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Asian cities have increasingly been promoting the creation of walkable built environments as a catalyst for local economic development in global competition. However, the economic influences of pedestrianization are still debatable without sufficient quantitative assessments in Asia's commercialized cityscape along with mega-rail projects, high-rise buildings, and traffic-choked streets. This research examines the net capitalization effects of skywalk network and pedestrian zone schemes on office towers and retail streets using the case of Hong Kong. The sets of hedonic regression models in a quasi-experimental research framework show mixed results. The expansion of skywalk networks produced positive capitalization effects on podium-level office units connected by footbridges near metro rail exits, while having insignificant impacts on street-level retail units. The models also reveal that the implementation of pedestrian zone schemes generated insignificant capitalization effects on street-level retail units regardless of rail proximity. The evidence gives some credence to the notion that the creation of walkable built environments in Asian cities would contribute to capital accumulation through mega-rail plus international office tower projects. However, the findings also infer that pedestrianization initiatives in global competition would lead to neither commercial revitalization nor gentrification on local retail streets around metro rail stations.

The rapid development of new digital technologies, such as those of virtual reality (VR), human–computer interaction, and artificial intelligence, has provided new opportunities for intelligent cityscape management and perception. This paper provides a new set of intelligent methods for integrating, refining, and managing architectural cityscape elements with VR-based visual perception technologies. We firstly analyze multidimensional subjective perception ratings as well as objective visual data obtained via synchronous human experience tracking in panoramic VR environments. Based on this analysis, we reveal the functions and weights of various cityscape elements, examine the deep cityscape formation mechanism, and hence put forward refined strategies for cityscape development. This work represents a novel approach for cityscape perception and deep understanding, and significantly promotes the application of cutting-edge digital technologies in smart city planning and governance.

The random installation of various solar energy equipment on building roofs has caused visual damage to the cityscape. Keeping the rooftop equipment out of sight of the pedestrians is a new solution to eliminate visual pollution. Based on the complex urban street canyons, this paper describes a physical and mathematical model relating to the limiting height of equipment installations at any position on the roof. It is found that the limiting height of equipment varies with the building roof height, the street width, and other factors. In addition, for a case with four main urban roads, the variation patterns for the limiting height of rooftop equipment changed with the street width and the distance from the installation to the parapet have been established, which is of great relevance for determination of the limiting equipment height in actual installations. The research can not only help to remove visual pollution from rooftop equipment in street canyons, and provide a guide for the selection and installation of solar equipment, but can also provide significant information for urban space planning and building design.

The paper introduces a method of computational analysis of cityscape called Weighted Visual Exposure Map (WVEM). The method aims at supporting the process of examining attractive vistas in a city. The value of a vista is calculated for each point of the city. The assessment depends on the visibility of selected landmarks that are the most important for the image of a city. The WVEM algorithm includes: a) number of landmarks that can be seen from a given point; b) range of vertical exposure of each landmark; and c) individual weight reflecting the importance of a landmark for the cityscape. The more landmarks can be seen from a given location, the higher the value of the vista. The WVEM calculation process aims at showing the distribution of the most valuable locations in the city. The result is geometrically unequivocal. It depends on initial assumptions (selection and parameters of landmarks) and 3D city model used. The study presented WVEM analyses based on the Digital Surface Model (DSM) that was suitable for the architectural scale (0.5 m grid) for the area in excess of 20km2. The landmark visibility analysis used the Visual Impact Size (VIS) method. The VIS application and WVEM emulation were based on software developed by the authors (C++). Guidelines how to apply the WVEM method for other places and using other software was also discussed. The WVEM method can be used in spatial planning to support the process of determining strategic vistas. This can be a starting point for defining principles of cityscape protection and development.

This article presents evidence for the importance of traditional stingless beekeeping (meliponiculture) at the Postclassic period (CE 1150–1450) Maya political capital of Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, with a particular focus on the domestic and public contexts of this practice and its association with metallurgy and balche production. The spatial and social distribution of beekeeping activities throughout the city refines scholarly understanding of an integrated and functionally complex Maya agro-urban cityscape. Beekeeping activities are identified through the distribution of small limestone disks, interpreted as the covers for traditional hollow log hives, which were widely distributed throughout the Mayapan’s urban landscape. High concentrations of limestone disks at the outlying ceremonial/administrative center of Itzmal Ch’en and also at an elite palace group, may indicate concentrated honey production for crafting fermented honey wine, balche. Limestone disks are also widely distributed at other contexts such as temples and halls of the site’s monumental center as well as secondary elite and commoner house groups. Limestone disks are regularly recovered (although not exclusively) in association with metallurgical ceramics, suggesting that meliponiculture and lost-wax metallurgy were often practiced by the same households. Honey and wax production was a complex undertaking, involving by-products essential for other industries that were not solely produced for commercial exchange. Instead, these activities were frequently embedded into symbolically charged consumption spheres and specialized artisanal practices.

