Urban Governance System Research Articles

Geographies of COVID‐19

Geographies of COVID‐19

Establishment and Application of a Specialized Physical Examination Indicator System for Urban Waterlogging Risk in China

With the rapid development of urbanization in China, urban waterlogging has become a significant problem in constructing the safety of the human environment. As an essential manifestation of the modernization of the urban governance system and capacity, the city physical examination establishes a multi-criteria evaluation system for problem diagnosis, rectification, and improvement. In order to accurately identify the risk of urban waterlogging, the concept of special physical examination of urban waterlogging risk was established, and the evaluation mechanism and indicator definition were improved on the basis of the “four-factor method” of flooding disaster assessment. From the perspective of urban basin flood control capacity, background disaster-bearing conditions, “Major-Minor-Micro” drainage system capacity, crucial locations and personnel protection, and emergency management capacity, twenty-four indicators in five categories were selected. The interaction between multiple factors is considered to establish a special physical examination indicator system as a characteristic evaluation mechanism of waterlogging with the goal of urban safety and resilience. The results of the study could provide theoretical and technical support for the diagnosis of urban waterlogging risk problems and the formulation of prevention and control strategies.

Do smart cities perform better in governing the COVID-19 crisis? Empirical evidence from Indonesian cities

The COVID-19 pandemic has shocked the world due to its pronounced mortality rate, rapid worldwide spread, and profound socioeconomic effects across all societies. As the spearhead of urban policies, local governments play an important role in crisis management during the pandemic. In the context of smart cities, innovative solutions have been required, especially to improve the local government's capacity to manage health crises. This study asks whether smart cities perform better in governing the COVID-19 pandemic. This article focuses on how urban governance impacted cities’ performance in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a city-level data set from Indonesia, we constructed a COVID-19 response performance index using principal component analysis that is used in an empirical strategy with quasi-experimental cross-sectional methods to minimize the influence of unobserved covariates and selection bias. This study concludes that smart city status does not have a statistically significant impact on the COVID-19 performance index. We offer three possible accounts based on expert insights, previous empirical studies, and digital upshots on data monitoring and reporting cases. Both theoretical and practical implications can be drawn, thus highlighting the lack of effective integration of technological dimensions into health and urban governance systems in the context of a public health crisis.

Co-Creation of Local Development and Effective Public Participation. Sozialer Zusammenhalt („Social Cohesion”) Programme in Berlin as an Example of Practice

Co-creation of public policy can be considered a democratic innovation, all the more so as this approach seems to secure the possibility of „redefining what is democracy”. Understood this way, it is a direct source of changes in urban governance systems. Hence, the essence of the considerations is reflection on co-creation as a principle regulating the current urban governance practices and public participation in Berlin. The subject of the analysis in the empirical part of the paper is the Sozialer Zusammenhang („Social Cohesion”) Programme implemented since 2020. The aim is to present the specificity accompanying co-creation with citizens and evaluate the solutions’ effectiveness. Particular attention is paid to the key issue of what institutional arrangements support co-creation in a specific local context, i.e., at the neighbourhood level, and to discuss to what extent they can be considered effective public participation.

Entrepreneurship role in the co-production of public services in informal settlements − A scoping review

From a land-use planning perspective, informal settlements emerge because of dysfunctions in contemporary cities, leading to inequities in living conditions and exclusions of people in spaces outside the formal planned areas of cities. This paper explores how entrepreneurship in informal settlements contributes to the co-production of public services. The paper is based on social entrepreneurship frameworks (concerned with infrastructure, environment, housing and technology) that emerged from the literature review, focusing on strategies to solve challenges in informal settlements. The essence of the review was to ascertain the nature of existing and potential entrepreneurial initiatives and the implications for actors, communities, urban governance systems and research. The Campbell collaboration systematic literature review technique was adapted (in a scoping format) as a methodology to screen relevant studies by following the PRISMA Flow statement. The literature review process involved screening 2835 articles from 109 scientific journals published between 2014 and 2022. The outcome of the literature review indicated that current research in this area differed in focus, methodology, and application of theory. It concluded that research that focuses on the contribution of entrepreneurs to the co-production of public services in informal settlements is limited. Using the knowledge that emerged from the literature review, the current study produced an entrepreneurial framework for co-producing public services in informal settlements. It also provided an overview of theoretical and practical knowledge for further research. Future researchers can use the findings of this study to align their research within the interface between entrepreneurship and land management.

