Urban Land Scarcity Research Articles

Ensuring Fairness: Strategies for Providing Affordable Housing for Low-Income Communities in Urban Indonesia

Indonesia's population growth has slowed, yet low-income people still require affordable urban housing. Land scarcity, limited financial options, and complicated home funding provide significant challenges. This study analyses existing literature to find ways to provide cheap housing to Indonesian middle-class residents. The study examines land use, financing, and cash availability. The findings show that MBR cannot get funding due to high costs and strict criteria, while the scarcity of urban land is hindering development. The analysis recommends using unused government land and promoting vertical housing to maximise land use, investigating microfinance and lease-purchase schemes, and simplifying housing fund access. These hurdles can be overcome to provide fair and affordable housing for all in Indonesia, promoting social stability and sustainable urban expansion.

Cooling and optimizing urban heat island based on a thermal knowledge-informed multi-type ant colony model

In the context of rapid urbanization and global warming, the urban heat island (UHI) intensifies the risk of heat-related mortality, endangering the health of urban residents. Urban greening effectively mitigates severe urban heating climates, but increasing green space without restrictions is undesirable due to the scarcity of urban land. Accurately characterizing the scope and intensity of UHI and determining the spatial location of the area that needs to be optimized are necessary. In this study, an inverse S-shaped function was used to fit the urban-rural temperature attenuation, whose parameters explicitly describe the properties of UHI. Additionally, a thermal knowledge-informed multi-type ant colony model was proposed to cool UHI automatically. A case study of Wuhan showed that: (1) the fitting effect of the inverse S-shaped function is desirable with the adjusted R2 exceeding 0.97, and the derived parameters with clear physical meanings avoid subjectivity in describing thermal characteristics; (2) high-level heat island of the main urban areas can be reduced by 7.7%–8.5% after land use optimization; and (3) a comparison with the traditional multi-type ant colony model verifies that the model proposed in this study can avoid excessive dispersion of the optimized pixels whose land use types are modified and achieve more reasonable and stable optimization results. This study provides useful exploratory tools for sustainable urban planning, heat mitigation solutions, and other urban retrofitting.

Influence of Intercity Network on Land Comprehensive Carrying Capacity: A Perspective of Population Flow

The world is experiencing the largest wave of urban growth in history. Maintaining the rapid growth of cities without causing land and resource shortages is a severe problem that must be solved urgently. With the rapid development of globalization and information technology, the meaning of land comprehensive carrying capacity presents new changes. It is no longer entirely dependent on local resources and is likely to benefit from intercity connections beyond urban boundaries. However, can an inter-city network be a non-local solution to sustain urban growth without increasing land pressure? To address this question, this study adopted 287 cities in China as the research object to describe the spatial carrying characteristics of land at the national level by constructing an evaluation index system for land comprehensive carrying capacity. Furthermore, we constructed a population flow network model through social network analysis to explore the influence of intercity network on land comprehensive carrying capacity. Our findings are as follows: (1) The regional differentiation characteristics of land comprehensive carrying capacity at the national scale are evident, and reveal a spatial pattern significantly related to the urban economic development level. (2) The weighted in-degree, weighted degree centrality, and betweenness centrality in the intercity network positively impact the land comprehensive carrying capacity, and land use efficiency has a partial mediating effect. (3) Land comprehensive carrying capacity can be determined by non-local factors rather than local factors. As an effective non-local channel, strengthening intercity population flow and network integration can flexibly manage urban land scarcity.

Land valuation in densifying cities: The negotiation process between institutional landowners and municipal planning authorities

Land valuation—the normative and socio-political process through which land is assigned a value—is a highly contested procedure, as the value of land strongly affects how land is used and distributed and ultimately affects who can live where, how, and why. We argue that it is thus important to gain a better understanding of land valuation processes through examining (1) how the process of land valuation functions in a context of urban land scarcity and densification; (2) how involved actors’ strategies of land valuation vary in such a context. To answer these research questions, we introduce an actor-centered new institutionalism approach for the qualitative case study analysis of the Rohr/Platten densification area in the city of Opfikon within the Zurich metropolitan area. We find that the diverse goals of the involved stakeholders (i.e., the profit-orientation of private actors versus the socio-environmentally sustainable spatial development of public planning authorities), in combination with the existing rules, can explain actors’ land valuation strategies. The current planning paradigm of densification and the strong legal protection of land titleholders support the strategies applied by for-profit developers and landowners. Local planning authorities must find ways to deal with the power and the profit-oriented logic of titleholders by means of active land policy to create more ecological and socially inclusive outcomes.