Deliberate density planning was investigated in Eriksberg - a suburban development project in Western Uppsala, where an existing district was proposed by the municipality to double its population and its housing capacity over a period of 20 years. The intensive densification was proposed as a response to fast population growth in the city. But such invasive densification can be shown to threaten to eradicate existing internal green areas, to increase traffic movements strongly and challenge half-a-century-old social networks in the area. The intensive densification is likely to destroy the original plan, where housing, green structure, activity arenas and transport infrastructure are today well integrated, and where there is currently a good balance between density and spaciousness. Such densification levels would also be highly problematic from a disease control perspective, with increased social contacts, less opportunities to access courtyard and district green areas, higher popular density in shops, buses, schools and other service functions. As an alternative to intensifying existing near-suburbs we suggest a new strategy – DOSSIER [1] – where existing secondary settlements (satellite communities) outside the city of Uppsala are supplemented with new homes and new job opportunities. This approach – together with a modest in-fill densification within the cityscape, could create a fruitful balance and a new sustainable alliance between urban and rural areas – a fundamental strategy for abating climate change. [1] Densification Of Secondary Settlements Environmental Regeneration

The modern-day digital community provides an opportunity to follow the unifying threads of governance, physical spaces, and technologies, as played out through the deployment of local software-based sensors and gateways. As we will see, the now-defunct Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto highlights the challenges, and limitations, of developing such a comprehensive system of interfaces, in the absence of sufficiently inclusive and holistic mechanisms to govern their use. In this article, we will look briefly at two planned cities – the ancient Greek city of Thurii, and the modern cityscape of Quayside in Toronto, Canada—as exemplifying the different layers of control that can and should work well together in communities of trust. One proposed takeaway is the desirability of planning digital communities that invite active human participation in the blended spaces between the self and world, the private and public, and the physical and virtual. For the Quayside cityscape, the article focuses on two particular layers. First, we will explore inclusive governance, which spans from civic data trusts to urban trusts. That exploration includes consideration of the knowledge commons, and by extension the ancient Greek agora, as useful framing references. Second, we will dig into inclusive interfaces, using as an exemplar the evolving and still-incomplete work of the Sidewalk Labs’ design engineering team, the Digital Transparency in the Public Realm (DTPR) project. More human-agential versions of these interfaces exemplify what are introduced here as edgetech systems, as opposed to the cloudtech systems that dominate the Web today. The article establishes edgetech as incorporating three key elements: (1) the edge-to-all (e2a) design principle, (2) multiple end user-facing modalities of data, computation, and interfaces, and (3) a mix of edge-pushing and edge-pulling functionalities that empower the end user. Finally, the article observes how the personal digital fiduciary, paired with a Personal AI, could help the individual successfully navigate the inclusive new blends of physical and virtual spaces in their digital communities. Certain government policies are identified that would enable these more participatory governance and edgetech opportunities.

The impact of tall buildings on cities can be evaluated on several aspects. One of these aspects is the impression of these tall buildings on the cityscape, whereby observers judge these buildings based on their three-dimensional status in the city. Some of the criteria that influence this judgment are the status of visibility, meaning, and aesthetics of tall buildings in the city. In this research, the three aforementioned criteria have been investigated using an analytical network process (ANP) method. This multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method is used to weigh the criteria and sub criteria of the research (according to 22 experts and by using Super Decisions 2.8 software). After determining the weight of each criteria, three tall buildings in Frankfurt including Main Tower, OpernTurm, and the European Central Bank were selected to compare their impact on the skyline of the city based on the three variables and their weight. To calculate the visual impact of these three buildings, the idea of square degree score has been used, in which the ratio of the visible surface of these buildings to the visual field of observers in urban open spaces, and in an area of 2500 m radius with a centralized building structure has been investigated by ArcGIS Desktop 10.5 software. In order to determine the effect of the meaning and aesthetics of these three buildings on the city skyline, a pictorial questionnaire was prepared and distributed among 420 participants. The participant's preferences were taken into account to assess the impact of tall buildings on the city skyline. In the next step, the weight of the criteria, which was obtained in the ANP method, was considered for the results of the visual, meaning, and aesthetic criteria of the three tall buildings of Frankfurt. Based on the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), the priority of these buildings was identified in terms of impact on the city skyline. With regard to the impact of tall buildings on the city skyline, these three criteria, according to their weights, ranked as follows: the meaning criteria (with a weight of 0.436) had the highest impact, followed by the aesthetic criteria (with a weight of 0.340), and visual (with a weight of 0.234), respectively. Thus, based on these results it was found that the European Central Bank had the most positive impact (with a score of 0.471) on the city skyline, then Main Tower (with a weight of 0.467), and OpernTurm (with a weight of 0.061) respectively.

Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the urban heart of a region that has been characterized by protracted violent conflict since the early 1990s. While several studies on Goma focus on sociodemographic and political processes or on areal development, our study unravels the effects of protracted armed conflict and gradual state withdrawal on Goma's urban development at a microlevel. The observation period of our analysis is 2005–2014, the time of several armed rebellions in the Kivu region or the so-called violent peace. Building on a mixed-methods approach, patterns and anomalies of urban development derived from very high resolution satellite images are combined with data gathered on the ground. The study starts from a city-scale analysis of urban expansion and densification trends earth-observation data and then uses earth-observation data-guided site selection for a detailed analysis, followed up by in-depth field research. We identify four major urbanization patterns in Goma's spatial development: forced displacement, humanitarian interventions, militarization, and church-based social action. These patterns are driven by four key urban players, which have been shaping Goma's cityscape throughout more than two decades of violent conflict. The insights generated here facilitate a better understanding of the complex intertwinement of spatial and political dynamics in a city located in a setting of violent conflict.

Tourists can go sightseeing at various hours of the day. This study compared visitors' perceptions of the same “sight” at daytime and nighttime, and examined how perceptions relate to visitor characteristics (i.e., nationality and circadian rhythm). Focus groups were conducted to identify the day and night brand personality of the cityscape of Hong Kong as seen from atop Victoria Peak. Afterwards, a quasi-experimental design was employed, with day-or-night video of the view as the treatment variable. Questionnaires were administered in Hong Kong and the United States for cross-cultural comparison. More significant differences were observed in the Hong Kong sample than in the USA sample. Findings revealed that “night” had more personality, in that the night view generally received higher ratings. “Day” had a more distinctive personality, which was perceived differently by “early birds” and “night owls” in Hong Kong, and more relatable to USA respondents than to Hong Kong respondents.

