Urban Governance System Research Articles

Unpacking the Chemistry of Urban Land Governance in Africa: In search of land governance

The purpose of the study was to interrogate the chemistry (best mix practices) and challenges (dilemmas) of urban land governance in Africa. We note that there is an increase in demand for good urban governance by city residents all over Africa. This paper briefly traces the current issues in the region in response to the growing quest for “good governance” in urban land affairs. The paper argues that the paradox of land management and distribution can no longer be taken for granted, given a series of land conflicts being handled every day. This study seeks to interrogate the urban land governance systems in Africa as is experienced in African countries and it then proposes the construction of an urban land governance framework that addresses African urban leadership and infrastructural challenges. An intensive desk review research was conducted by ploughing through various literature and empirical evidence from selected African countries. To complement literature findings (evidence) from secondary data, grey data and personal experiences in urban land governance, we conducted empirical studies in six countries namely Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa-part of the study triangulation efforts to validate already existing findings. Data were collected from 15 office holders in 8 Urban Councils and Land board chairpersons through questionnaires and face to face interviews. 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 included lack of resources, corruption, political interference and leadership incompetence.

Urban Sustainability and the Local Politics of Digital Twins: the Cases of Bologna and Milan

To address the complexity of sustainable urban development, policymakers are making increasing use of digital technology tools, now including AI and urban digital twins (UDTs). The aims of the article are to shed light on the political implications of UDTs uses in urban policy and governance aimed at sustainability and to understand from a perspective of political sociology factors influencing processes of UDTs design and implementation. Research questions regard the local politics of UDTs for sustainability analyzed through the lenses of policy frames, contexts, regulation and data governance and value. Responses are based on evidence from the comparative analysis of two case studies: Bologna and Milan, carried out through desk and field research (analysis of documents and interviews). Local agencies lead to different approaches and, potentially, outcomes, made possible by the diversity and plasticity of UDT models, systems and purposes, as well as by the elasticity and adaptability to different spatial contexts of the policy paradigm of urban sustainability. Two patterns of the local politics of UDTs emerge in Bologna and Milan, in which above all the roles of public actors and businesses are different. Logics of action, practices and forms of coordination are transferred from the broader systems of urban governance and political economy to the more circumscribed systems of action of UDTs.

Exploring new dimensions of urban governance: The development of administrative systems in Trieste and Fiume (Rijeka) during the final decades of the Habsburg Empire (1850–1918)

Urban governance is often perceived as a concept that has emerged over the past half-century, evolving from the policy of urban government. The analysis of this shift, known as the “transformation thesis,” has been criticized by recent studies in the field, which focus on the theory of metagovernance. However, both branches of urban governance literature heavily rely on knowledge of American cities, hindering a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. There is a growing demand to broaden the temporal and geographical scope of case studies and conduct more comparative research to better understand the roots and current processes of urban governance. While the fundamental driving forces behind the emergence of modern municipal administration during the 19th century have been adequately explored, various characteristics of different geographical locations might add new dimensions and approaches to understanding urban governance. This study offers a comprehensive insight into the birth and early formation of urban governance systems in the free ports of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, namely Trieste and Fiume (Rijeka in Croatian). By analyzing legal documents and applying a mixed-method approach, this study unravels the institutional structures, electoral systems, and municipal authorities of Trieste and Fiume from the 1848 Revolution until the end of the First World War. In addition to the historical and Central European perspectives, this paper aims to explore rarely considered contextual factors of urban governance, such as legal-administrative, socio-economic, and political elements. The comparative analysis of Trieste and Fiume demonstrates that even within the same empire, a wide range of diverse influences could shape urban governance systems. Despite these varied factors and significantly different administrative contexts, surprisingly similar governance practices could also emerge.