Built-in Flood Risk: the Intertwinement of Flood Risk and Unregulated Urban Expansion in African Cities

Urban flood risk is significantly shaped by ground conditions and the built environment, which are constantly modified and transformed by human actions. This paper examines the intertwinement of flood risk and unregulated urban expansion processes in three selected sites in Accra’s expanding periphery. All three sites have been included in Accra’s urban extent since the 1990s, but differ with regard to the timing of development and socio-economic characteristics of residents. The research illuminates how flood risk is produced and “built-in” to the urban fabric through widespread practices associated with unregulated urban expansion processes, especially the persistent encroachment on water retention areas, wetlands and riparian zones and the highly fragmented provision of transport infrastructure in emerging residential areas in the periphery. Such harmful development practices are neither confined to homebuilders from poorer segments of the urban population nor spatially concentrated in low-income areas. The research highlights how the actions and inactions of a wide range of social groups and actors engaged in urban land administration and development contribute to flood risk in various ways, making flooding an increasingly alarming issue of citywide concern. Different stakeholders highlight fragmented urban governance as an underlying root cause for the obstruction of sustainable land and water management. Overall, the study calls for a more robust recognition of spatial planning and transport infrastructure provision in flood risk mitigation and highlights the urgent need for planning and governance practices that challenge the existing fragmentation of urban governance systems.

Experiential learning: a relational approach to sustaining community-led social innovation

Community-led social innovations have great potential to drive sustainable change but often struggle to sustain themselves in urban governance systems. Social learning is a prevalent strategy for sustaining social innovation, but limits understanding of, and abilities for transforming its relational dynamics. Drawing on classical pragmatism, I explain how experiential learning offers a relational framework for facilitating an interactive, holistic and embodied process of learning to transform engrained relational patterns and hegemonic forces that constrain personal and social potentialities. Based on action research conducted with an impactful community-led social innovation struggling to sustain itself, I conceptualize experiential learning as learning-in-relation-to-others-and-the-world: cultivating capacities and resources for growing individually and together in relation to hegemonic forces. I conclude that learning should not be treated as an internal responsibility of social innovations but as a key condition for ecosystems that sustain social innovation and transform urban governance.

Intelligent Sensor Network Using Internet of Things in Urban Community Network Governance

The purpose is to conform to the development of the times and study a new way of urban community network governance. First, the ways of governance, social governance, urban community governance, and urban community network governance are discussed. Next, the intelligent sensor function of Internet of things (IoT) technology is applied to realize the communication between IoT and urban community network governance. An urban community network governance system based on an intelligent sensor network is established. The system combines Kalman filtering to realize the dynamic monitoring of the mobile Application (APP) of the urban community residents and can update and process the collected information in real time. Finally, a survey is conducted on the satisfaction of residents of a community in Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, in 2019 on community network governance under the IoT. The efficiency and ability of urban community network governance under different network modes are compared and analyzed. The results show that the community has improved the needs of community residents through IoT network governance in multiple aspects, but the community service level of culture is not high. The community needs to strengthen the network publicity of community culture to improve the cultural level of the community. Meanwhile, in urban community governance, the comprehensive governance ability of the network governance model under network organization management is the highest, with an average of 50.93%. It shows that the established system is beneficial to the construction of urban community network governance. This exploration provides the direction for the IoT urban community network governance and constructs the urban community network governance system based on the intelligent sensor network.

