Urban Life Research Articles

Conceptualising aesthetic power in the digitally-mediated city

Aesthetics, generally understood as an intensified emphasis on the sensorial look and feel of urban environments, has become an important perspective through which urban scholarship is examining the economic, social, political and cultural processes of urban regeneration projects across the globe. Much of this aestheticising work is now mediated by many kinds of digital technologies. The entanglement of digital technologies with the sensorial feel of urban redevelopments manifests in many different ways in different urban locations; it is deeply reshaping the embodied experiencing of urban life; and it enacts specific power relations. It is the focus of this paper. Drawing on the work of Lefebvre and Jansson, this article develops the notion of ‘textured’ space in order to offer an analytic vocabulary that can describe distinctive configurations of urban experience at the intersection of specific urban environments, bodily sensations, and digital devices. Analysing embodied sensory politics is important because various aspects of bodily sensoria are central to human experiences of, and relations between, both self and other. Hence bodies are enrolled differentially into different expressions of these new urban aesthetics: while some are seduced, others are made invisible or repelled, or are ambivalently entangled in digitally mediated aesthetic atmospheres. The article offers some examples of the power relations inherent in the textured aesthetics of three of the most significant, and interrelated, processes of contemporary, digitally mediated urban change: efforts to be seen as a ‘world-class city’ and to facilitate gentrification and tourism.

Factors influencing outdoor thermal comfort in a coastal park during the transition seasons in cold regions of China

Coastal outdoor spaces serve as public venues where individuals engage in water-related activities, admire scenic views, embark on tourist excursions, and partake in social gatherings. Enhancing thermal comfort is a crucial prerequisite for increasing the attractiveness of these spaces. This study investigated the outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) in a coastal park called Xinghai Park located in a cold region of China over a period of five days during the spring and autumn seasons. The universal thermal climate index (UTCI) was employed to establish the thermal benchmark. Through on-site measurements and questionnaire surveys, both single-factor and multi-factor analyses were conducted to assess the microclimate and thermal perception in four representative coastal spaces, thereby identifying the thermal benchmark and factors influencing thermal perception in the Coastal Park. The findings indicated that: (1) during the transition seasons, the neutral UTCI (NUTCI) of the Coastal Park was 15.3 °C, with neutral UTCI range (NUTCIR) ranging from 9.3 °C to 21.4 °C, and there were significant variations in the thermal benchmarks among different types of spaces; (2) the primary factors influencing thermal perception during the transition seasons in the Coastal Park were physical factors (Ta, Tg, RH, Va, G), while individual, social, and psychological factors also exerted varying degrees of influence on respondents' thermal perception; (3) there were substantial spatial differences in the factors influencing respondents' thermal perception. The findings of this study provide valuable references for determining thermal environmental design strategies for transitional season coastal outdoor recreational spaces and enhancing the quality of urban life.

Good architectural design as a catalyst for improving the quality of life in cities

The growth of cities has led to multiple transformations that have changed the urban fabric; for this reason, many locations in urban areas remain neglected. The present study was undertaken to search for solutions that would minimize adverse changes in the urban fabric, buildings, and urban spaces. The aim of the study was to present examples of good architectural design that can be considered catalysts that improve the quality of life in cities. Architectural design contributes to urban development not only at the level of individual buildings, but also at the level of the overall quality of urban life. The research methodology involved developing a theoretical framework for the research topic, and applying selected indicators to analyse several international examples and investigate the strategies deployed in various countries around the world. The study demonstrated that good architectural design must be inspired by a city’s history, and that the urban context should be considered in order to integrate new urban development with the surrounding environment through catalytic mechanisms and their indicators. Sustainability, health, education, safety, psychology, material sourcing, and building materials are the most important quality of life (QoL) factors for developing a good architectural project.