Enhancing the synergy governance capability of urban communities based on Bayesian network: A case of Jinan city

The rapid pace of urbanization has brought about a plethora of challenges for urban communities, prompting the advocacy of collaborative governance as a means to tackle management issues effectively. However, fostering strong collaboration among multiple governance entities remains a significant hurdle in urban communities governance. This study addresses this challenge by exploring the complex structure of urban communities' collaborative governance systems, with a focus on enhancing collaborative governance capability. Drawing on Bayesian network (BN) theory and utilizing the case of Jinan, this article investigates the intrinsic mechanisms of achieving collaboration in urban communities. This study establishes a Bayesian network model for collaborative governance of urban communities, providing a visual representation of the intricate interactions among multiple governance entities. We employ a data-knowledge-driven approach for BN structure learning. This approach tackles issues such as the lack of cyclic dependency capability and the impact of small datasets on model accuracy. Furthermore, we analyze the collaborative mechanism through Bayesian reasoning. The findings underscore the pivotal entities and five key factors that significantly influence collaborative governance capability. Lastly, policy implications are drawn to enhance the collaborative governance capability of urban communities.

Dual Systems of Urban Villages: Autonomy and Informal Governance Mechanisms of Yuan Village in Guangzhou

Implementing demolition and transformation policies in urban villages is essential for effective urban governance. However, these villages possess distinctive governance models and entities that set them apart from general urban and rural communities. This study examines the autonomous “informal governance” process in Guangzhou's Yuancun urban village through a case study approach. It investigates the formation mechanisms of the “dual system”. The study underlines the significance of grassroots innovation and the Chinese Communist Party's role in attaining governance autonomy. Despite the government's aim to integrate urban villages into the urban governance system, persistent challenges arise from these unique models and entities. The Village Company plays a pivotal role in promoting stable governance through participatory practices and economic advantages. Resolving the complex issues in urban villages necessitates integrated economic, political, and social solutions. Empowering the Village Company to handle specific public affairs can facilitate the transition towards the modernization of grassroots governance.

Research on the Construction of Urban Digital Governance System

With the rapid development of information technology, digital transformation has become an important way to modernise urban governance. The research on the construction of urban digital governance system aims to explore how to make use of the new management, optimise public services and enhance urban competitiveness. This research field not only focuses on innovation at the technical level, but also emphasises the deep integration of digital governance in multi-dimensional aspects such as policy formulation, regulatory improvement and public participation. By building a digital governance system, it can effectively respond to various challenges in urban development and promote sustainable urban development. Based on this, the following is a discussion on the construction strategy of urban digital governance system for reference.

Organizational features of the reform of local self-government in 1870 in the county towns of the Central Chernozem region (on the example of the Tambov province)

Importance. Cities in Russian history have always been distinguished by their special social, political, economic and cultural status, which was also manifested in internal organizational aspects. For almost two and a half centuries, there has been a domestic city government, which has gone through many modernization stages and has become an important socio-political institution in the field. In this regard, the issues of continuity and traditions in its development remain important. The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze the organizational features of the urban reform of 1870 in the counties of the Central Chernozem region.Materials and Methods. The source basis of the study is the materials of the State Archive of Tambov region and published publications of the Tambov Provincial Statistical Committee. Various legal acts are used to describe the mechanisms of regulatory regulation of urban selfgovernment. The methodological basis of the research is based on the principles of objectivity, historicism and consistency.Results and Discussion. The process of implementing the reform of urban self-government in 1870 in the provinces of the Central Chernozem region lasted for several years and was mostly completed only in 1873. This situation was explained by a number of reasons: firstly, the law did not contain norms aimed at the transition from the old system of urban governance to the new one, secondly, the legislator did not set a strict time frame related to the implementation of the reform, thirdly, urban societies themselves slowed down the process of reorganizing local government, making numerous mistakes in procedural There are internal disagreements among the electors.Conclusion. The formation of a new system of self-government in the county towns of the Central Chernozem region had a number of common legalized and arbitrary features. The “delayed” procedure for the enactment of the law made it possible to organize elections in provincial centers and form the practice of work of supervisory authorities. In some cities, the implementation of the reform was slowed down due to the incompetence of representatives of urban societies involved in the modernization of local governments. Finally, the censorship policy of the state and the unsettled mechanism for nominating candidates served as the basis for serious competition and numerous complaints that delayed the process.

