Urban Diversity Research Articles

Understanding Urban Complexity via the Spatial Diversity of Activities: An Application to Barcelona (Spain)

Urban complexity can be measured by the numerical and spatial diversity of activities in a territory. Just as biodiversity can be measured in a natural ecosystem, diversity indices can be applied to urban settings. Urban diversity presents higher values in areas where there is a greater number of (economic, institutional, and social) activities with a high degree of differentiation between them. This study seeks to investigate the potential of applying an urban diversity index in a specific case study: namely, the city of Barcelona (Spain), known for the orthogonal grid plan of its Eixample district. Results show that the municipal territory of Barcelona as a whole is characterized by highly differentiated spaces according to their urban diversity values. Specifically, it is the Eixample district that presents the highest values of urban diversity, reflecting the densification of its morphology and its urban commercial policies.

A Social-Ecological Approach to Studying Variation in Urban Trees and Ecosystem Services in the National Municipal District of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Maintaining a diverse urban forest that provides ecosystem services can promote urban sustainability and resilience to environmental change. Around the world, cities have taken to inventorying their urban trees and quantifying their ecosystem services but more so in industrialized counties than in Latin America. Here we describe the results of an i-Tree inventory that established 206 survey plots in the National Municipal District of Santo Domingo (NMDSD). We used social-ecological theory to evaluate potential factors that may influence urban forest structure, composition, and ecosystem services diversity across three wards with distinct social and urban characteristics. Rarefaction curves showed a diverse urban forest dominated by non-native trees that have ornamental and medicinal uses. Wards differed in species composition with palms being particularly dominant in Wards 1 and 2 where the proportion of low-income houses is smaller. Ward 1 supports high-income residential areas and Ward 3 is the area with higher population and housing densities and lower income residents. On average, we found no significant differences among wards in tree species richness, average dbh, leaf area, and percent tree cover per plot. Trees in Ward 2 were taller, on average, than those in Ward 1 but were comparable to those in Ward 3. Likewise, tree density per plot was highest in Ward 2, followed by Ward 1 and Ward 3. Despite these significant differences in stem densities, average values in four ecosystem services involving measures of carbon, rainfall, and contaminants (C-sequestration, C-storage, avoided runoff, and removal of air pollutants) were non-significant across wards. We found disproportionately more street trees in Ward 1 relative to Wards 2 and 3 and more trees in public spaces in Wards 1 and 2 relative to Ward 3. Evidence for the luxury effect on tree distribution in the NMDSD was subtle and manifested mostly through differences in species composition and tree distribution across public and private domains as well as the amount of planting space. Overall results point to inequalities in the potential of reforestation among NMDS wards and an overabundance of non-native species, which should guide urban forest management with ecosystem services and conservation goals.

Nighttime Vitality and Its Relationship to Urban Diversity: An Exploratory Analysis in Shenzhen, China

Relationship between urban diversity and urban vitality is imperative for guiding better design in urban development, although existing frameworks are not able to efficiently examine the relationship at multiple scales. In this article, we propose a new framework to integrate nighttime light (NTL) imagery and multisource urban data into multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) models to examine the varying relationship between diversity and vitality across space and time. NTL is used as a proxy for urban nighttime vitality. Public transport, taxi transit, and points of interest data are used to derive three aspects of urban diversity indices: ridership diversity, spatial interaction diversity, and built environment diversity. By comparing the models in holiday and nonholiday weeks in Shenzhen, China, the NTL-based vitality proxy was found to be strongly correlated with the urban diversity indices, given by the satisfactory goodness of fit ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">r</i> -squared = 0.9) of the MGWR models. The spatially varying relationships between diversity indices and nighttime vitality were observed and patterns discussed. The analysis of the coefficients revealed the importance of stable public transport and fluctuating taxi trips for nighttime vitality. The new index proposed for the diversity of spatial interaction (DSI) is a strong indicator for nighttime vitality, adding to existing vitality indicators. Furthermore, this study found that DSI and density of catering have less temporal variation, indicating their robustness in measuring nighttime vitality. This study provided empirical insights into how nighttime vitality is related to urban diversity, demonstrating new applications of NTL for intracity studies.