Thinking the Urban Impasse Beyond Lockdown: An Afterword

AbstractHow can the lens of the ‘urban impasse’ help us make sense of the relationship between inequality, institutions and contemporary urban life? And how can urban studies benefit from feminist affect theory to explore the theoretical potential of the ‘urban impasse’? An impasse is a dead end; it connotes an experience of being stuck, lacking orientation or a sense of the future. Still, an impasse also bears transformative potential as a powerful way of halting and denouncing that which does not work or is heading in the wrong direction—as was powerfully brought to stage in cities around the world by climate change, antiracist and women's rights movements in recent years.

Villages in the City – Urban Planning for Neighbourhood Love

AbstractThe city comprises of a wide variety of heterogeneous territorial units (e.g. districts or neighbourhoods). In many – especially larger – cities, social capital assets (like community bonds) are mirrored at the level of neighbourhoods which form the home for many sociocultural communities or distinct socio‐economic classes. We postulate in this study that the big city is essentially an ‘archipelago’ made up of ‘urban villages’. We analyse the residents' perceived attractiveness regarding their daily local neighbourhood by introducing the concept of ‘village love’ (or ‘neighbourhood love’), inspired by the recent literature on ‘city love’ (comprising ‘body’, ‘soul’ and ‘community’ constituents of urban life). Based on an extensive and detailed multi‐annual database for all neighbourhoods in Rotterdam, the present paper seeks to identify the background factors shaping ‘village love’ in the city, with particular attention to the citizens' subjective appreciation for and access to a great variety of (physical and immaterial) urban amenities shaping the place‐based satisfaction of residents. The theoretical framing of our research resembles the basics of traditional central place theory here transmitted to the urban space in which local proximity to amenities plays a key role. A wide array of relevant amenities impacting on the place‐specific well‐being feelings (‘village love’) of residents in various neighbourhoods in the city of Rotterdam is distinguished using inter alia‐rich multi‐annual survey data. This approach is empirically tested and verified by means of LISA statistics and advanced spatial econometric dependence models (‘urbanometrics’). The findings confirm the usefulness of a central place interpretation of ‘urban village love’ in the city.

Old cities, ‘new’ agendas: Swedish cities across time

In its 2017 New Urban Agenda, the United Nations lists almost 200 declarations and implementation plans for creating sustainable and equitable cities, towns and settlements, yet the word ‘history’ is mentioned only once – to describe our own times as a critical juncture – a somewhat detached approach to problems with great time depth. Historical archaeology provides a unique toolbox for understanding urban through-lines, scientifically and theoretically. Case studies of Swedish cities, some many centuries old, describe the processes through which they were founded, transformed through time, and emerged differently in new contexts. Today, some have emerged as places not unlike the aspirational declarations of the New Urban Agenda. Yet most of these cities have few roots in equity and sustainability. Many systematically promoted less equality, even abject misery, focusing on the relatively short-term harvest of regional and local resources and labour, or for border security, population domination, and state and elite control. Many were ‘reinvented’ over the centuries – adjusting to new iterations of the same founding principles. Using select historical and modern case studies, we trace how relationships between various classes of hinterland and urban dwellers, influencers, and government officials struggled through time over the meaning and quality of urban life.

Sustainable waste collection optimization using electric vehicles

Solid waste management is a crucial municipal service directly influencing urban livability. Optimizing refuse collection routes enhances service efficiency and reduces costs. The recent introduction of fully electric refuse trucks, boasting features like zero emissions, low noise, and lower operating costs compared to diesel trucks, holds promise. However, their limited autonomy presents challenges that need addressing before widespread deployment. This study proposes a realistic formulation for the refuse collection routing problem with electric trucks, introducing electromobility constraints never considered before in related works. The goal is to find optimal routes covering all collection points while minimizing travel distance within vehicle battery and capacity limits. An accurate energy consumption model is presented, accounting for route elevation, vehicle speed, waste collection operations, and regenerative braking. Genetic algorithms are used to find solutions to the problem, as well as the well-known Clarke and Wright heuristic for comparison purposes. The algorithms are tested on six diverse instances reflecting real-world scenarios in New York City (United States) and Puerto Real (Spain). Results indicate the genetic algorithm’s superiority, yielding solutions with reduced travel distance and consumption while requiring fewer routes compared to the state-of-the-art heuristic.