Creating a cityscape conducive to a safe and efficient pedestrian experience requires a holistic understanding of the relationship between the built structures of a city and the movement of individuals within it. To empower policy makers to design, implement, and successfully deliver measures aimed at reducing footpath congestion and improving pedestrian safety the link between pedestrian volume and different features of the built environment needs to be investigated. Observed pedestrian counts at 50 intersections across the City of Melbourne are used as the input dependent variable of two regression models. A global ordinary least squares regression model and a local geographically weighted regression model are generated and evaluated for best fit of purpose. Spatiotemporal statistical handling is employed to clean the data of contextual anomalies. The output of the regression models identified eight key features as the most statistically significant predictors of pedestrian volume in Melbourne, Australia. These features include distance to schools and train stations and measures of footpath connectivity. This study reveals that due to significant spatial and temporal non-stationarity exhibited between pedestrian count sensors and built environment variables, the geographically weighted regression is the most appropriate modelling technique. This paper presents a methodology for the creation of a robust pedestrian prediction model.

While a significant part of the population is concentrated in urban areas, the influence of cityscape parameters on human heat stress remain poorly understood. Yet we agree to develop urban spaces (street, square, district ...) in a way to provide best possible quality of life. In order to do so, quantitative and qualitative references are required. To fill this gap the HES-SO † - hepia/leea ‡ has developed an innovative portable monitoring system that can be easily deployed in various outdoor and indoor environments. The monitoring equipment is embedded into a backpack that is carried during ‘climatic urban walks’ that can be reproduced at different times of the day or seasons so to yield a detailed and dynamic description of the climatic context of a portion of the city from the pedestrian point of view.

Within the context of enhancing sustainable and livable urban environments, one aim is to establish multifunctional green infrastructure (GI). We argue that in order to successfully plan and manage the development of GI, an inclusive and future-oriented stance concerning the needs and expectations of urbanites is required. By using green roofs as an example, the aim of this paper was to offer insights into how people envisage novel GI in urban environments and to reveal the scope of meanings and values people attach to these kinds of green infrastructure. We present results based on 149 stories collected with the method of empathy-based stories. Respondents were asked to use their imagination to produce mental images of not-yet-existing green roofs in different urban situations. Our results reflect a rich set of dimensions of green roofs that the respondents vividly imagined. Green roofs may contribute to the livability of urban areas in multiple ways, such as strengthening social cohesion, providing space for everyday renewal and restoration, offering interesting sceneries and multisensory experiences, softening the hard cityscape, showing ephemeral events and making experiences of "height" possible, as well as increasing the "contact with nature" experiences for residents, e.g. through biodiverse nature in the middle of built environments. Furthermore, the need for local, customized solutions that offer different benefits and experiences was expressed. Using both qualitative and quantitative analyses, we idealized four green roof meta-types for understanding the diverse expectations people may have for green roofs in urban area: Urban farm, Oasis, Urban hill and Meadow. Based on our results we suggest that comprehensive experiences and needs of people should be taken into account when designing urban green roofs or urban green in general not only, e.g. visual pleasure. Also, site- and user-specific solutions should be considered instead of generally applied ones. Our results offer tools for, e.g. urban planners to understand the value of diverse green roof solutions to the user. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

On the 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act it is imperative to take a critical look at segregation and discrimination in the United States, and the opportunities and challenges associated with making progress on this pressing issue. In that spirit, we released a call for papers focusing on fair housing, which all went through peer-review and were recently published in Cityscape. While these papers add to our knowledge, they also highlight the need for continued debate about policies and programs around fair housing. As a result, we asked some of our nation’s leading scholars to opine on the Cityscape articles, and to offer their thoughts on this topic. This edited volume by Vincent Reina and Susan Wachter is a compilation of response papers to the Cityscape special issue, and serves as a way to continue the debate about how best to pursue the goals of equity, inclusion, and eliminating discrimination. This report begins with commentaries by both Elizabeth K. Julian and Justin Steil, who provide important reactions to the mandate to affirmatively further fair housing, which is well documented in the paper by Katherine O’Regan and Ken Zimmerman. Next, Kevin Chavers highlights the importance of and challenges associated with fair housing and homeownership, and Gary Painter offers insight into drivers of the racial disparities in homeownership rates, which are discussed in detail in a paper by Arthur Acolin, Desen Lin, and Susan Wachter. Olatunde Johnson then offers thoughts on deconcentrating areas of affluence, while Amy T. Khare and Mark L. Joseph take a critical look at the mindset and framework associated with this approach set forth by Edward G. Goetz, Anthony Damiano, and Rashad A. Williams. Finally, both Casey Dawkins and Lisa Alexander offer insight into how fair housing goals, and the Act itself, engage with existing federal housing policy programs and larger issues of neighborhood change, which serves as an important complement to the paper by Vincent Reina, Jake Wegman, and Erick Guerra. A copy of the Cityscape issue with the original papers can be found online. It is our hope that the responses in this report will garner further debate, and that collectively we can continue to make the case for the importance of fair housing and develop nuanced and impactful policies that ensure the Fair Housing Act meets its full intent.

Air pollution has caused degraded visibility and gray cityscape in many developing countries. Though this visual change affects daily life from various aspects, there still lacks evidence on how it influences human psychological and physiological wellbeing. Based on a psychophysiological experiment, this study found that degraded cityscape caused by particulate matter (PM) pollution impeded human stress recovery and caused mental discomfort. We exposed 96 college student participants to fixed-scene images with six varied PM pollution levels during a 3-min post-stress recovery. We measured participants’ self-reported and physiological stress before the stressor, after the stressor and after the recovery. Stress recovery percentages among groups were compared. Both self-reported and physiological stress measurements showed that participants viewing clean cityscape photos recovered faster and 30–60% better than those viewing low-visibility cityscape photos. The final stress recovery percentages after 3-min recovery varied among indicators but generally followed a decreasing trend as the visibility impaired. The results convince a potentially indirect pathway through which the gray cityscape reduces well-being by hampering stress recovery. We discuss underlying mechanisms of the recovery-hampering effect of gray cityscape and call for more attention to this mild psychophysiological outcome.