The way to improve the quality of new smart city public service under the demand heterogeneity

Due to the diversity, difference and dynamics of residents' needs, the improvement of public service quality is faced with many challenges. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to improve the path of public service quality of new smart city under the heterogeneity of needs. This paper first introduces the background and basic concept of the new smart city, as well as the development process of the new smart city in China. This paper discusses the heterogeneity of residents' needs in the new smart city, and explains the impact of these heterogeneous demands on the public service quality of the new smart city. This paper also discusses how to accurately locate the service demand by strengthening demand research, optimize the resource allocation and realize the balanced development; promote service innovation to solve the impact of demand heterogeneity on new smart city, public service supply, public service resource allocation and public service innovation, as the reference direction for the improvement of public service quality of new smart city. Finally, this paper analyzes and systematically looks into the future of the new smart city to meet the direct needs of the public's survival, life, development and other social needs, as well as promoting the modernization of the urban governance system information and governance capacity as the main goal, and commits itself to the path design of improving the quality of public services.

Are cities genuinely healthy? Diagnosis of urban development from the perspective of adaptive capacity

As urban diseases continue to emerge with the acceleration of urbanization, the transformation of urban governance concepts and systems must be urgently promoted. In dealing with the complex systemic problem of city governance, the concept of adaptation in complex adaptative system (CAS) theory has shown obvious advantages. This approach provides a new perspective for solving this problem in the face of the unprecedented complexity of current disasters. However, research on urban adaptation is currently hindered by imprecise terminology, significant bias, and insufficient empirical evidence. This study reinterprets the concept of urban adaptation in conjunction with CAS theory. The formula for the functional expression of urban adaptation is derived using dissipative structure theory. Indicators are then selected to describe the system of urban adaptive capacity. An adaptive decision support framework is established that covers 29 quantitative and 8 qualitative indicators. The adaptive performance of 12 sample cities is analyzed. Finally, this study provides corresponding planning paths for optimizing urban adaptation based on the evaluation results. The research findings can assist city managers in comprehending the actual situation of cities and provide a basis for formulating targeted governance programs.

Study on Resilience Governance Ability of Urban Communities Under the Interplay of "Pressure-structure-process-capacity"

In the era of VUCA, emergencies and public crises in the process of urban governance under the perspective of complex systems are constantly impacting the safety, stability and order of urban operation. As the nerve endings of the urban governance system, communities are the front line of guarding urban security, and it is urgent to pay attention to the theoretical and practical exploration of community resilience governance. This paper analyses the influencing factors of community resilience based on the practice samples of epidemic prevention and control in 23 communities in S city, using the grounded theory. Based on the theoretical framework of community resilience governance of "pressure-structure-process-capability", it is extracted that the community, under the role of "pressure brought by the epidemic", can be adjusted through the "structural adjustment of the governing body" and "whole process of governance", which are the most important factors of community resilience governance. It is extracted that the community can generate "community resilience capacity" under the pressure of "epidemic" through the "adjustment of the structure of governance body" and the "construction of the whole process of governance chain". On the one hand, this study is dedicated to the localisation of the integration of community resilience theory, and on the other hand, it contributes to the modernisation of community safety governance practices and capacity building.