Researching Everyday Life in the Main Urban Centres of Late Medieval Transylvania. The Model of Transylvanian Cities of German Foundation and Tradition. II. Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives

A theoretical-methodological reflection must be situated at the beginning of any historical approach, with the aim of individualizing the discipline of the history of everyday (medieval) life and differentiating it as an independent branch of research.* The most important aspects of the investigation consist in: a) formulating clear questions and b) defining the goals of knowledge/understanding, to eliminate the risk of ending up with a simple collection of anecdotes – which, while undeniably captivating, cannot be considered science, and, consequently, becomes part of literature. In its elementary form, daily life is a simple manipulation of certain constants – the environment, people and things, understood through the daily repetition of certain activities, which become habits and are then performed mechanically. It is often stated that the history of everyday life does not have its own method, and it follows the analysis grids of history, more precisely of its auxiliary disciplines. Moreover, the history of everyday life remains dependent on the help of other sciences. In this context, the research is interdisciplinary, involving most of the auxiliary or frontier sciences of history: history of law, archaeology, literature and philology, music and art history, historical geography and ethnography, etc. Research schedule and analysis grid. Based on the historiographic documentation, the theoretical-methodological excursion and the identification of the potential and the limits of the available sources, the perspective that this study proposes is that of a research program dedicated to the reconstruction of the history of everyday life in the late medieval Transylvanian urban centres. The proposed approach is organized into three distinct sections: a) that of the recomposing of frames and the dynamics of daily urban life; b) that of revealing the fundamental structures of everyday life in cities and c) that of identifying the challenges and solutions assumed by the day-to-day existence of individuals, groups and the urban community. The chosen methodological model has been adopted and modified according to the analysis-interpretation grid proposed by Gerhard Jaritz, Zwischen Augenblick und Ewigkeit. Einführung in die Alltagsgeschichte des Mittelalters (Wien, Graz, Köln: Böhlau 1989), 15-26. Keywords: History of Everyday Life, Urban History, Transylvanian Saxons, Late Medieval and Premodern Archaeology and Material Culture, Late Medieval and Premodern Transylvania

Ethnobotany and urban life: medicinal and food use of plants from Karachi (Pakistan’s largest metropolis)

Ethnobotany and urban life: medicinal and food use of plants from Karachi (Pakistan’s largest metropolis)

CITIES TYPOLOGY UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF FINANCIALIZATION: PHENOMENON OF GHOST TOWNS

Financialization is a global phenomenon. This paper studies how this phenomenon has reflected upon the urban areas and the emergence of accelerated “production of space”. These relationships are considered for the period from the beginning of the 21st century till present. Also, research is aimed to identification of one of characteristic urban typologies - “ghosts towns”, which are subject of the comparative analysis. Analyzed examples are developed at various locations within approximate time context, while social, economic, political, cultural, and many other contexts are different. However, the phenomenon of financialization also occurs in developed and underdeveloped countries. Meaning, impact and consequences of the described process, and thus the identification of the causes, present possibilities to prevent possible negative consequences or to point them out in order to improve quality of urban life.

The scale of two cities: the geographies of Paris and London in the 1720s

This essay considers an early eighteenth-century quarrel about the geographical dimensions of Paris and London. The dispute involved representatives of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris and the Royal Society in London. The three participants—Guillaume Delisle (1675–1726), Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan (1678–1771) and Peter Davall (?–1763)—were French, the first two resident in Paris, the third an exiled Huguenot based in London. From an initial, relatively trivial, confusion about trigonometrical calculations, this inconclusive debate ultimately embraced several wider questions about the nature of cities in classical antiquity and early eighteenth-century Europe, the changing meaning of urban life on the eve of the industrial age, the relationship between population size and urban space, and the relative economic, political and cultural vitality of Catholic absolutist France and Protestant Hanoverian England. Informed by rival claims promoted by Cartesians and Newtonians in London and Paris, the dispute also reflected a pre-existing tension within the Paris Academy about the remit of established and emerging scientific disciplines, specifically astronomy and geography. Subsequent cartographic representations of these two cities, including the Plan Turgot of Paris in the 1730s and the Rocque map of London in the 1740s, can be re-considered with reference to this now forgotten controversy.