Urban resilience for sustainable homeownership: the role of self-help in the ancient city of Benin, Nigeria

PurposeThe organised self-help approach successfully enhances urban low-income earners' (LIE) homeownership in some developing countries. The technique can enhance urban resilience for sustainable LIE homeownership. There is a paucity of studies concerning sustainable homeownership for Nigeria's urban LIE through a self-help approach. The study investigated the housing needs of the urban LIE via organised self-help mechanisms and how the same can enhance urban resilience for sustainable homeownership in the Ancient City of Benin, Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachGiven the unexplored nature of the issue, 20 face-to-face interviews were conducted with experts and analysed through a thematic approach.FindingsFindings identified eleven main barriers faced by the urban LIE. This includes the absence of government housing policy, funding frameworks, urban land scarcity, high property development costs, naira devaluation, high-interest rates, inflation, bribery and corruption, lax mortgage sub-sector, high cost of infrastructure, and government bureaucracy.Originality/valueThis study will contribute to pioneering the role of organised self-help mechanisms in urban resilience for sustainable LIE homeownership in developing cities via a qualitative approach. Also, findings would significantly contribute to developing countries' sustainable housing and urban resilience literature.

Identificación del riesgo en la Quebrada Jaime, Valparaíso, Chile

The commune of Valparaíso, located on the central coast of Chile, represents a territory of interest for the study of the impacts derived from socio-natural risks and the discussion about its due inclusion in the current territorial planning instruments. Particularly, the Jaime ravine (quebrada Jaime), located in the foothills of the coastal mountain range, represents an interesting study site due to its physical configuration and the level of anthropic intervention that occurs. In this sector, part of the community's low-income population has been forced to migrate, due to the scarcity of urban land in safe areas, facing a series of risks that jeopardize their quality of life. This research uses multicriteria analysis based on physical and social variables to identify and territorially express the risk scenarios for the population of this stream. Forest fires and mass removal processes are presented as the most complex events with the greatest impact and that until now have not been properly integrated into the Valparaíso Metropolitan Regulatory Plan (PREMVAL), thus allowing the intensive use of the territory in risk areas, a situation that must be reanalyzed based on the natural dynamics of the ravine and the progressive occupation of the land, to avoid future impacts on the population

COVID-19 Lockdown Home Gardening in the Western Province of Sri Lanka

Sampling a set of households from three districts of the Western Province, this paper explored the landscape of lockdown home gardening which took place during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka. A structured questionnaire published online enabled collecting 939 household responses. A descriptive analysis performed using the IBM SPSS package highlights that the lockdown conditions have intensified the level of home gardening of the participants. The study validates the findings from recent studies that home gardening has no dividing line when it comes to the socio-economic character of households. Primary benefit of home gardening is of households’ being in seek of good and healthy consumption, vegetables and fruits have been the most preferred crop types to grow. Application of organic fertiliser have been preferred by the majority of the households. This study supports the notion that urban land scarcity is not a limiting factor for home gardening. The paper suggests that this home gardening trend reignited during the Covid-19 lockdown needs to be supported by three means: promoting healthy lifestyles, connecting government officials with local home gardeners and local plans being supportive and appreciative of home gardening.