Experimenting with Urban–Rural Partnerships for Sustainable Sanitation in India: Learning from Practice

Local government partnerships for producing services are ubiquitous in many countries. However, the approach has rarely been applied in India—likely owing to a history of centralized planning and independent urban and rural governance systems. Nonetheless, the country’s transforming sanitation landscape could benefit from intergovernmental partnerships for scaling services with speed and efficiency. The ongoing national sanitation program has espoused the approach in theory but the body of practice to support its wide deployment is sparse. This paper critically reviews one of the first experiments with the approach for producing sanitation services in the Dhenkanal district, Odisha, India. We ask the question: what can Dhenkanal’s case tell us about the challenges and opportunities for delivering sanitation services through local-level intergovernmental urban–rural partnerships in India? As part of our practice research, we supported the district government pilot the approach. The data, consultations, and observations underpinning the experiment form the basis of our insights. We find that the urban–rural partnership increased access to sanitation services among rural households within a short period, lowered service charges, and clarified institutional responsibilities. The experiment highlighted issues relating to planning, responsibility, accountability, and financing that need tackling in order to strengthen the model going forward. We recommend that evolving a definitive model(s) of intergovernmental partnerships would require experimenting with the approach in diverse institutional contexts and granting governments the flexibility to recreate and renegotiate the form of the partnership.

Urban street fairs in Curitiba from the ecosocioeconomy perspective

ABSTRACT Despite boosting cities and preserving local culture in the face of changes imposed on urban markets in the global south, urban street fairs are territories that are still not well understood. Our objective is to evaluate urban street fairs as a locus of local territorial development from the perspective of the ecosocioeconomy. Methodologically, it is a survey with a sample of 334 on 485 street vendors in Curitiba, complemented by documentary surveys, interviews, and observations in-situ. As a result, urban street fairs are socio-productive arrangements emerging from the interaction among multiple rationalities; street vendors opt for their work due to tradition and preference for trade and not a market limitation; natural products (organic and traditional) are links between ecologically desirable commercial and productive practices. The perspective of ecosocioeconomy captures the material and symbolic constitution and development of urban street fairs as a complex relational territory embedded in the city, with its internalized and externalized interrelations in an urban governance system influenced by different rationalities and constituted by a multiplicity of actors in different spaces and times.

Practice and challenge of urban land governance: an empirical study in Tigrai, East Africa

The purpose of the study was to assess the practices and challenges of urban land governance in the Tigrai Region. This study employed a concurrent nested design. Data were collected from 177 officeholders and customers through questionnaires. Besides, interviews were conducted with purposefully selected officeholders. The results of the data analysis were presented using mean, standard deviation, Pearson correlation, and logistic regression to see the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable. The major findings showed that the elements of good urban governance (participation, responsiveness, accountability, transparency, equity, and efficiency and effectiveness) are not practiced appropriately. The major challenges in good urban land governance are lack of resources, commitment, human resources, clear rules and regulations, modern service delivery, materials, budget, and rent-seeking behavior. As a result, citizens are not satisfied with the urban land governance system and implementation process. Thus, the government should reconsider strengthening urban land institutions.

Analysis of the Requirements of Modernization of China's Social Governance System

With the development of the Internet, the social governance model is changing from one-way management to two-way interaction, from offline to online-offline integration, and from simple government supervision to paying more attention to social collaborative governance, which requires the construction of a new pattern of grassroots social governance. Improve the institutionalized channels of mass participation in grass-roots social governance. We will improve the urban and rural grass-roots governance system that combines autonomy, rule of law and rule of virtue under the leadership of party organizations, improve the community management and service mechanism, implement grid management and service, give play to the role of mass organizations and social organizations, give play to the self-discipline function of trade associations and chambers of commerce, realize the benign interaction between government governance and social regulation, and residents' autonomy, and consolidate the foundation of grass-roots social governance. Accelerate the modernization of urban social governance. Promote social governance and service focus to the grassroots level, sink more resources to the grassroots level, and better provide accurate and refined services. Specifically, the requirements for the construction of governance system can be analyzed into four requirements: intelligent governance, participatory governance, municipal governance and media governance.