Effect of health rights accessibility on the urban integration of minority rural migrants in China: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundAccessing health rights is an integral component of people’s aspirations for a better life. Existing discussions and evaluations regarding the accessibility of health rights for minority rural migrants are insufficient. In comparison to objective health conditions, inequalities in health rights lead to chronic and long-term depletion of human capital among minority rural migrants. This study aimed to assess the overall impact, heterogeneity effects, and mechanisms of health rights accessibility on the urban integration of minority rural migrants.MethodsBased on the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey Data (CMDS), this study employs OLS models, 2SLS models, conditional mixed process (CMP) methods, and omitted variable tests to estimate the impact of health rights accessibility on the urban integration of minority rural migrants. Additionally, from the perspectives of migration scope and illness experience, this study explored the heterogeneity in the relationship between health rights accessibility and urban integration. Finally, using the Karlson–Holm–Breen (KHB) model, this study dissects the mechanisms through which health rights accessibility influences the urban integration of minority rural migrants.ResultsHealth rights accessibility significantly enhances the urban integration of minority rural migrants. Moreover, compared to minority rural migrants who move across provinces and who have no history of illness, those who migrate within the same province and who have experienced illness are more sensitive to the positive impact of health rights accessibility. However, the enhancing effect of health rights accessibility does not significantly differ between the new and old generations of minority rural migrants. Furthermore, health rights accessibility can indirectly improve the urban integration of minority rural migrants by elevating health levels, improving health habits, and reinforcing health behaviors. Among these, the indirect effects mediated by health habits are more pronounced.ConclusionThe research conclusions underscore the issue of health accessibility and urban integration among minority rural migrants, providing a reexamination and clarification of the policy effects of health rights in promoting the urban integration of minority rural migrants. Relevant policy design should commence with improving the health rights of minority rural migrants, enhancing their health integration capabilities, and effectively boosting their ability to integrate into urban life.

Commodification, datafication and smart cities: An ethical exploration

ABSTRACT Smart cities are a seminal example of data-driven governance that relies on the efficient and networked use of big data in managing urban life to achieve sustainable economic growth. Datafication is considered commodifying various personal information and goods and different aspects of our urban milieu. There is a concern about the commodification-smart city nexus among communication and urban studies scholars concerning its effects on public governance and social segregation, but limited attention is given to it in the ethical literature that targets implications of datafication on privacy. This paper provides an analytical framework to explore ethical considerations for commodification in smart urban systems. The goal is to contribute to incorporating justice-related considerations into the decision-making processes of urban policy development. This paper first revisits the commodification concept and its features. This is followed by a discussion of how datafication can be considered the underlying process of data-driven urban solutions that might exacerbate commodifying processes. Later, different types of commodification are discussed using smart street lights as a generic case. Lastly, different ethical perspectives are presented to discuss the basis of the wrong of commodification in the case of smart city design, along with suggestions stemming from concern over social equality.

After the fall of the Egyptian Empire: review of the Third Intermediate Period settlement at Tell el-Retaba

AbstractExcavations at the site of Tell el-Retaba since 2007 have revealed an extensive settlement and associated material culture dating from the Third Intermediate Period (1070–664 BC). This work represents the only large-scale investigation into domestic archaeology from this period in Egypt and the results offer important insights into aspects of urban life for an under-studied phase of Egyptian history.

Public Space and Cultural Resilience: Urbanism in the Near East in Late Antiquity

The fate of public spaces has loomed large in discussions of what happened to Roman cities in the Near East in Late Antiquity. Much has been made of the way that temples, fora, bathhouses and other amenities went out of use and shops, workshops and domestic premises encroached into squares and streets. Scholars who have seen this as evidence of vitality have made their case in largely economic terms with less attention to culture, thereby implicitly accepting the idea of a privatization of the city and a decline in public space. Ironically, for earlier periods, those same public spaces have often been seen as largely existing for the benefit of the local elite, a veneer of urban splendour that meant little to most inhabitants. This article challenges the simplistic way in which this approach has used ‘publicness’ as a label to be applied, drawing anthropological theory to see ‘publicness’ as a quality to be explored. Taking Scythopolis and Jerash as case studies, it makes the case that public space provided a cushion for absorbing the stresses of economic and political change in Late Antiquity and was, therefore, a key contributor to the resilience of the culture of urban life.