Quantification and mapping cooling effect and its accessibility of urban parks in an extreme heat event in a megacity

With the rapid process of urbanization and global warming, extreme heat events occur frequently, endangering urban dwellers' health. Urban parks could alleviate the severe urban heating climate. However, due to the scarcity of urban land, it is impractical to plan and design urban parks by increasing the blue-green space without restriction. Few studies have focused on optimization and the equity of the parks' cooling service. This study quantifies four cooling indicators of urban parks in Wuhan city, park's cooling intensity (PCI), park's cooling area (PCA), park's cooling gradient (PCG), and park's cooling efficiency (PCE), analyze the drivers for four indicators, discuss different cooling bundles (urban parks with similar specific cooling ability are grouped into bundles) for the specific heat mitigation demands, and map the spatial accessibility for residents to parks' PCA using spatial network analysis. We find that 54 of 60 urban parks have significant cooling effect, with average PCI of 3.5 ± 0.2 °C, PCA of 131.6 ± 29.6 ha, PCG of 17.9 ± 1.5 °C/km, PCE of 4.5 ± 0.8. Blue and green infrastructure inside parks and impervious surface ratio surrounding the parks play significant roles in cooling service. Larger urban parks usually have larger PCA, but lower PCG and PCE. Five cooling bundles clustered with specific dominant cooling indicators could be references for the specific demand considering tradeoffs in urban parks' design and planning. Taking one step further, we unmask the unequal accessibility of the urban parks cooling service in one extreme heat day: 83.6% of the residents in the central area can enjoy the urban parks' cooling service within 30-min walk, while most residents (74.4%) in suburbs are not able to access to the cooling service within 30-min walk. Our study should be valuable for the urban planning and practice to find heat mitigation solutions and improve residents' heat comfort, also helpful for local municipalities to consider the urban parks' service provision for marginal groups.

Building Envelope as to Improve Home Quality in Microhome Design Approaches

The cities around the world face challenges with the shortage of land and increased demand for housing. Limit the land use for area development might resolve urban land scarcity problems. In this case, the efficiency of land use and microhome has seen as space-saving solutions. The research discusses home term on micro-scale through spatial concept design approaches. The study uses the qualitative method that interpreted by various schematic drawings. Each approach will affect the building envelopes as well as increase the home quality. The finding shows that the building envelope might be seen as inseparable attributes, consist of one or more elements; roof, wall and window, secondary skin or floor, functions as complementary attributes or a direct response to the context. This paper is an initial study to generate microhome spatial quality by using the building envelope.

Impacts of changing urban land-use structure on sustainable city growth in China: A population-density dynamics perspective

The dynamics of urban population density (UPD) has attracted extensive attention from both policymakers and scholars because it can be used to indicate the sustainability of city growth. Substantial research considering urban areas as whole units has demonstrated a close relationship between urban land expansion and demographic urbanization. However, the impacts of the urban land-use structure (ULUS) on sustainable city growth from the perspective of UPD dynamics have largely been ignored. Based on the understanding of human–land interactions in the process of city evolution, we present a holistic theoretical framework for the impacts of changing ULUS on UPD dynamics. Taking 331 cities proper in China as the study objects, we found that the designation of urban land has mostly depended upon land substitution resulting from the high economic returns of land used for secondary and tertiary industries and residential purposes. This is induced by the increasing scarcity of urban land and people's primary requirements for the dwelling and employment functions of a city rather than its living-environment function. The results confirmed that the holistic theoretical framework is effective for understanding the impacts of changing ULUS on UPD dynamics, and that taking consideration of these impacts in the structural reform of urban land supply is significant for promoting sustainable city growth. This study also provides inspiration for understanding the uncertainties relating to sustainable city growth based on identification of city shrinkage and growth patterns. We discuss regionally differentiated policies relating to structural reform of urban land supply and strategies for coping with city shrinkage.

Acceptable use of Chinese cemeteries in Kuala Lumpur as perceived by the city’s residents

While cemeteries represent a part of any society’s cultural heritage, their continued existence in urban areas has raised concerns, mainly due to the scarcity of urban land. Referring specifically to the Chinese cemeteries of Kuala Lumpur, this paper explored the perceptions among the local Chinese residents of the possible multi-dimensional uses of cemeteries for recreational purposes. This issue involves questions of city planning and future land use, urban green purposing and the potential contribution of such land to urban fabric enhancement. Specifically, the authors intended to identify the influence of demographic profile on perceptions in consideration of future planning of cemeteries for recreational purposes. A total of 403 questionnaire samples were collected for analysis. The analysis findings indicated that the possible use of cemeteries for educational purposes was favoured among the respondents in general, with a higher acceptance rate of multiple uses of cemeteries for recreational purposes among younger respondents. Physical design enhancing landscaping, avoiding conflicts overuse, appropriate safety measures and awareness campaigns are all vital if cemeteries are to be promoted for recreational purposes.