URBAN PLANT DIVERSITY POTENTIAL OF THE CEMETERIES AND THE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES OFFERED: THE SAMPLE OF KAYSERİ CITY (ASRİ) CEMETERY

Cemeteries are one of the indispensable forms of land use in urban areas or in the city. Urban cemeteries are among the green infrastructure elements all over the world, and with the increasing urbanization, they play an important role for urban biodiversity conservation. Aim: In this study, the urban plant diversity potential of the cemeteries was investigated and the ecosystem services provided by the tree species used were discussed. In this context, Kayseri City Cemetery, which is the largest cemetery of the city, was chosen as the study area. Method: First of all, on-site observation and investigation were made and the current state of the cemetery area was revealed, and plants in the area were identified. Then, with the table created on the basis of the literature review the ecosystem services provided by the dominant tree species in the area have been determined. Findings: As a result of on-site observations and investigation carried out in the cemetery a total of 101 taxa, 53 of which were coniferous and broad-leaved trees / shrubs, were identified. The supplier, organizer, habitat and cultural ecosystem services provided by the 10 dominant tree species were examined under 5 main topic such as social, cultural, economic, aesthetic and ecological benefits. Results: The study area on the basis of tree species; it provides many important ecosystem services such as increasing cultural-historical and aesthetic value, biodiversity potential, regulating the urban climate, recreation, improving public health and psychology. As a result, it is necessary to make an inventory of the cemeteries, which are an important land use in urban areas both for the rotection of urban plant diversity and for the sustainability of biological diversity, on the basis of natural-cultural-endemic species and to demonstrate their ecological value.

Correlation of urban avian species diversity present in heterogeneous habitat types of Berhampur city, Odisha, Eastern India

Correlation of urban avian species diversity present in heterogeneous habitat types of Berhampur city, Odisha, Eastern India

URBAN immigrant diversity and entrepreneurial choice

Based on the national dynamic monitoring data of floating population, this paper investigates the impact mechanism and effect of immigrant diversity on entrepreneurial choice. The study found that the diversity of immigrants will significantly reduce the probability of individual entrepreneurship. The mechanism is that entrepreneurship itself is a relatively open process. In a complex and diverse city, the interpersonal psychological distance is widened and there is a lack of mutual trust and social identity, so entrepreneurship is significantly restrained In addition, this paper finds that compared with self-employed, entrepreneurs in the form of enterprise employers can benefit from diversity, which indicates that diversity promotes "Schumpeter" entrepreneurship; The impact of diversity will also vary according to educational skills and regional differences This paper empirically reveals the impact of diversity on Immigrant Entrepreneurship decision-making, which can provide profound Policy Enlightenment under the background of "Mobile China"

Urban diversity and epidemic resilience: The case of the COVID-19

The spread of the coronavirus pandemic offers a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of the role of urban planning strategies in the resilience of urban communities confronting a pandemic. This study examines the relationship between urban diversity and epidemiological resilience by empirically assessing the relation between the level of neighborhood homogeneity and the probability of being infected by the coronavirus. We focus on the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, a relatively closed community that was disproportionately and severely affected by the pandemic. The findings indicate a monotonic but nonlinear relationship between the level of ultra-Orthodox prevalence in a neighborhood and a resident's probability of contracting COVID-19. As the fraction of ultra-Orthodox individuals in the neighborhood decreases, the fraction of infected population decreases significantly and more strongly that can be explained without recourse to urban diversity considerations. This relationship is found to be significant and strong, even when other variables are accounted for that had hitherto been perceived as central to coronavirus distribution, such as housing density, socioeconomic level of the neighborhood, and number of people per household. The findings are important and relevant to many societies around the globe in which a variety of populations have a separatist lifestyle.

Revisiting Jane Jacobs: Quantifying urban diversity

This study attempts to formally quantify Jane Jacob’s notion of urban diversity and examine whether greater diversity actually contributes economic benefits to a neighborhood. Focusing on the number and types of stores at the street level, we use the Shannon–Weaver index to quantify commercial diversity. We then compare the obtained degrees of diversity with store sales volumes obtained through credit card transaction data aggregated in the neighborhood divided into a 200-m grid. The results of the analysis, performed on 50 Spanish cities, show that the greater the diversity in the grid, the higher the sales volumes of the stores, and this tendency is more evident in large than in small–medium cities. In addition, we found that the coexistence of different store types provides a positive environment for the emergence of hub stores. We specifically define a hub store in this paper as the store with the largest revenue within a grid, provided that the distribution of the sales revenue in a grid is statistically similar to the power law. We speculate that hub stores trigger exploration between different store types, and consequently, the sales volumes of highly diverse neighborhoods increase compared with those of less diverse neighborhoods. These results highlight the importance of urban diversity for economic prosperity, which can lead to an increased quality of life for city neighborhoods.