The exceptional preservation of the cityscape in the medieval city of Bruges (Belgium) triggered dendrochronological research on numerous preserved roof constructions in historical buildings, that date from the Middle Ages up to the early modern period. As many of these oak timbers lack the preservation of waney edge, a method was developed to combine sapwood estimates of felling dates within each building phase and to compute a summed probability distribution (SPD) for those felling dates. These summed probabilities now allow us to reconstruct temporal trends in building trade activity in an expanding medieval city. When linked to the social status of the patrons of the building projects, it is observed that resilience to demographic crisis and political turmoil differs among the social groups and political elite of a medieval society. Furthermore the dating results of decades of tree-ring research now provide a typo-chronological framework of roof constructions and shows that it took nearly two centuries before more advanced technological skill in the construction of roofs completely replaced the traditional common rafter roofs.

This article examines the metaphorical messages and interpretations of futuristic buildings and construction projects, with examples from several parts of the world, especially from Europe and Asia. Based on the research material gathered in the MEDEIA project, some examples of buildings representing various metaphors will be provided together with reflections on their implications and interpretations from an individual and societal point of view. 1 The method of causal layered analysis (CLA) is applied in the analysis to deconstruct the messages of the buildings and to illustrate the connections between their manifest appearance and the underlying metaphors. The article addresses two central questions. Firstly, how does a building, in addition to its main functions, act as a messenger and mediator of future-related meanings by embodying different types of metaphors? Secondly, which kinds of buildings present conventional metaphors and used futures, and which kinds of buildings suggest novel metaphors and alternative futures?

One of the main factors of imbalance in the urban development of cities is undoubtedly their growth rate. In this sense, one of the main characteristics of rural-urban migration phenomena that have shaped the development of megacities in developing countries has been the need to integrate a large mass of people through processes of rapid growth of its urban plot. In this paper the growth of five different cities in Latin America is analyzed from the perspective of the impact of these processes of transformation in the urban landscape, describing different levels of pathology in their development. Consumption of periurban space, cityscape misconfiguration, or the long-term sustainability of these processes of transformation are complex issues that need to be addressed from a rigorous and technical perspective. These variables will be subject to GIS evaluation and diagnosis by territorial indicators in order to establish patterns of behaviour.

Urban greenery has long been recognized as an important component of urban ecosystem and provides many benefits to urban residents. However, different types of urban greenery provide different kinds of natural experiences to people. In this study, green metrics calculated based on multisource spatial datasets were used to quantify the spatial distribution of different types of urban greenery in Hartford, Connecticut. Geo-tagged Google Street View images, which capture the profile view of cityscape, were used to quantify street greenery by considering the time information. Land cover map and urban parks map were used to measure residential yard greenery and proximity to urban parks, respectively. We analyzed the associations of the calculated green metrics with socio-economic variables derived from census data. Statistical results show that: (1) people with higher income tend to live in neighborhoods with more street greenery; (2) census block groups with a higher proportion of owner-occupied units tend to have more yard vegetation and yard tree/shrub coverage; (3) Hispanics tend to live in block groups that have less yard vegetation but African Americans mostly live in block groups with more yard greenery; and (4) there are no significant environmental disparities among racial/ethnic groups in terms of proximity to urban parks. In general, this study provides an insight into the environments of urban residents in terms of urban greenery, and a valuable reference data for urban planning.

As it provides the simultaneous benefits of reducing the demand for potable water and the generation of water runoff, rainwater harvesting (RWH) has received increasing attention from urban water managers in the past decades. This study employs a mass balance based method to estimate RWH performance for four large metropolitan areas of the United States, namely New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Seattle. Geospatial analysis is used in concert with climatic records to characterize the cityscape and climatic patterns of each city and evaluate the RWH systems performance both in terms of potable water savings and roof runoff reductions. The analysis indicates that typical urban rainwater harvesting setups, consisting of a 100 m2 roof connected to a 5 m3 storage volume, would be able to reduce potable water demand by over 65% in all cities while contextually reduce roof runoff generation by over 75%. Small differences in performance are observed among cities due to differences in precipitation patterns, typical roof area, and population density. Furthermore, an evaluation of the total water savings and runoff reduction for the application of RWH practices at maximum build out for all four study cities is provided, and the sensitivity of our estimates of performance to precipitation patterns and to the systems’ operating algorithm is also analyzed and discussed.

The article aims to present the challenging design tasks of the reconstructed Northern Danube railway bridge in Budapest. Besides, it gives an overview of the extraordinary construction and replacement process that was carried out within 3 months in 2008. The bridge is located on the Budapest-Esztergom railway line of MAV (Hungarian National Railways) that carries significant suburban traffic, therefore fast constructability was just as important design issue as load carrying capacity and travel comfort requirements. Meanwhile the design was also determined by cityscape and noise demands. The old temporary structure was removed and replaced by the new continuously supported 674.40 m long steel truss girder bridge in the summer of 2008. A special bearing system enabled the reinforced abutments to carry the increased horizontal loads induced on the continuous girder with the application of hydraulic shock transmission devices, whilst the old piers became released from the majority of horizontal effects. The contractor and the designer were both challenged by the available 3 months long period for the bridge replacement. 500 tons heavy prefabricated units had to be lifted by floating cranes to their position, while no disturbance of the shipping was allowed on the river. As the result of close cooperation between contractors, designers and the involved organizations such a bridge was given back to the traffic 8 years ago that absolutely satisfies all kind of modern demands.