Hybrid optimization procedures applying for two-echelon urban underground logistics network planning: A case study of Beijing

Motivated by urban land scarcity and surging demand, the underground space has become a frontier domain for future city logistics industry. The Underground Logistics System (ULS) is a sustainable option to overcome traffic congestion while improving freight transport efficiency. This study presents a comprehensive layout design and facility planning method for the two-echelon urban ULS network with hub-and-spoke structure. The underground network is organized by the primary and secondary ULS nodes and tunnels which have strong alignment with existing logistics nodes such as distribution centers and major demand terminals. A bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model considering minimal costs and maximal system utilization was established to formulate the location-allocation of ULS nodes, tunnel layout and flow routing in the network. Given the inherent problem complexity, a series of simplification techniques and hybrid optimization procedures integrating both exact and meta-heuristic algorithms were developed to obtain high quality solutions. Finally, a real-world simulation was carried out in Beijing, China to demonstrate the applicability of proposed method. Results show that our procedures can effectively obtain the best configurations of ULS network under various scenarios and has better convergence efficiency and optimality performance. Moreover, a group of horizontal tests and sensitivity analysis reveals further insights regarding ULS network decision-making and layout strategies.

Response to urban land scarcity in growing megacities: Urban containment or inter-city connection?

Maintaining city growth without straining land is one of the global goals for sustainability, requiring global efforts and local experiences. This goal relates to the ongoing debate over controlling city size based on its environmental capacity. This study argues that urban land-use is not a matter of scale but efficiency, especially in response to land scarcity issues. The two sides of this debate capture the local (urban containment) and nonlocal (inter-city connection) channels for efficiency promotion, which should be complementary. Using thirteen prefectural-level cities in Jiangsu Province, China during 2001–2016 as a case, we apply the Cobb-Douglas Production Function and the fixed effect model to examine the effects of urban containment and inter-city connection on urban land-use efficiency. Empirical results reveal that the scale economies of urban land can fade out or even shift to scale diseconomies as the urban land continues to expand. Inter-city connection as a non-local channel can effectively extend scale economies beyond administrative boundaries, continuing to improve urban land-use efficiency. The market-based containment also benefits urban land-use efficiencies by producing displacement effects. In contrast, the policy-driven containment, as a popular local solution in practice, tends to be less effective.

Anatomizing the Institutional Arrangements of Urban Village Redevelopment: Case Studies in Guangzhou, China

Given the increasing scarcity of urban land, the Chinese government has been initiating large-scale redevelopment of urban villages that are commonly regarded problematic for their low land use efficiencies and negative externalities. During this process, the emerging neo-urbanism in China demonstrates the heterogeneity of institutional arrangements, with different levels of transaction costs incurred. To explore the transaction costs incurred in different institutional arrangements of urban village redevelopment projects, this study anatomizes three projects in Guangzhou from the perspective of neo-institutional economics. The project duration and level of conflict are taken as two key variables to evaluate the efficiency and equality of the projects. With this research design, this study illustrates that institutional arrangements significantly affect the project outcomes. The conclusion suggests that the local and central governments alter the existing institutions with a view to lowering the transaction costs.