Planning and construction of the British concessions and settlements in modern East Asia (1845–1876): Shanghai, Yokohama, and Tianjin

ABSTRACT Under British informal imperial policy, East Asia’s system of concessions and settlements rapidly spread and promoted modernization. Especially in the mid- to late nineteenth century, the formative phase of the concession system, Shanghai, Yokohama and Tianjin embraced modern Western urban planning and architectural ideas by implementing Land Regulations (LR). A comparison of institutions, policies and mutual influences resulting from British colonization in these three cities can reflect the intricate internal and external factors that shape their local modernization, which helps explain the urban development trajectory in East Asia. However, existing studies lack comprehensive comparative analysis, exploration of institutional motives for spatial formation and examination of correlations between urban management patterns. Therefore, this study aims to situate the relation between colonialism and modernization in East Asia through an analysis of promulgation process, content changes and spatial impact of LR, the fundamental law of the concessions. This study shows that LR had an inheritance influenced by Consul Alcock. Characteristics of modern urban planning emerged in management and space. The modernization process was shaped by the development of the British native urban governance system, changes in colonial policy and the different social contexts of China and Japan.

Urban governance systems in autonomous territories of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: The cases of Croatia-Slavonia and Austrian Galicia (1867-1918)

There is still no consensus on the definition of urban governance, which can be attributed to gaps in its empirical foundation across both time and space. The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867-1918), with its complex state structure, serves as an ideal historical and geographical subject for unveiling aspects related to the birth of modern urban governance within a Central European context. To conduct comparative research, this study examines selected cities from two territorial autonomies of the empire: Zagreb, Osijek, Varaždin, and Zemun from Croatia-Slavonia, and Lviv and Cracow (Krakow) from Galicia. Urban governance within territorial autonomy, particularly from a historical standpoint, is a unique subject that lacks a substantial presence int he literature of urban studies and territorial autonomy. In this paper, an analytical framework was developed based on the key components of the transformation thesis of urban governance and metagovernance theory. The findings of the study indicate that the process of designating territorial autonomies and the various political factors behind them significantly shaped the formation of urban governance systems.

Enabling asset-based community development solutions: Pro-poor urban climate resilience in Kumasi, Ghana

Cities of the Global South, such as Kumasi, Ghana, face elevated risks from climate change, and current adaptation efforts are failing. Ghanaian cities are beset by weak urban planning capacities and inadequate finance to contend with climate risks, with the poor being swept aside. Given that the urban poor are excluded from official climate interventions, coupled with the fact that weak institutional and stakeholder coordination presently exists, community-led approaches to climate change are critical in providing a minimum localised climate-specific capacity. A preliminary investigation of two largely established informal settlements in Kumasi assessed residents' and local planning authorities' sensitivities for community-led approaches to climate risks. Our research: (i) investigated perceptions of the nature and evidence of climate change; (ii) examined respective knowledge on the asset-based community development approach (ABCD); (iii) identified and examined the influence of the ABCD approach in building resilience to climate change impacts; and (iv) probed the challenges with its implementation in informal settlements. We surveyed 367 households, six governmental agencies and conducted focus group discussions for relevant data. Respondents demonstrated a good understanding of the most salient manifestations of climate change: flooding, heat, and drought events. The absence of formally recognised associations and the challenges associated with utilising community assets and households' high expectations for government aid impede ABCD pathways. We conclude that mainstreaming ABCD within urban planning and governance systems can be enhanced by emphasising the co-benefits, better alignment with a shared vision of climate adaptation and transitioning towards an inclusive urban planning future.

Spatial-temporal traffic data imputation based on dynamic multi-level generative adversarial networks for urban governance

Complete and accurate traffic data lays an essential foundation for urban governance and intelligent transportation system. Data missing is an inevitable issue in road network analysis with the expansion of urban roads and increasing application of data monitors. Data imputation is regarded as a cost-effective approach for solving data missing problem. However, the spatial-temporal features of massive traffic data have not been comprehensively considered in the previous related studies, and non-uniform distribution of missing data often causes poor results. Therefore, we propose a dynamic multi-level generative adversarial networks (MLGAN) model for the imputation of large-scale spatial-temporal traffic data. The model first captures the spatial-temporal features of traffic data through composite features extractor based on the bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BGRU) and the graph convolutional network (GCN) structure. Then, different sampler structures with varied missing rate are adopted to analyze the feature data and present the reconstruction results. Enhanced by the dynamic stratification strategy, the model is less sensitive to the variation of missing rates. Finally, data imputation experiments are conducted to validate the proposed approach using the data collected from the PeMS dataset. The results show that the proposed model has superior data imputation performance on large-scale dataset compared with the traditional models.

