, expansion, or refinement of AI technologies in urban service provision. Additionally, it highlights the importance of using these insights to guide the successful integration and optimisation of AI in future local government and smart city projects, ensuring they meet the evolving needs of communities.

The role of municipal ownership for urban net-zero path creation

Particularly within recent years, the rising number of city actors worldwide declaring climate emergencies and pledging commitments to carbon neutrality has sparked a spatial turn in broader sustainable transition thinking, noting the importance of the local level for governing sustainable transitions. Using a Geographical Political Economy approach, this paper critically engages with path creation theory and sustainable transitions literature to explore the potential of urban net-zero carbon transitions in a multi-scalar governance framework. The main argument is that municipal ownership across sectors has a fundamental role in sustainable transitions at the city level. This paper makes a distinct conceptual contribution to sustainable transitions literature by drawing on path creation theory to illustrate how municipal ownership is a central tenet of path creation by bringing together local actors and enabling political capacity and agency to control and strategize integrated sustainable urban pathways. Using the transport and energy sectors in Nottingham in the UK, it applies the Path Creation Framework in an urban setting to illustrate that municipal ownership stimulates a positive path creation through three main arguments. First, municipal ownership enables a positive embeddedness and historical legacy in the provision of sustainable urban energy and transport services; second, it facilitates the establishment of skills and expertise that positively reinforces urban political capacity for the pursuit of urban sustainability; and third, it stimulates the creation of innovative urban projects for sustainable and equitable pathways.

Performance-Based contracting of urban transport operation Services: Evidence from Porto’s Light-Rail

This paper develops a bonus/malus incentive model for contracting out the provision of urban railroad operation services, and testing parts of its performance using Monte Carlo methods. We also provide evidence on the performance measures of Metro do Porto’s (MdP) light-rail network operation, during the 2010–2016 term of a bonus/malus-based contract, incorporating some features of our model. Results document that the implementation of a performance-based contract with an embedded incentive bonus/malus mechanism may contribute to promoting ridership patronage, increasing the average ride, and ultimately promoting the overall economic operating efficiency of the system. The comparative operating performance analysis of MdP versus Metropolitano de Lisboa, a vertically integrated, governmentally-owned metro network, shows that MdP exhibits higher revenue, cost, and operating efficiency in the 2010–2016 period, and that the bonus/malus mechanism induces the private sub-concessionaire to respond more efficiently to changes in demand.

Water Supply Systems in Urban Slum Communities in Lagos, Nigeria: Between Self-supply and Co-production

By investigating the contribution of the ‘informal sector’, this article explores the resourcefulness of place-based practices and how they shape the urban water provision in Lagos. It also provides a detailed and critical view of the enormous efforts of inhabitants in urban slums in the daily water provision. Analysing the qualitative field data collected from observations, 89 semi-structured interviews (field notes), 6 focus group discussions and 12 expert interviews, water supply systems, the utilisation in slum communities and power and politics around it are exposed. Even if people can afford to pay the bills, the provision of urban services by state actors (or commissioned firms) is erratic and often not available. The daily infrastructure provision remains the responsibility of individuals and groups, mostly organised in complex yet fragile and changing networks. Drawing from the research on the existing, largely informal water supply in slum communities, this article argues for the recognition and pro-active implementation of hybrid approaches in the planning, implementation and administration of urban infrastructure. It calls for co-production and ‘hybrid water governance’.

Sustainable Built Environments and the Water, Energy, and Food Nexus: Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to Urban Resilience

Urban resilience has been a research focus, particularly with the pandemic impact on urban infrastructure, service provision and accessibility to core resources. This paper explores the need for interdisciplinary approaches to the built environment that integrate water, energy, and food resources. The study goes through articles on water, energy and food nexus and urban resilience in the past 10 years. It identifies the key research focus, gaps and needs for future research. Recommendations for future studies include the allocation of funds to ensure vulnerable communities have access to resources, sustainable operation of urban agriculture practices, circular economy and reuse, and engagement of experts, local authorities and communities in decision-making and training. The study recommends using quantitative assessment to identify the impact of urban agriculture and urban water management practices on the environment and include socio-economic aspects in assessment models. Finally, participatory approaches and integrating technology are recommended for promoting sustainable resilient communities.

“Bringing Government Closer to the People”: Essays on Electoral Institutions, Representation, Accountability and Urban Service Provision

“Bringing Government Closer to the People”: Essays on Electoral Institutions, Representation, Accountability and Urban Service Provision

Residents’ Perception of Urban Services Provision in Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria

Residents’ Perception of Urban Services Provision in Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria

Trees Diversity and Species with High Ecological Importance for a Resilient Urban Area: Evidence from Cotonou City (West Africa)