Development of a Standard Brownfield Definition, Guidelines, and Evaluation Index System for Brownfield Redevelopment in Developing Countries: The Case of Pakistan

Brownfield is post-industrial soil resulting from different anthropogenic activities and located in urban centers of cities. Due to the scarcity of urban land and the complexity of renovating old cities, and considering that brownfield research in Pakistan is still in its infancy, defining and evaluating brownfield is necessary for solving environmental issues and promoting sustainable development. Therefore, this study aims to develop a pioneer consensus-based brownfield definition, guidelines, and an evaluation index system to evaluate brownfield redevelopment in Pakistan. Initially, a comprehensive literature review was performed to gather key elements of brownfield definitions and create an evaluation index system. These indicators were further evaluated by different experts through the Delphi Method to develop a final questionnaire. Then, data were collected from relevant stakeholders. An illustrative example using three ideal schemes (housing society, eco-industrial park, and commercial market) is described to apply the evaluation index system. A new methodology combining Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (TFNs) and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) was introduced to assess three ideal schemes. Finally, a pioneer brownfield definition, guidelines, and evaluation index system for brownfield redevelopment were developed, and a further index system was verified through an illustrative example. The standard brownfield definition, guidelines, and established index system is based on the Pakistani context. Due to changes in rules and regulation, and different land characteristics, these findings cannot be generalized to all developing countries. Therefore, further studies must validate the results in their own context. This study will foster brownfield redevelopment implementation in Pakistan and promote sustainable development.

The Spatial Planning for the Educational Services and the Scarcity of Urban Land: Study Area: Al-Sadder City

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THE ARRANGEMENT CONCEPTS FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE HOUSING LAND

The issue of global urbanization gives rise to variety of urban phenomena, including the urban land scarcity and the high demand for decent dwellings. On one hand, in response to the land scarcity, the urban housing developments should be directed to a sustainable process that can take place between generations. On the other hand, housing developments also have direct impacts on the environment quality degradation. Thus, further learnings about more efficient use for housing land are needed, one of which can be learned from the already built formal housing designs in Indonesia. Therefore, this study aims to propose concepts for formal housing land arrangement to ensure the environmental sustainability. The case study of this research is Taman Wisata Regency located on the border of the city of Surabaya and Gresik, Indonesia. The data of field’s existing conditions, potentials, and problems, were collected through observation and documentation. The data were analyzed descriptive and qualitative based on the criteria of sustainable housing from UN-Habitat. The results show that the land efficiency on Taman Wisata Regency can be done in the form of rearrangement proposal of prone area anticipation, the opening of inbound access from one-gate to two-gates system, the arrangement of road’s circulation and proportion, the maximization of green open spaces, and also quality improvement of other infrastructures such as drainage and waste management. The results of this study are expected to be used as reference for planners, designers or developers, in creating the environmentally sustainable housing land.

Marketization of Collective-owned Rural Land: A Breakthrough in Shenzhen, China

This study focuses on analyzing the ongoing land policy reform that allows collective-owned rural land transactions in the open market in Shenzhen, China. Employing a case study method, we investigate this land policy evolution through description and contextual analysis. We argue that the existing dual-track land administration system, within which the state administers market transactions, has contributed to numerous social problems, such as urban land scarcity, inefficiency of land resource allocation, and exacerbated social injustice. Following the recent actions of the central government, a collective-owned rural land parcel in Shenzhen was officially transferred in November 2013, an action viewed as a landmark step in reforming the current dual-track land system. Though the generalization of Shenzhen’s experiment nationwide faces significant barriers, Shenzhen’s breakthrough in liberalization of the rural land market indicates that China is moving toward a potential new round of land policy revolution.

The Limits to Urban Growth: Suggestions for Macromodeling Third World Economies

The authors criticize existing macro models of third world development for minimizing the limits to urban growth and ignoring the issue of over-urbanization. They then offer suggestions on how the costs of urbanization can be incorporated into a general equilibrium model of third world development so that the natural limits to urban growth can be evaluated. Particular attention is given to potential cost-of-living differentials between urban and rural areas urban housing availability the quality of urban public goods urban land scarcity modern sector factor requirements and resource bottlenecks and the competing demands of unproductive urban capital accumulation. (EXCERPT)

Note sur la consommation d'espace associée à la croissance urbaine

Urban land scarcity calls for reliable programming urban land use. After a rapid survey of French and American studies on the matter, the article shows how density concepts must be diversified and emphasizes the determinants of urban land consumption in the long run. — A note on space consumption connected with urban growth.