Just city planning competitions in Helsinki: between the power of image and many images of power

ABSTRACT City growth in Helsinki is based on urban renewal steered by a policy preventing segregation. Meanwhile, chain stores dominate the Finnish retail market, and small mainstream retail is hardly seen in Helsinki. Although many old strip malls have been left vacant by the decline in small mainstream retail, ethnic retail has remarkably converted two strip malls into the most livable urban hubs in Helsinki. In 2019–2020, two planning competitions were held in response to the city objectives of forming urban centers through densification. This paper studies both competitions to examine their capacity to reflect urban diversity as a value in their results. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it demonstrates that competitions were not structured to respond to urban diversity. Second, both cases lacked effective consulting with ethnic retailers and the immigrant community affected by the urban renewal. Third, it argues that urban diversity is achievable if a genuine will exists to support competitions in freely inventing ideas empowering diversity. Furthermore, the results suggest that the alliance between the municipal monopoly of planning, the chain stores and the property shareholding companies created many images of power in the process.

On the Emergence of Sociotechnical Regimes of Electric Urban Water Transit Systems

Urban activities, including urban mobility, play a crucial role in climate change mitigation. Urban mobility is currently at a crossroads. In a business as usual scenario, CO2 emissions from urban transportation will grow by one fourth by 2050. Nevertheless, during this period, it may drop by about one third. To make the drop happen, we need to introduce comprehensive policies and measures. Electrifying urban transit is one feasible solution. This study investigates whether and how urban water transit systems have been electrified—a means of transport which has not been well researched in this respect. A multilevel perspective and the comparative case study method were employed to answer the research questions. The comprehensive study focussed on 24 cities representing the current experience in planning and operating water transport, based mainly on secondary, primarily qualitative, data, such as industry reports, feasibility studies, urban policies, and scientific papers. The primary outcome is that urban electric passenger ferries left their market niches and triggered a radical innovation, diffusing into mainstream markets. However, urban diversity results in various paths to electrification, due to the system’s physical characteristics, local climate and transport policies, manufacturing capacity, green city branding, and the innovativeness of international ferry operators. Three dominant transition pathways were identified—a comprehensive carbon neutral policy, a transport sector policy, and a research and development policy. From a multilevel perspective, cities can be considered a bridge between niches and regimes that provide the actual conditions for implementing sociotechnical configurations.

Governing urban diversity through myths of national sameness – a comparative analysis of Denmark and Sweden

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore problematisations of urban diversity in urban and integration policies in Denmark and Sweden; the paper aims to show how such policies express social imaginaries about the self and the other and underlying assumptions of sameness that legitimise diverging ways of managing urban diversity and (re)organising the city.Design/methodology/approachInspired by anthropology of policy and post-structural approaches to policy analysis, the authors approach urban and integration policies as cultural texts that are central to the organisation of cities and societies. With a comparative approach, the authors explore how visions of diversity take shape and develop over time in Swedish and Danish policies on urban development and integration.FindingsSwedish policy constructs productiveness as crucial to the imagined national sameness, whereas Danish policy constructs cultural sameness as fundamental to the national self-image. By constructing the figure of “the unproductive”/“the non-Western” as the other, diverging from an imagined sameness, policies for organising the city through removing and “improving” urban diverse others are legitimised.Originality/valueThe authors add to previous research by focussing on the construction of the self as crucial in processes of othering and by highlighting how both nationalistic and colour-blind policy discourses construct myths of national sameness, which legitimise the governing of urban diversity. The authors highlight and de-naturalise assumptions and categorisations by showing how problem representations differ over time and between two neighbouring countries.

Incorporating human behaviors into theories of urban community assembly and species coexistence

In cities, humans directly and indirectly affect plant and wildlife communities. These human–species interactions are not included in traditional ecological approaches used to understand why and how organisms are distributed. Here, we incorporate human behaviors into urban community assembly theories and detail all the complex ways humans affect the dispersal, selection and persistence of species in cities. To do this, we integrate human behaviors and actions into traditional filter frameworks used to study community assembly. We use our framework to develop testable hypotheses to predict patterns of urban diversity as well as pose key considerations for future research. In order to have a predictive understanding of how urban biodiversity responds to environmental, social and land use change, it is necessary to better understand interactions between humans and other organisms.