An Empirical Test of Pedestrian Activity Theories Within Informal Settlements

Pedestrian activity is often measured in the formal parts of cities, yet it has rarely been studied in informal settlements, although they are typically adjacent to formal areas and residents participate in formal urban life. Route optimization and space syntax are two pedestrian activity theories that can be applied to predict path usage in urban areas. These theories have been tested in formal cities, but are they applicable in understudied informal settings? Using motion sensors, we measure pedestrian activity in a Cape Town informal settlement in the early morning and evening hours and test which theory best explains the sensor measurements. Route optimization is weakly correlated with average pedestrian activity, while space syntax performs even more poorly in predicting pedestrian activity. The predictive power of both theoretical calculations further varies by time of day. We find that both theories perform worst at the entrances/exits of the informal settlement—that is, the border between informal and formal. These results indicate that daily movement patterns in informal settlements may differ from formal areas and that the connection between the formal and informal city requires further study to better understand how pedestrian activity links these two types of areas. A new theory of route selection based on such an understanding, which also better incorporates the specific characteristics of informal urban settlements—such as high density, narrow, and constantly changing streets primarily used by residents—may be necessary to understand the needs of pedestrians within informal settlements as compared to formal areas.

URBAN LIVEABILITY AND CEO TURNOVER: EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE FIRMS

Using data from 2,744 listed non-financial firms located in 273 Chinese cities and municipalities during the period spanning 2003 to 2017, this paper examines the impact of changes in urban liveability on the voluntary turnover of CEOs. Employing the panel probit methodology, we find that enhancements in urban liveability result in a reduction in CEO turnover. Moreover, such enhancements also serve to partially mitigate the performance sensitivity of CEO turnover. In a disaggregated analysis, we find that improvements in urban liveability likewise decrease the likelihood of CEO turnover for foreign-owned firms, companies facing stronger external rivals, and those lacking government industrial policy support. Our work extends existing literature on the factors influencing CEO turnover within the framework of incomplete contract theory. Additionally, this paper offers a policy foundation for urban planners to effectively decrease the CEO turnover rate by enhancing urban liveability.

:Urban Life in the Distant Past: The Prehistory of Energized Crowding

:<i>Urban Life in the Distant Past: The Prehistory of Energized Crowding</i>

Temporal Dynamics of Citizen-Reported Urban Challenges: A Comprehensive Time Series Analysis

Temporal Dynamics of Citizen-Reported Urban Challenges: A Comprehensive Time Series Analysis

A Narrative Review of Urbanization and Mental Health: An Indian Perspective.

Urbanization is a phenomenon that shows the expansion of urban areas in conjunction with industrial and economic progress. Rapid world urbanization is caused by the swift rise in urban residents as a proportion of the population. Efforts to examine the quality of urban life and urbanization as distinct risk factors for mental illness within specific age groups have been made. However, the issue remains contentious and largely unresolved. Urban mental health issues, such as substance abuse, fear of crime, poverty, and ethnicity, are associated with factors like depression, aggression, fear, sadness, and personality disorders. The entire gamut of the population, particularly adult males and females, is affected by these impacts of urbanization. The size of the population increases the prevalence of the preview study. India is expected to concentrate highly on the whole urban population, but this might inadvertently cause harm to urban residents. This review discusses the impact of urbanization on mental health and well-being. We search via PubMed (Medline), Google Scholar, and databases like WHO. The language of the study is English, and other language articles are excluded. The mental health challenges associated with urbanization impact the entire population, with a notable emphasis on adult males and females. They are raising awareness about various urban programs designed for urban populations. It will function as a coordinator of change in a rapidly modified Indian society to spread awareness about mental illnesses throughout all segments of society.