In developing the performance of the Tunis city, including economic performance, one should begin with recognition and a radical change in its space and landscape character. This new way of understanding the territory has led us to think about different strategies of knowledge regarding of the metropolis of Tunis, which focuses on already existing spaces and landscape while at the same time as proposing new forms of development that focus on the place and role of the citizen in the city. These ideas experimented with in other countries, challenge conventional methods of design and use of public space, which are often out of touch with current social practices. This metropolitan area invented by the planners will not be the city that tourists come to visit, or that is found in the mental images of many Tunisians. It would be a set of territories composed of a multitude of places and distinct landscapes, local stories and architectural and urban forms that would must be identified, redefined and enhanced. This research attempts to address metropolitan space and landscape not based on coherent spatial models but from infra- landscapes composed of landscape fragments and unfinished models.

Kumasi is the administrative capital of the Ashanti Region of, and the second largest city in, Ghana. The city also remains the seat of the traditional Asante Kingdom with its establishment around the late 17th century. It was given the accolade the ‘Garden City of West Africa’ in the 1940s due to its greenery cityscape. Over the years, Kumasi's development and morphological trajectories have been dictated by its formidable traditional and cultural ties as well as socio-political antecedents shaped by mainstream political and traditional systems. Presently, the city is faced with rapid urban growth characterised by urban blight, contradictions in governance regimes, distortions in planning systems, and deteriorating infrastructure and services. This paper profiles Kumasi within the context of its demographic characteristics, spatial transformation and governance dynamics, while highlighting the implications of the city's growth patterns for sustainable and resilient futures. The key issue is whether city planning authority's initiatives over the years can contribute to the attainment of the sustainable development goals, particularly goal 11.

One third of the residential buildings in Switzerland were built in the period from 1946 to 1980. Due to this large number buildings from the mentioned time period shape appearance of urban districts decisively in many Swiss cities. As these buildings do not fulfill current standards regarding energy efficiency, heat protection and sound insulation have to be renovated in the years ahead. To preserve the cityscape the renovation measures should be done with care and the outer appearance of the individual buildings should not be changed to a large extent. A research project with the title “Energetic and acoustic renovation of residential buildings of the 1950s to the 1970s” was carried out by the Department of Architecture, Wood and Civil Engineering of the Bern University of Applied Science (BFH AHB). The research project's objective was to reduce the lack of knowledge regarding the existing state of buildings from the mentioned time period in terms of energy performance and sound insulation. By means of statistical data, covering the residential building stock of the commune of Biel, reference building types for the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were determined. In collaboration with housing cooperatives from Biel three representative residential buildings were selected and documented, one for each decade. As part of detailed structural survey of the existing buildings the energetic and acoustic values and properties regarding the reference building of the 1950s as well as the reference building of the 1960s were determined. Amongst other things the constructions of the components were inspected in a non-destructive way and the heat transfer coefficients of the heat transferring components were calculated. Blower door tests to evaluate the air tightness of the building envelopes as well as acoustic measurements for determining the impact sound protection and the protection against airborne noise were done. Within the research project exemplary concepts for gentle energetic and acoustic renovations were developed for the two reference buildings. In this paper the research project's results with main focus on the reference building of the 1950s are presented.

A green park can be an effective contributor to the reduction of higher temperatures caused by urban heat island effects. A park's cooling effect extends beyond its boundary into the surrounding streets and buildings. Up to now, the measurement of the extent of the cooling effect beyond the park has relied mainly on on-site observations. An alternative method is to calculate the extent of cooling using remote sensing. The principle of the method is that the cooling effect will decline from the boundary into the surrounding areas to a distance at which the effect is longer felt. Analysis of Landsat TM/ETM+ images of Beijing revealed that cooling effects extend as much as 840 m away from the park in cone case, but as little as 35 m in another. While related in part to park size, the extent of the cooling effect is also influenced by the character of the area around each park. Remote sensing provides a viable alternative to ground temperature measurements, but attention has to be paid to the actual cityscape and characteristics of each park as well as to the resolution of the imagery.

In warmer climates palms ( Arecaceae ) are commonly found in city environments, planted mainly for the purpose of landscape beautification. Overpruning these palms can have negative side-effects, which reduce the health and therewith the aesthetical value of the plant. Despite this, it is not uncommon to see palms in cities that had too many of their fronds removed. This study aimed to find relations between various factors, such as ‘species’ or ‘distance to the closest road’, and the pruning state of Arecaceae in the study city Olhao (Portugal) in order to suggest reasons for the continued existence of this practice and approaches to reduce its prevalence. Only two factors, ‘height’ and ‘distance to the closest object’, showed the same relations with the pruning state for the three most common species and should therefore be the first to address in order to reduce overpruning. Data analysis proposes three underlying reasons, personal taste in relation with misinformation, improper choice of species for available planting sites, and economic factors as most likely to be responsible for widespread overpruning. While the latter is difficult to address, implementing educative measures to inform relevant personnel about the negative side-effects and better species-site matching could show fast and cost-efficient improvements in the reduction of the practice of overpruning and therewith the danger of reduced aesthetic value of Arecaceae , undermining the purpose of their original planting.

In this paper we will present studies aimed at uncovering the attitudes, needs, and expectations people have towards novel types of urban computing technologies deployed in a city. First, we conducted a storytelling competition to elicit future visions of how people imagined the role of technology. Second, we conducted a rapid ethnographic study using a mock-up prototype device in various public locations to gain a deeper understanding of how people would appropriate a specific technology, namely interactive public displays. Lastly, we collected ethnographic material through a diary study and interviews where people recorded their use of existing technology, and through these experiences, imagine how future technologies might affect their lives. We found that these methods proved useful in engaging a city's community to imagine the city's future. Consequently, we were able to explore the current use of technologies in the city and project their possible future use. Contrary to previous speculation in academic and cyberpunk literature, we conclude that digital technologies will not necessarily induce an abandonment of physical urban spaces. Rather, we project an increased sophistication in the sociable uses of urban spaces and technologies, where people blend their online and offline worlds into a single lived reality.