Harnessing Conflict: Antagonism and Spatiotemporal Design Practices

This paper explores the capacities of design to interrogate the socio-spatial context in order to foreground conflict, dissent and dispute as creative practices to fuel urban transformation.&#x0D; In today’s urban habitat, spaces and actions do not mesh seamlessly. The city is characterised by a disjunction between the physicality of the urban fabric as a materialisation of ideologies and the relationality of contested supremacies and entropic dynamics that inhabit it. Consequently, the practices of contemporary transformative city-making need to be reinvented through temporality and impermanence, accounting for disorder and embracing instability. In that sense, antagonism is a key element to harness in critical design practices aimed at promoting urban diversity. In this paper we study how incorporating antagonism in design practices can trigger processes of urban reformulation by constituting liminal spaces of opportunity where democratisation emerges as a spatiotemporal practice.&#x0D; Two related case studies carried out in 2020 in the Raval neighbourhood of Barcelona (Subjective Cartographies: A Mirror of Diversity and Infrastructures for Public Space Interaction), are presented to explore how design can support dissidence and plurality, whether through identification and visualisation or by catalysing them as situated practices of active citizenship.&#x0D; In both case studies, design fosters de-hierarchisation and trans-linearity in the city, reclaiming the right to direct action in collective urban spaces. In this sense, this paper explores how design contributes to activating multiple processes of emancipated citizenship, harnessing conflict and constructive dissent as situated spatiotemporal practices to promote diversity. Facilitating the proliferation of counter-hegemonic notions of cosmopolitics, territory, domesticity and publicness, the design practices revisited in this paper operate between politics, space and affect in order to promote intersubjective relations in public spaces, using the material, temporal and affective dimensions of design to co-create diverse and resilient urban habitats.

Community service learning in complex urban settings: challenges and opportunities for social work education

ABSTRACT Urban diversity poses significant challenges for social work education in Europe’s major cities. These challenges manifest themselves in an accumulation of conflicts, inequalities, and fracture lines between individuals, networks, cultures, but also different groups and their institutional and political environments. This current challenge for the education of the next generation of social workers is also related to the rapidly changing environmental conditions and complexity of the urban diversity. Urban society is increasingly fragmented and diverse requiring new knowledges and tools to support future social work practice. The aim of the paper is to analyze the potential of Community Service Learning (CSL) as an approach that can be effectively applied in complex urban settings. CSL is an experiential learning format that integrates academic and experiential learning within a community service context. The participative training model identifies three basic principles: civic engagement, cooperative and multiple learning, and the importance of critical reflexive learning. This paper builds on existing CSL literature and represents ongoing discussions in an Erasmus+ project, exploring social work education in complex urban settings.

Introduction: Ethnographic Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism in the Gulf: State Narratives, Individual Trajectories and Transnational Connections

This introduction offers a general framework to this Special Section which aims to unpack the ambivalences of cosmopolitanism in the Gulf region. It argues that cosmopolitanism is a heuristic concept for the critical analysis of extreme urban diversity in non-Western, non-democratic contexts. Indeed, it acts as a tool for exploring the tensions between logics of exclusion –– underlined by policies that maintain foreign residents outside of the citizenry –– and logics of integration, triggered partly by the competition among global cities to attract talents. While this introduction outlines the many theoretical debates surrounding the notion of cosmopolitanism, the five articles adopt an empirically-grounded approach to display new interdisciplinary perspectives on cosmopolitanism in Gulf societies, based on two overarching observations. First, they deconstruct state narratives of cosmopolitanism as a normative political discourse, with its lexicon of tolerance, diversity and coexistence. Second, they advocate for an understanding of cosmopolitanism built upon the study of individual representations, trajectories, and practices rather than as an ideal of coexistence and openness to the other.

Short-term vegetation changes in tropical urban parks: Patterns and design-management implications

Singaporean parks are generally planted and managed, but their contribution to urban diversity may alter over time. This study examined the key growth patterns of managed vegetation and factors influencing floral diversity through short-term observation of vegetation changes in a typical tropical urban park setting. The study selected 222 plots using a 10m × 10m grid in three Singaporean parks and surveyed their species richness and spatial distribution. It studied factors affecting vegetation flourishing or decline using multiple on-site mappings and interviews with managers in 2018 and comparison of these findings with vegetation as it had been planted in 2012 or 2015. The study found that diversity in species and structure and vegetation area consistently increased over time despite regular maintenance. Initially planted vegetation, geographical characteristics, and diverse maintenance activities all played an essential role in shaping the parks’ microhabitats, affecting the emergence and growth of plant species. We argue that the role of spontaneous vegetation is critical in the tropical park context, as it contributes to landscape heterogeneity without intensive maintenance. At the same time, however, not all spontaneous vegetation contributes to floral diversity. The findings may help landscape designers and managers understand the opportunities and challenges of tropical planting which can contribute to the long-term biodiversity of an urban ecosystem.

