Suchergebnisse

This book aims to establish a community with attention to land use to achieve sustainable development and meet the needs of today's society. Urban planning depends on engineering, architectural, social and political pillars. It pursues this by proposing solutions, regulating environmental pollution and non-sustainable use of available resources. It showcases and even triggers further debate about connections between sustainable development, urban planning and technology in hopes of achieving sustainable development models that sustain urban expansion and shape cities that improve the overall quality of life. It views urban planning and development as vital fields that ensure the application of revolutionary approaches with new materials and processes incorporated in the most efficient manner.

This book presents ten types of city that are the product of the modernisation of the world in the past two centuries. That modernisation has changed the economic, social and political context in which cities have developed, as well as the form and function of cities themselves. Of the ten city types detailed, some of them--like national capitals, resorts for pilgrims or gamblers or tourists, city states or cosmopolitan cities--are not entirely new kinds of city, since they existed in pre-modern times, but their modern forms exhibit novel characteristics. Others--like megacities of 10 million plus populations, boom towns, satellite cities, cities created by émigrés or refugees, cities under communist rule, and exploding cities of super rapid growth--are unique to modern times. Each type is described and analysed, and also exemplified in brief city profiles with photographs. All in all, over 50 cities in the modern world are featured here, including Astana, Mecca, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Shenzen, Bangalore, Milton Keynes, Salt Lake City, Magnitogorsk and Ulaanbaatar. These accounts draw on research, news reports, guidebooks, film and fiction and personal travels.

Recently there has been renewed attention to the concept of culture in analyses of urban politics. That resurgence has taken a different path from the religion-, race-, and ethnicity-dominated approach of classic formulations. Instead, a variety of scholars conceptualize and measure subculture based on trends at the heart of a postindustrial, cultural divide in the United States. Focusing on change in women's social roles, greater prevalence of postsecondary education, increases in nontraditional household arrangements, the decline in traditional religious attachments, and the growing importance of "creative-class" occupations, writers have identified an emergent "unconventional" or "new political culture" that can be differentiated from a traditional or conventional subculture. This article presents a measurement validation study of this new approach that also shows the substantial correspondence between Census Bureau–based and survey-based measures of this new conceptualization.

The environmental condition has been a main concern in the last decades. Global governments and organizations warn about the possible harm in humans and in the environment. In this context, the current cost of sensors, embedded platforms and cloud solutions allow the IoT to help in environmental monitoring. This enables better awareness and better action plans in dangerous situations. This project consists of the development of an end-to-end prototype for environmental monitoring with a low-cost approach. It has been successfully developed and tested. It has been used a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ with the operating system Raspbian with full capabilities. With the sensors BME680, PMS5003, ADXL343 and MT3339 it has been measured the ambient conditions, particulate matter, acceleration and location. That hardware has been controlled with Python and CircuitPython with a multi-thread process. The Raspberry has internet access through WiFi and allows the commanding via MQTT. Onesait CloudLab is the cloud platform, it stores, process and presents the measured data. It generates alarms if the particulate matter overcomes the WHO recommendation. Moreover, Node-RED tool is used for the integration between the end-device and the cloud platform. It is adopted a multi-cloud approach; the data is sent to the Azure IoT Hub and to Onesait through HTTP. The resultant prototype has been tested in a fixed place, indoors and outdoors. The data variability along the day is small, so there is no necessity to send constant data. The particulate matter augments considerably outdoors. As far as concerned the validity of the measurements there are some differences in the obtained results comparing with nearest reference stations. Nevertheless, it cannot be determined if it is due to the spatial variability of the parameter. This document includes the state-of-the-art of environmental monitoring solutions. In addition, it is explained the used materials and the development of the prototype with the obtained results. Finally, a global ...

We often talk about 'Town Centres' (TCs), but defining their location and extent is surprisingly difficult. Their boundaries are hard to pin down and intrinsically fuzzy. Nevertheless, policymakers often speak or act as if their definition was self-evident. The Dutch and later the British governments, for example, introduced very specific policies for them without ever clearly defining what or where they were. In this article, we propose a simple methodology to predict TC boundaries and extent. Using a range of micro-geographical data, we test our method for the whole of Great Britain in an attempt to capture all the dimensions of 'town centredness' in a 3D surface. We believe this is a contribution in its own right but is also an essential step if there is to be any rigorous analysis of TC or evaluation of policies directed at them. Our method should contribute to improve not just debates about cities, shopping hierarchies, and TCs but also to other more general debates where people and policy proceed ahead of any clear definition of what are the objects of interest.

Drawing examples from the North American food cart movement and restaurant scenes in gentrifying neighborhoods, sociologists Amy Hanser and Zachary Hyde explore the role of food in transforming urban spaces.

Quite apart from the diversity of situations in small and medium-sized towns, stabilising their town centres is a major challenge. In both countries, town centres have been weakened by commercial changes, a decline in the supply of services and transformations in lifestyles. They are characterised by an increase in vacancy rates, which accelerates a spiralling loss of attractiveness and atmosphere of neglect. Since the beginning of the 2000s, this challenge has been central in the public debate. In both countries, urban renewal has been a key element of this revitalisation policy. However, although the context of public action is rather similar in France and Germany, the modes of governance differ. In France the administrative municipal system continues to provide a narrow and fixed framework despite recent territorial reforms that favour the intermunicipal level. In addition, cooperation, communication and participation of local actors from business and civil society are more firmly anchored in social and political practice in German small and medium-sized towns.

The article argues for a strategic role for cities and regions in renewing the social and economic foundations of societies, locally and globally. The cities offer an opportunity to develop - through their own strategic RDI - new human-centric social and economic dynamism for the wellbeing of human beings and the Nature. The article elaborates on sources of growth, value and wealth creation that are based on strategic RDI of cities and city-regions with firms, public agencies and citizens. This RDI may bring about new social and economic activities and means of solving major societal challenges. The article discusses (1) how to design for transformative RDI, (2) what are the forms of participative RDI and their impact on participative democracy, (3) what are the new mechanisms of governance that reflect the central role of cities in societal renewal, and (4) what is the impact of cities on overall entrepreneurial spirit, economic efficiency, and wealth creation?