Practice and Politics of Land Use for Urban Climate Mitigation and Adaptation in Blantyre and Lilongwe Cities, Malawi

Malawi’s population is fast growing, with a good share of urban residents being susceptible to environmental risks and disasters. This risk is aggravated by climate change. Blantyre and Lilongwe cities are not spared by this scenario. The study used household survey, key informant interviews, observation, and experience to gather primary data, and desk study to solicit secondary data. Random and purposive sampling was employed to identify survey respondents and informants, respectively. Content analysis was used to establish themes and relationships. A good number of regulatory frameworks (policies) and programmes for abating urban climate change mitigation and adaptation have been in place, but implementation is a challenge. Political interference tends to shift priorities on policies to be implemented at one particular point in time of a political regime, and this has culminated into a sour relationship between politics and land use planning, with the former jeopardizing the practice by the latter. Funding insufficiency, uncontrolled development, political interference, corruption and lack of transparency, insufficient stakeholder engagement, and poor planning contribute to poor and insufficient disaster risk management, and to increased disaster risks in Blantyre and Lilongwe cities. Citizen involvement in appropriate and effective land use planning process, regular communication on the availability of safety information, and robust emergency notification system can make communities in Lilongwe and Blantyre cities resilient from climate-related risks. The urban governance system has to be strengthened. There is need for adequate political will for mobilization of urban climate governance efforts.

Urban epidemic governance: An event system analysis of the outbreak and control of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China.

The outbreak of a virus such as COVID-19 is composed of a series of seemingly random incidents which are nevertheless interconnected. In a novel approach, this article adopts the event system theory (EST), established in organisational behaviour science, to investigate the mechanism of epidemic governance in Wuhan, the city which reported the first case of COVID-19 and thereafter successfully controlled the outbreak. The event system analysis divided Wuhan's response mechanism to COVID-19 into four dimensions: the graded response systems, the interactive relationship between multilevel entities of epidemic governance, the quarantine regulations and the governance of public sentiment. There are numerous lessons learned and effective measures developed from the 'Wuhan experience'. These lessons and measures can assist other cities around the world to cope with the current COVID-19 crisis and prepare their urban governance systems for similar infectious diseases in the future. We urgently advocate the addition of more scholarly discussion on urban epidemic governance by incorporating interdisciplinary approaches like EST in particular.

Evaluation of urban land resource value based on sustainable environment space governance

For any cities, the optimal objective of development is to fully tap the value of land resources, while pursuing the progress of economy, society, and eco-environment. Currently, there is not yet a unified evaluation standard for sustainable development quality of urban environment; the land resource value has not been deeply evaluated from the three aspects of society, economy, and eco-environment. Therefore, this paper tries to measure urban land resource value based on sustainable environmental space governance. Firstly, the authors constructed a scientific evaluation index system for sustainable development quality of urban environment. Next, a comprehensive evaluation method was developed for sustainable land utilization in urban space governance system. After that, the urban space governance scheme was subject to multi-objective optimization. Finally, experiments were carried out to measure the urban land resource value, and estimate the urban ecological service functions and their values. On this basis, the benefits of the urban space governance scheme were analyzed in various aspects. The results confirm the effectiveness of our measurement algorithm.

Urban governance and policy mixes for nature-based solutions and integrated water policy

ABSTRACT This paper explores how varied systems of governance work at the European city level to deliver different policy mixes for implementing nature-based approaches which support integrated water management and policy. Urban systems provide unique insights here due to the concentration of consumption, economic activities and excessive land-use pressures. However, few studies are providing generic insights, rooted in policy and political theory perspectives, on the dynamic impact of urban governance systems on different mixes of policies to integrate urban nature and water management approaches. The paper fills this gap through an extensive literature review. It first draws on analysis that focuses on institutional logics of operation to understand how urban institutional arrangements of governance shape the framing of the policy problem and how this influences the choice of policy approaches. It then explores the related administrative processes including decision support tools, participatory approaches, and funding regimes. These administrative approaches deliver, potentially, different policy responses that take into account integrated nature-based policy approaches to urban water governance.

The Effects of Spatial Planning, Well-Being, and Behavioural Changes During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 poses a massive challenge to urban public-health emergency and governance systems. Urban planners and policymakers engaged in spatial planning and management should carefully consider how a “people-oriented” principle can be incorporated into spatial-planning systems to reduce the negative impacts on both cities and people. However, there is limited literature discussing the aforementioned issues, particularly using qualitative methods. Therefore, this research aims to explore the implications of COVID-19 on spatial planning, well-being, and behavioural change using Changchun as a case study. Semi-structured interviews are used to examine the views and insights of 23 participants. Our results show that, first, the shift to home working has changed people's way of life, affected their subjective well-being, and significantly affected spatial planning within cities, placing greater demands on architectural design and community spatial planning. Therefore, additional open public spaces and a more supportive infrastructure are required. Second, it is found that Changchun has not established an effective community-based spatial planning system, something which should have been taken into consideration in the master plan for the future. Third, our findings suggest that being a resilient city is vital for the sustainable development of second-tier cities like Changchun, which is reflected in urban development patterns, disaster prevention, and long-term functional layout, among other aspects. This study contributes to the existing literature on resilient cities, particularly from the perspective of sustainability with regard to resilience to and recovery from major urban crises. In terms of policy implications, planning departments should work with public health and public safety departments to formulate guidelines and management rules in order to improve the spatial planning of cities during periods of extraordinary change and challenge.