Bringing together urban systems and food systems theory and research is overdue: understanding the relationships between food and nutrition infrastructures along a continuum of contested and hybrid access

Urban dwellers’ food and nutritional wellbeing are both dependent on infrastructure and can be indicative of wider wellbeing in urban contexts and societal health. This paper focuses on the multiple relationships that exist between food and infrastructure to provide a thorough theoretical and empirical grounding to urgent work on urban food security and nutrition in the context of rapid urban and nutrition transitions in the South. We argue that urban systems and food systems thinking have not been well aligned, but that such alignment is not only timely and overdue but also fruitful for both thematic areas of research and policy. We draw in particular on work within wider urban political economy and political ecology that can be classified as part of the ‘infrastructural turn’ that is influential with urban studies but little acknowledged within food studies. Drawing on these literatures helps us to better understand the interrelationships between people, things and ideas that make up both infrastructure and food systems. Policy, planning and research relating to both food and urban systems cannot afford to ignore such interlinkages, though much policy still operates on the neat assumptions of progressive connectivity to ‘the grid’ and formal food retail. Instead we argue how in many urban governance systems, a variety of hybrid mechanisms—on and off the grid, public and private formal and informal—better represent how urban residents, particularly the most marginalised, meet their everyday food and infrastructural needs along a continuum of gridded and off-grid access.

La médina de Tunis de la vulnérabilité à la résilience

The medina as a trace and witnesses of our past, are they able to have a present and a future by adapting? These vulnerable territories need to be resilient in order to overcome the risks to which they are exposed. These ancient fabrics, designed according to ancient logics, must adapt to modern mobility and technologies’ requirements; They must face new social logics and new governance’s ways. Competing with the new centralities, they face their own functional vulnerability. They have to adapt to the climate change’s vagaries and meet sustainability standards. Through empirical work, it studies the stakeholder’s system and the resilience of the medina of Tunis. The approach proposes to assess the resilience of the medina, as an urban fabric, social system, governance system, and architectural design, by studying the hazards the system faces and the forms of vulnerabilities it exhibits. The article demonstrates that the Tunis medina is a fabric that has shown adaptability to the risks and natural and anthropogenic hazards it has encountered - crises and socio-economic changes, heritage degradation, rural exodus, health crises - and especially its bioclimatic design makes it more resilient to new climate challenges. However, the study identified a set of physical, social, systemic, and organizational vulnerabilities that hinder resilience and the protection of human, economic, as well as architectural and urban heritage interests

A Solution-Extracted System for Facilitating the Governance of Urban Problems: A Case Study of Wuhan

Recently, rapid urbanization around the world has spawned several urban problems. Although a large amount of experience has been accumulated throughout the process of global urban problem governance, the knowledge has not been optimally utilized. Furthermore, there is a dearth of mechanisms with which to distill and employ past experiences in addressing emerging urban problems. Consequently, in this study, based on the CBR method, we establish a mechanism called the Solution-Extracted System of Urban Problem Governance (SESUPG), aiming to find solutions to the diverse array of existing urban problems from previous experience. The main steps for obtaining a suitable solution for a specific urban problem in a target city through the SESUPG are as follows: (1) Calculate the similarity to retrieve the most similar cities. (2) Extract the possible solution through similar cities. (3) Case–solution modification before solution adoption. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism, the air pollution problem in Wuhan, China, was tested to verify the effectiveness of the SESUPG as a case study. As a result, four policy recommendations were extracted by the SESUPG, and all of them proved to be effective in mitigating air pollution problems in Wuhan. The system proposed in this study can aid decision makers in the selection of strategies and solutions when addressing urbanization issues and guiding the process of mining effective experience for the promotion of urban governance levels.