The traditional method for reconstructing cityscape relies greatly on the subjective judgment of designers, which makes the cityscape simple and homogenized. This paper aims to propose a new integrated approach to protect and design cityscape based on virtual reality (VR) and eye tracking technology. Through the integration and quantification of the eye tracking data and the protocol analysis data in the VR environment, this research has revealed the mechanism of identifying the cityscape features, and discovered the differences in the perception of the cityscape features by different people, thus proposing the multi-cultural integrated strategy for protecting cityscape. This research is of great significance for building a human-oriented scientific planning and protection method and promoting the application of cutting-edge digital technology in the field of smart city governance.

The study refers to the visual representation of the coastal front of the historical center of Thessaloniki in northern Greece and its changes that have occurred through the years. Most of the old town was destroyed by fire on August 18, 1917. A few years later, the French architect and archeologist Ernest Hebrard proposed the reconstruction of the city centre, but his plans were never fully implemented. Since then, a series of interventions changed the form of the old town and consequently the coastal cityscape. The research was initially based on the photogrammetric processing of archive aerial images (1938) of Thessaloniki's city centre. Besides the vertical images, high oblique aerial images dated back to 1932, proved to be a significant source of information. A rich archive of old photographic material, sketches, drawings and gravures of the coastal forehead of the city was also used. Ortho-images of the coastal front, derived from laser scanning (2010), and a 3D model of the historical city center, derived from the stereo photogrammetric process of aerial images (1990), contributed decisively at the multi temporal study of the city front. The main outcomes of the present documentation study are the 3D representation (at scale of 1:200, accuracy 5 cm) of temporal changes of a part of the coastal front of the historical center of Thessaloniki and the 2D representation (at scale 1:100, accuracy 1–2 cm) of these changes with respect to variations on skyline, lacunas, interventions in old buildings, etc.

The motor-vehicle is accountable for emitting a substantial concoction of air quality objective pollutants and carcinogenic hydrocarbons within close proximity to urbanised residential districts. The spatial extent of health impacts associated with road-transport pollutants have traditionally been explored through the examination of artificially created buffers, defined by subjective distances from specified major road links. Within this paper an alternative approach is presented using boundary statistics, which describe naturally occurring shifts of magnitude in socio-environmental and health outcomes across the wider urban area. In contrast, previous distance-threshold investigations have used arbitrarily sized buffers placed upon predetermined locations in response to environmental attributes, without considering the combined influence of additional social burdens. The demographically diverse City of Leicester, situated within the heart of the United Kingdom's major road-transport network, was selected to showcase such methods. Descriptive multilevel modelling strategies accommodating for generalised spatial structures across Leicester, globally associated issues of deprivation, road-transport emissions and ethnic minorities with increased respiratory risks. Getis-Ord Gi* spatial pattern recognition statistics identified the existence of localised variations, with inner city neighbourhoods tending to house children of ethnic minority groups whom experience disproportionately large environmental and respiratory health burdens. Crisp polygon wombling boundary detection across Leicester appeared to broadly complement the Gi* statistics, identifying naturally occurring boundaries in road-transport emissions to result in elevated children's respiratory admissions within a distance of 283 m (P 0.05). The designated threshold was identified to reduce in relation to certain ethnic groups, thus suggesting environmental injustices likely prevail within the model British multicultural City of Leicester. The study's findings have applications within healthcare management and urban planning for locating vulnerable populaces and for minimising health risks in future road network designs.

Existences of public spaces in cities are essentials for social interactions to take place, fostering creation of sustainable, safe and livable cities. Although public spaces are often designed for certain activities, existence of unplanned spaces seemed interwoven in the cityscape, some in the form of „leftover spaces‟, including under the flyovers and bridges, which offers abundance of opportunities. This paper attempts to review activities under flyovers initiated by its local community in Kuala Lumpur, and aims to contribute in further identifying the leftover spaces, and to the possible activities to be considered in developing these spaces to benefit surrounding communities.

The issue of diverse identities imprinted on the urban landscape as the result of political changes and the struggle for power between different social and ethnic groups is analysed here using the example of Katowice, the capital and largest urban centre in Upper Silesia, Poland. Basing their conclusions on systematic investigation of the most important changes and features in the cityscape in five clearly distinct historical periods, the authors explore the conditions and mechanisms of the creation of the city’s symbolic landscape and its links with urban identity. They argue that Katowice represents a peculiar model of urban identity formation in Central and Eastern Europe that has to date not been researched in any depth, in which each successive historical period represents a rupture with the foregoing values and ideas and an attempt to make a new, lasting imprint on the material outlook of the city. The development of such a model of identity is the result of the complex interplay between the city’s changing geopolitical context and its economic and functional development path.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the East-Central European cities had to re-invent themselves to quickly adapt to a globalising world. Urban identity production policies were usually geared to connect to a chosen pre-socialist “Golden Age”, ignoring the socialist past as a simple disturbance of a “normal” development path. This story the cities were to tell, however, frequently conflicted with the socio-economic realities of a rather unsmooth transformation process, making the socialist past part of the urban identity. In the case of Berlin, a post-socialist and at the same time a post-western-stronghold city, urban identity production is bound to be more complicated than anywhere else. After the failure of the policy to “critically reconstruct” the cosmopolitan metropolis of the 1920s and thus erasing the past of the divided city, policies developed in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall aim at turning the Cold War past into a central element of the story that is to support its urban identity, notably leading to the comprehensive re-emergence of the Berlin Wall in the cityscape. This policy – unmatched in other East-Central European cities – has its origins in a historic struggle for identity, leading to the questionable attempt to make “change” the main story Berlin is to tell. This theme however – in conjunction with the reconstructed Wall as image brand – may fall short of creating an urban identity accepted by large population parts.