Rapid urbanization and climate change effects may cause dramatic changes in ecosystem functions in cities, thereby inevitably affecting the growth performance of old trees. Few studies have explored species diversity and spatial differentiation in Benin urban areas. This study aims to explore this dimension of urban ecology in order to build resilience to climate change in the city of Cotonou. Its objective was to determine the predominant level of tree diversity in the city’s land use units. The urban green frame was subdivided into six land use units, namely, establishments, residences, green spaces, commercial areas, administrative areas, and roads. The forest inventories were carried out in 149 plots with surfaces evaluated at 2500 m2 each. The IVI, an index that highlights the relative density, relative dominance, and relative frequency of species, has been used to characterize the place occupied by each species in relation to all species in urban ecosystems. This shows ecological importance through the diversity and quality of ecosystems, communities, and species. A total of 62 tree species in 55 genera and 27 families were recorded. The results show that the flora of the city of Cotonou is characterized by a strong preponderance of exotic species with some differences in species presence. The most abundant species with high ecological importance (IVI) in the different types of land use of the city are Terminalia catappa (IVI = 121.47%), Terminalia mantaly (IVI = 90.50%), Mangifera indica (IVI = 64.06%), and Khaya senegalensis (IVI = 151.16%). As the use of ecosystem services is recommended to tackle urban climate hazards, this study shows that direct development of this urban vegetation could improve the resilience of urban life to climate hazards through the provision of urban ecosystem services, potential ecological infrastructure foundations, and urban nature-based solutions.

Socio-economic impacts of wetland conversion on residents of Port Harcourt municipality, Rivers State, Nigeria

Increased demand for land space in most urban areas often triggers the conversion of wetlands resulting in their total disappearance with attendant implications on man’s survival. This study examined the socio-economic impacts of wetland conversion on residents of Port Harcourt municipality. Data were sourced from both primary and secondary sources. Four (4) out of the twenty-four (24) reclaimed wetland sites were purposively selected for the study. The cross-sectional research design was used since there was no manipulation of the variables under investigation. A sample size comprised 280 heads of households from the eight proximate communities within the four selected reclaimed sites. The study revealed that wetland conversions have both positive impacts on residents of the study area. On a positive note, wetland conversion is a means of increasing land space for needed physical development and the provision of urban goods and services. The negative impacts of wetland conversion include the destruction of sources of livelihood for the people, the destruction of natural heritage and aesthetic areas and the destruction of conservation areas among others. The study advocates for the adoption of a sustainable wetland management strategy with an emphasis on the wise use of wetland resources to ensure the continued existence of wetlands in their pristine state, as this is the only way we can preserve the services that wetland provides to the survival of the human environment.

A multi-scale approach mapping spatial equality of urban public facilities for urban design

Spatial equality analysis is useful for urban designers and policy makers to produce and/or adapt urban services provision, while supporting the pursuit of the public interest in the urban design process. This research focuses on urban public facilities (UPFs), the most relevant physical elements serving the public interest, and proposes a multi-scale methodology from a practical perspective to understand and foster the spatial equality of UPFs. Using Shenzhen to test the approach, this research first investigates the density and aggregation of UPFs at the district level to recognize how developing differentiations and social context act on the spatial patterns in UPFs. Second, the accessibility of different types of UPF are measured at the sub-district level which emphasizes the spatial impedance between demand and supply and the availability of services. Then, we draw location-specific design strategies for better spatial equality at a site scale. The results show “cross-district impact” plays an important role in influencing overall spatial equality. Also, sufficient transportation networks, road configurations, and the diversity of UPFs could significantly improve service capacity and impact the achievement of spatial equality. This paper draws attention to the improvement of spatial equality and can contribute new insights to the interpretation and measurement of the spatial equality in urban design debates.

Synergy of urban green space planning and ecosystem services provision: A longitudinal exploration of China’s development

Ecosystem services (ES) concepts and approaches have become more appealing to practice, such as municipal/urban planning, environmental policies and governance to address sustainable development. Inclusion of this concept in the planning or policy discourses is the first step for further implementation on the ground. Using China’s capital, Beijing, as the case study, this article analyzes how ES (or similar concepts) have permeated China’s urban development history since 1949 when the New China was established and how this has to be with China’s urban green space development. The results show: (1) There were no explicit references to “ecosystem services” per se, but overlapping concepts such as “functions”, “values” and “benefits” can be found in planning documents and, importantly, the lack of the concept per se has not affected the detailed services that emerged in all plans. (2) Among the three ES sections, only cultural services run from the beginning to end although the included services kept changing. Other sections show considerable variation and less continuity – the focal services of each stage changed over time. (3) Through the ES lens, some general patterns regarding China’s urban development can be found such as regulation services gradually become valued for their own sake. The patterns found in Chinese planning documents are then compared with some western regions. This study reveals limitations of the past and opportunities for the future to inform urban development decision-making. Adaptation of old and incorporating new ES concepts can improve the quality of plans and foster cities’ ability to learn from past patterns for future sustainability.