How can the construction of social credit system in the context of digitalization empower grassroots governance? — A Case Study of “Moral Bank” in Yuyao City, Zhejiang Province

The 20th Party Congress report proposed to improve the grid-based management, refinement of services, information technology to support the grassroots governance platform, and improve the urban and rural community governance system [1, p. 24]. Grass-roots social governance is the basis of the entire national governance system, which concerns the vital interests of millions of people. At present, the government concentrates funds and material resources on infrastructure construction, and while the hardware environment at the grassroots level is improving, the construction of soft power is seriously lagging behind, and residents’ awareness of participation and public spirit are seriously lacking, so grassroots governance needs to be transformed. The basic function of social credit system is to form incentives and constraints for various subjects with the help of credit evaluation mechanism, so as to realize effective social governance. The establishment of social credit system can not only create an environment to serve social governance, but also provide important support for the modernization of social governance system and national governance capacity. Thus, under the strategic choice of building a comprehensive social credit system, combining an effective social credit system with grassroots social governance is an inevitable choice for China’s future development. Meanwhile, along with the accelerated development of digitization in China, the digitization of social credit system construction has become a powerful boost to promote credit governance. The digital transformation of social credit system can fully activate the path of credit information formation and collection in the traditional social credit system, optimize the operation mechanism and application scenario of credit evaluation mechanism, and thus maximize the functional utility of credit-enabled grassroots social governance. Based on this, this paper attempts to take the many challenges faced by grassroots governance as a logical starting point, take the “moral bank” in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province as a case study, trace how the construction of social credit system empowers grassroots social governance in the context of digitalization, explore the operation mechanism and practical effects of it, and extract corresponding insights.

Evaluation of smart city construction efficiency based on multivariate data fusion: A perspective from China

In the face of urban development challenges brought about by high-speed urbanization, smart cities have been recognized as a necessary way to promote the modernization of urban governance systems and governance capacity. Therefore, the establishment of a scientific and comprehensive evaluation index system is crucial to the sustainable construction of smart cities. Based on existing research, this study innovatively uses multivariate data to construct an evaluation index system for the construction level of smart cities, and then systematically evaluates the smart city construction efficiency of 37 cities from 2016 to 2021 using the Super-efficiency slack-based model considering undesired output and the Malmquist index. Finally, measures are proposed to promote the orderly and healthy development of smart cities by combining domestic and international experience in smart city construction and policy recommendations. Results show the following: (1) Overall, the imbalance in the efficiency of China’s smart city construction between regions has improved, but a gap remains in the central and western regions in comparison with the east. (2) The improvement in smart city construction efficiency correlates with regional economic development, showing a gradual decrease from east to west. (3) The evaluation results can provide theoretical support and a decision-making basis for relevant government departments to optimize smart city development planning and scientifically formulate smart city development policies.

TSE-Tran: Prediction method of telecommunication-network fraud crime based on time series representation and transformer

Telecom network fraud has become the most common and concerning type of crime and is an important public security incident that threatens urban resilience. Therefore, preventing a continuous rise in telecommunications and network fraud will help establish a resilient urban governance system. Undertaking the spatiotemporal forecasting of telecommunications-network fraud trends is of significant importance for aiding public security agencies in proactive crime prevention and implementing targeted anti-fraud campaigns. This study presents a telecommunication network fraudulent crime prediction method called TSE-Tran, which integrates temporal representation and transformer architecture. The time-series data of telecommunication-network fraud occurrences were input into the TimesNet module, which maps the sequence data to a more precise feature representation tensor that accounts for both intra- and inter-cycle features. Subsequently, the data are fed into the transformer-encoder module for further encoding, capturing long-range dependencies in the time-series data. Finally, occurrences of future telecommunication network frauds are predicted by a fully connected layer. The results of the study demonstrate that the proposed TSE-Tran method outperforms benchmark methods in terms of prediction accuracy. The results of this study are expected to aid in the prevention and control of telecommunications and network frauds effectively strengthen the resilience of urban development and the ability to respond to public security incidents.