Trees in greenspaces are an indicator of a city’s livability and sustainability. Roadside trees furnish linear greenery that can permeate neighborhoods and serve landscape and amenity functions. They are subject to high-intensity stresses and often perform poorly. Trenching to reach or install utilities along pavements is a major cause of tree damage and subsequent decline. Erroneously, it has been believed that roots grow mainly downwards and hence trenching near a tree is relatively harmless to roots. Although modern research confirms the shallow but wide distribution of tree roots that can be seriously damaged by trenching, old trenching practice still persists in many cities. Installing cable television and optical-fiber networks, and the need to overhaul dilapidated utility lines in old cities, could bring massive damage to roadside trees and significantly degrade cityscape quality. Recent advances in trenchless technology could merge with the new understanding of root distribution to protect this valuable municipal asset. Utility pipes or cables could be inserted below or around the root envelope in a drilled or bored channel, while extant pipe channels could be used to rehabilitate an old line. The procedures and precautions for the application of trenchless methods on narrow pavements are proposed.

Hong Kong's urban environment has an extremely high development density pervasively filled by buildings and roads. Little ground-level space is left for amenity planting within and without town lots, resulting in a cramped city matrix with inadequate green cover. The community desires for more and better trees for cityscape enhancement and environmental amelioration. A city-wide roadside-tree census was conducted recently together with a survey of potential planting sites (PPS) with a view to augmenting tree biomass and diversity in the long run. Sites with a suitable plantable corridor were evaluated in detail in the field to glean data on growing-space geometry (configuration and dimensions) and qualitative attributes (adjacent land use, building setback, unpaved soil, and air quality). Some 1094 PPS with a total capacity for 12 063 trees had been studied. Most PPS are spatially scattered and small, each with

The primary function of signs is to index the environment, i.e. tell people where they can find what. Their function, therefore, is to serve communication along streets. Signs on buildings, when left unchecked, have a propensity to move toward visual pollution of the cityscape. There is a need for research to investigate how to provide people with information that will foster environmental learning and at the same time protect the image of the buildings on which signs are mounted. This paper investigates the use of signs on the facades of buildings in Amman, the capital of Jordan. Environmental cognition research is compiled into a framework that permits a learning strategy to evolve at a conceptual level and protect the inherent imageability of buildings. Signage criteria are suggested with an eye to developing sign displays that aid in way-finding and that are compatible with existing architectural character, creating harmony in the built environment.

The most fundamental fact about rental housing in the United States is that rental units are overwhelmingly in multifamily structures. This fact surely reflects the agency problems associated with renting single-family dwellings, and it should influence all discussions of rental housing policy. Policies that encourage homeowning are implicitly encouraging people to move away from higher density living; policies that discourage renting are implicitly discouraging multifamily buildings. Two major distortions shape the rental housing market, both of which are created by the public sector. Federal pro-homeownership policies, such as the home mortgage interest deduction, weaken the rental market and the cities where rental markets thrive. Local policies that discourage tall buildings likewise ensure that Americans have fewer rental options. The economic vitality of cities and the environmental consequences of large suburban homes with long commutes both support arguments for reducing these distortions.

In July 2008, Congress established the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) to help local governments address the neighborhood effects of concentrated foreclosures. As of the writing of this article, a total of $7 billion has been allocated to the program. This policy brief presents a theoretical justification for NSP and discusses how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development implemented the program.

The worst-case housing needs of low-income households arise largely from their high rent burdens, not from physically inadequate housing. Thus, the programs of housing assistance for these households initiated in the Great Depression should now be recognized as a part of the nation’s welfare system, not as an infrastructure investment program. This paper considers the most important implications of these facts for the design of housing assistance programs and for the administration of housing subsidies.

This article presents an analysis of five available house price indices that are used to track house prices at the metropolitan area level. These five indices are (1) the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI), (2) the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indices, (3) an adjusted version of the FHFA House Price Index, (4) the Zillow Home Value Index, and (5) the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Median Home Price. This study first discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these indices for use in a spatio-temporal analysis. Then, it provides a comparative analysis of their change rate for 10 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for two time periods: the third quarter of 2006 through the third quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2008. In addition, this research constructs a series of spatio-temporal indicators based on time and spatial lags of the HPI for 302 MSAs for the 2000 to 2007 period. The results of this data brief could help researchers interested in spatio-temporal analyses of the latest housing bubble and of house price indices at large.

Housing is the single largest expense for most American families. For one-third of American households, this expense is not a monthly mortgage payment to a lender, but rather a monthly rent payment to a landlord. Rental housing is the typical tenure choice for the young, the elderly, the disabled, people in highly mobile professional sectors, and low-wage working families, it is also likely to be an important alternative - at least in the short term - for many of the millions of families uprooted by the foreclosure crisis. In light of the potential increased role of rental housing as a tenure option, this article attempts to (1) describe key facts and trends in the affordability of rental housing for low- and moderate-income renters from 1990 through the recession of the late 2000s and (2) examine early evidence on the effects of the recession and foreclosure crisis on rental housing affordability. Although Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research (HUD PDR the second section, Rent Trends, describes rent trends from 1990 through 2009; and the third section, Affordable Rental Housing Stock Trends, examines trends in rental housing affordability, as measured by rent burdens and affordable supply gap.