Assessing Relativeness in the Provision of Urban Ecosystem Services: Better Comparison Methods for Improved Well-Being

In this study, we evaluated alternative methods for comparing the provision of ecosystem services among urban areas, stressing how the choice of comparison method affects the ability to compare the ecosystem service outcomes, in order to improve the management actions in urban green areas, reduce environmental inequality, and ensure satisfactory levels of human well-being. For the analysis, ten spatial indicators were quantified to assess the provision of urban ecosystem services in Barcelona, Spain, and Santiago, Chile. Two comparison methods were applied in both cities to evaluate the differences in their provision scores. The analysis was performed using the Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system, a spatially enabled decision support framework for environmental management. The results depicted changes in the values of the provision of ecosystem services depending on the methodological approach applied. When the data were analysed separately for each city, both cities registered a wide range of provision values across the city districts, varying from very low to very high values. However, when the analysis was based on the data for both cities, the provision scores in Santiago decreased, while they increased in Barcelona, showing relativeness and a discrepancy in their provisions, hindering an appropriate planning definition. Our results emphasise the importance of the choice of comparison approach in the analyses of urban ecosystem services and the need for further studies on these comparison methods.

Does the Smart City Improve Public Service Delivery? A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on a Smart City Pilot Program in China

Providing better public services has become an important issue in urban governance, and there is no consensus on how smart city establishment affects the delivery of urban public services. Based on the panel data of 160 prefecture-level cities in China from 2012 to 2019, and taking the smart city pilot program as a natural experiment, this paper discusses the impact of smart city establishment on urban public service. We find that smart city pilot programs significantly improve urban public service levels. The underlying influence mechanism is that the smart city first improves the extensive and intensive margins of public services, and then advances the total extent and diversity of public service provision. Furthermore, this study finds that the positive effects of smart city establishment on the provision of public services are significant only in high-income regions. These findings have significant implications for ways in which smart city establishment can improve the provision of urban public services.

Autoconstrução e produção da cidade: outra genealogia dos estudos de infraestruturas urbanas

ABSTRACT This article examines the so-called “infrastructural turnaround” in urban studies of the past two decades from the theories and timelines of the urbanization of Brazilian cities. Our objective is to bring to international debate on the ethnography of infrastructures a comprehensive view of theoretical discussions developed in Brazil over the past fifty years. The first section examines the first ethnographies of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas in the late 1960s, including the intellectual relations among scholars and the attention given to house construction and the provision of urban services. The next section presents the figure of community agents of social housing policies and infrastructure upgrade programs. We conclude by reading the work of community agents in the light of AbdouMaliq Simone’s notion of “people as infrastructure”. Community agents render legible the techno-politics and the labor and technical logic, thereby blurring the boundaries between the State, the market and urban social movements..

Willingness-to-pay for urban ecosystem services provision under objective and subjective uncertainty

There is growing concern that failure to acknowledge the risk and uncertainty surrounding ecosystem services (ES) delivery could have adverse effects on support for ES policy intervention in the long run. However, acknowledging risk may reduce support for policy interventions in the short term. In this paper, we sought to determine whether willingness-to-pay (WTP) for urban forest ES in Southampton, UK is affected by objective and subjective uncertainty surrounding ES delivery. We conducted a discrete choice experiment with a split sample design: one with a scenario specifying risky ES outcomes and one where zero risk was implied. Respondents’ subjective certainty surrounding the provision of ES was determined before and after the choice questions. Despite respondents’ risk aversion, introducing an objective likelihood attribute did not reduce WTP compared to the scenario with implied certain ES outcomes. Furthermore, whilst WTP for the overall scheme was found to be adversely affected by the presence of risk around ES outcomes, subjective uncertainty seemed to reduce WTP more than objective probabilities. Our results therefore support the idea that both objective probabilities and subjective uncertainty should be explicitly incorporated in the design of stated preference studies for ES valuation.

Planning by Exception: The Regulation of Nairobi’s Margins

Nairobi’s planning regime is characterized by two conditions of exception: on the one hand, exceptions from regulation, that is, planning offices granting exceptions from planning rules and, on the other hand, regulatory regimes that are enforced by low-level administrations outside the planning office but that significantly impact Nairobi’s urban space—we call this exceptional regulation. We argue that it is these two intertwined conditions of exception that make possible the building of shiny modern city as well as the provision of essential urban services. We examine the two conditions of “planning by exception” by analyzing a scrap heap that has endured in central Nairobi for over a decade, even as the neighborhood around it has radically changed. The position of the scrap heap makes the contradictions of this regime of planning particularly visible. On the one hand, the construction sites dotting these neighborhoods provide a wealth of scrap for dealers to gather—and dealers, in turn, provide an essential recovery service. On the other hand, in these increasingly exclusive spaces, businesses like scrap metal heaps are no longer welcome. Thus, the construction boom simultaneously grants scrap dealers opportunities for accumulation and makes the conditions of that accumulation highly uncertain. This scrap metal heap thus offers important insights into Nairobi's spatial regulation because it is both a leftover from the neighborhood’s earlier socio-spatial form and intricately entangled with the redevelopments currently reshaping the city. Our key contribution is that we can only understand urbanization of Nairobi—and other postcolonial cities—if we understand planning as simultaneously working through a regime that grants exceptions to formal planning and by employing exceptional regulation of marginalized spaces.