The Urban Regeneration Engine Model: An analytical framework and case study of the renewal of old communities

The regeneration of old residential areas in China is facing a complex trap involving all kinds of stakeholders. On the one hand, ambiguous property rights, huge infrastructure investment arrears, and strict urban planning regulations make it challenging for market forces and social capital to enter the field of regeneration of old residential areas. On the other hand, the lack of an effective urban governance and social mobilization system leads to governance failures in the regeneration process. To break out of the above traps theoretically and practically, we construct an analytical framework called the Urban Regeneration Engine Model, in which the city government and the urban regeneration operator act as dual engines of urban regeneration. This dual engine drives the increase in social capital in the regeneration process and promotes the participation of the government, enterprises, residents, social organizations, and financial institutions. The positive feedback that comes from social capital increase further diversifies the fundraising sources, reduces the governance cost, and promotes the sustainable development of the community. Taking the Jinsong Community, one of the earliest residential communities in Beijing after the reform and opening up, as an example, this paper shows that the Urban Regeneration Engine Model provides a feasible and effective model for the regeneration of old residential areas in China and other developing countries facing similar problems.

A modified NK algorithm based on BP neural network and DEMATEL for evolution path optimization of urban innovation ecosystem

In the new era, the key measure to accelerate the construction of smart city, so as to promote the modernization of urban governance system and governance capacity, is to establish a good urban innovation ecosystem, and guide its continuous evolution to the direction of the highest efficiency and the best performance. Focusing on solving the practical problem of “how the urban innovation ecosystem evolves”, this paper develops a NK algorithm using BP neural network and DEMATEL method. First, through literature research, constructing the urban innovation ecosystem including five subsystems of innovation talents, innovation subjects, innovation resources, innovation environment and innovation network. Then, taking Beijing as an example, the weights and the number of epistatic relationships of each subsystem in its innovation ecosystem are calculated by BP neural network and DEMATEL method, and the NK model is modified; on this basis, the fitness values corresponding to different states of the system are calculated using MATLAB software, and the optimal evolution path of Beijing innovation ecosystem is determined through the comparison of 100,000 simulation results. The results show that the optimal evolution path of Beijing's innovation ecosystem is to create a favorable environment and culture for innovation first; then increase the input of innovation resources; and then promote the development of innovation network assets; on this basis, cultivate, attract and retain innovative talents; and finally strengthen the construction of innovation subjects.

Creating a National Urban Research and Development Platform for Advancing Urban Experimentation

Transformative changes are required for a 21st century sustainable urban development transition involving multiple interconnected domains of energy, water, transport, waste, and housing. This will necessitate a step change in performance goals and tangible solutions. Regenerative urban development has emerged as a major pathway, together with decarbonisation, climate adaptation involving new blue-green infrastructures, and transition to a new green, circular economy. These grand challenges are all unlikely to be realised with current urban planning and governance systems within a time frame that can mitigate environmental, economic, and social disruption. A new national platform for urban innovation has been envisaged and implemented in Australia that is capable of enabling engagement of multiple stakeholders across government, industry, and community as well as real time synchronous collaboration, visioning, research synthesis, experimentation, and decision-making. It targets large strategic metropolitan, mission-scale transition challenges as well as more tactical neighbourhood-scale projects. This paper introduces the iHUB: National Urban Research and Development Platform, its underlying concepts, and multiple layers of technical (IT/AV), software/analytical, data, and engagement, as envisioned and implemented in Australia’s four largest capital cities and five collaborating foundation universities.