The United States has long exhibited enthusiasm for homeownership. The converse of this is that it has tended to neglect rental housing. This article seeks to do the following: (1) explain why rental housing is desirable; (2) lay out the policies that favor owneroccupied housing; (3) discuss current subsidy programs for rental housing, with particular emphasis on programs that are not simply legacies of past policy; and (4) examine how these programs might be improved or reformed. It argues that in a second-best world of restrictive zoning and preferences for ownership, rental subsidies may be justified on both equity and efficiency grounds.

When discussing the themes emerging from this series of articles, we are struck by the diversity in both the content and methods covered in these contributions. We also commend the authors’ desire to grapple with complex questions surrounding homelessness and service provision. We can readily identify evidence gaps that this program of research helps to fill, but if we take a more global perspective it seems that considerable value could be added to this science by engaging with the existing international literature and situating these findings in that broader context.

Since the 1980s, Blacks have been overrepresented in the homeless population with respect to their share of the national population and the poverty population, but little research has emerged to explain why this over-representation exists. Previous researchers have suggested that residential segregation and a declining supply of affordable housing push low-income Blacks into homelessness and that greater access to homeless shelters pulls low-income Blacks into homelessness at greater rates than Whites. These hypotheses have not been tested, because longitudinal data linking housing characteristics, service accessibility, and the homeless population do not exist. For these reasons, the study in this article presents analyses of housed and homeless populations separately. The first set of analyses focuses on the segment of the housed population most at risk of becoming homeless: those living in inadequate and overcrowded housing. Using data from the 1990 and 2000 Decennial Censuses and the 1997 American Housing Survey, this study tests the relationship between residential segregation, affordable housing supply, and the extent to which Blacks live in inadequate and overcrowded housing. The study found that high rates of residential segregation and lower affordable housing supply were associated with inadequate housing quality and overcrowding in Black households. Working under the assumption that closer proximity to homeless services decreases migration for such services, in the second set of analyses, this study examines racial differences in migration for homeless services. Using data from the 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients, this study reveals that Black homeless clients were less likely than White homeless clients to have migrated for homeless services. Black homeless clients were more likely than White homeless clients to both start their homeless spell in a large central-city location and end up using services in that location or in another large central city. Homeless spells were longer for Black homeless clients but were more transient for White homeless clients, who were more likely to stay in three or more towns during their spell. The study addresses implications for fair housing policy, affordable housing policy, and homeless-services provision; discusses limitations of the research; and proposes areas for future research.

Trees and high-density urban development do not seem to be compatible in Hong Kong. The grave shortage of developable lands and the resultant tightly packed urban fabric have apparently left few plantable niches. A historical review of urban trees provides a baseline to gauge recent changes marked by rampant tree constraints and decimation. The contributions of the different government departments in greening some quarters of the city are assessed through the relevant policies and changing urbanisation patterns. The attitude of private developers and their combined effects on the cityscape are evaluated with reference to the quality and quantity of urban trees. The existing diffuse legislation and controls on tree preservation are difficult to enforce and cannot bring effective protection in private developments. To arrest further damage and to bring about a greener city, collaborative government and private-sector inputs and departure from past attitudes are needed. An assessment of the city matrix for potential planting and preservation suggests many opportunities for improvement. Recommendations on the approaches and methods to implement tree planting programmes are suggested.

A major goal of the HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) Program is to improve surrounding communities by removing physically deteriorating public housing projects—a source of concentrated poverty and crime—and replacing them with mixedincome communities. This article uses a difference-in-differences approach to determine if Baltimore’s three completed HOPE VI redevelopments had positive neighborhood spillover effects on surrounding property values. The analysis compares property sales prices in the area immediately surrounding each site before and after redevelopment to sales prices of comparable properties farther away but in the same neighborhood and at the same time. Only one redevelopment showed convincing evidence of a positive effect on property values in its surrounding neighborhood. This redevelopment was located in a less distressed neighborhood than the other two sites, adhered more closely to the mixedincome model, and implemented the project’s social and community services component through a partnership between the private developer and the tenant organization. These findings suggest that adherence to HOPE VI’s main principles of implementation and preexisting neighborhood conditions make a difference in neighborhood spillover effects and raise the question of whether HOPE VI investment is best targeted to severely distressed neighborhoods or to stable or already improving neighborhoods.

This study examines the extent to which HOPE VI redevelopments have had positive spillover effects on their surrounding neighborhoods. It examines four such redevelopments-two in Boston, Massachusetts, and two in Washington, D.C.-and documents the changes that have taken place in property values, violent crime patterns, and resident incomes in surrounding neighborhoods since the redevelopment began. The study assesses the extent to which those changes can be attributed to the public housing redevelopment.The study finds that, for the most part, the HOPE VI redevelopments have had positive, statistically significant effects on economic conditions in their surrounding neighborhoods. The extent of the spillover neighborhood effects has depended, in part, on the location and market dynamics of the surrounding community. The economic effects of a HOPE VI redevelopment have tended to be greater in communities where there were other development pressures and existing, stable institutions. In the absence of these factors, the positive effects of HOPE VI have been less pronounced.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) Office of Policy Development and Research recently acquired a product from Lender Processing Services Applied Analytics, which contains proprietary individual-loan-level data covering approximately 75 percent of the entire mortgage loan market. This product is a robust data source of 40 million mortgage loans with ZIP Code geographic detail. It includes more than 70 loan attributes, credit scores, and foreclosure status. The ability to identify and track loans in foreclosure and calculate foreclosure rates at various geographic levels can lead to powerful knowledge for all parties involved in community development and housing policy. To illustrate the geographic concentration and extent of social and economic distress resulting from the current housing crisis in the map of the Las Vegas, Nevada metropolitan area in exhibit 1, we connect this mortgage data with U.S. Postal Service (USPS) data on vacant addresses.