Classifying the Diversity of Urban Diversities: an Inductive Analysis of European Cities

This paper provides an empirical classification of migration-related diversities in 166 European cities. The local turn in migration studies has shown that migration-related diversity may take varied forms in different cities. Our understanding of how and why cities differ is lagging behind the wealth of existing conceptualisations. This is partly because most studies look only at one kind of city, in particular, superdiverse global cities. This paper takes a systematic inductive approach to map the diversity of migration-related diversities in urban setting and understand the reasons behind such variations. Applying quantitative classification methods to European cities in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, we search for a new meaningful classification of the urban diversity configurations based on measures of volume, variety and spread of migration-related diversity. Five empirical clusters of cities of migration are found: superdiverse cities, migrant minority cities, new diversity cities, low-migration cities and non-diverse cities. Subsequently, we develop a better qualitative understanding of these clusters by examining typical cities, their economic positioning, migration history, their policy and political structures, as well as their social and geographical position. A thorough classification, we argue, is necessary to have a more differentiated view of the existing urban diversities and go beyond one-size-fits-all solutions for urban governance of migration-related diversity.

Research on the protection and utilization of historical and cultural blocks under the New Museum Theory——Taking the Street Museum of Lihuangpi Road in Wuhan as an example

The Street Museum is the first nationwide initiative in Wuhan to apply new museology to the protection planning of historical streets. The Lihuangpi Road Street Museum is the first street museum in Wuhan. It has played an active role in protecting historical relics, showing the unique architectural style and spatial texture of Lihuangpi Road, reflecting urban diversity, improving the living environment, and promoting the development of cultural and leisure industries effect. However, problems such as irrationality in planning and design, low follow-up investment, lack of management and supervision, and inactive participation of community residents have affected its effectiveness. Through in-depth investigations and interviews, this article summarizes the practical results and problems of the Lihuangpi Road Street Museum since its establishment, and proposes targeted opinions, with a view to providing further reference for the protection and planning of historical blocks in other cities.

Modeling and Analysis of Ecological Urban Landscape Pattern Evolution Based on Multisource Remote Sensing Data

Considering that the development of urbanization cannot be separated from the application of landscape pattern evolution, in order to improve the development level of ecocity, a modeling analysis of ecological urban landscape pattern evolution based on multisource remote sensing data is proposed. Taking ecotype city as the research object, the remote sensing images of ecological urban landscape pattern are screened by using multisource remote sensing data and nonremote sensing data as the basic data. CA-Markov model is constructed and the evolution of ecological urban landscape pattern is analyzed. The experimental results show that, from 2005 to 2020, the development level of urbanization process is higher and higher and the area of building land patches is increasing, which reduces the fragmentation of building land patches. However, the landscape of cultivated land and green space is less and less, and the distribution of the patches also causes uneven phenomenon, which leads to the gradual decline of ecological urban landscape diversity. In the ecological urban landscape pattern, the degree of fragmentation and diversity of urban landscape is reduced due to the high connection and coverage of the construction land.

Influence of Caring and Empathy on Students' Multiculturalism Mediated by Christianity: Role of University Core Values

Urban diversity is a reality for young people living in megacities such as Jakarta. Diversity in urban areas has its benefits; for example, it is a driver of creativity and innovation, but this urban diversity is vulnerable to intergroup friction and conflict. Therefore, urban youth needs to have a sense of multiculturalism, that is, an open attitude and respect for differences. Strong connections between Multiculturalism and Empathy as well as between Multiculturalism and spirituality or religiosity have been recognized. Universities that implement religious-oriented values and openness toward diversity are more likely to promote student multiculturalism. Based on literature, our study examines the influence of the organizational core values of Christianity and Caring as well as an additional social skill variable of Empathy on Multiculturalism among students in a Catholic university in Jakarta. We hypothesize that Multiculturalism is predicted by Caring and Empathy mediated by Christianity. This research was conducted with 155 bachelor students at University X. Research instruments comprised Organizational Core Value questionnaires, the Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright’s Empathy Quotient, and the Universal-Diverse Orientation Scale. Data were analyzed using the path analysis technique. The results show that Multiculturalism is predicted by Caring and Empathy mediated by Christianity. Christianity influences Multiculturalism. Each of Caring and Empathy influences Multiculturalism with the mediation of Christianity. These results suggest that a university might cultivate Multiculturalism by thoughtfully channeling religiously oriented values and a sense of Caring and Empathy in building university culture.