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When and under what conditions do ideologically similar nationalist parties adopt different positions and discourses about refugees and immigrants? We address this question by examining nationalist parties' approaches toward Syrian refugees in Turkey. Documenting these differences based on an original Twitter dataset and party manifestos, we argue that electoral dynamics under the new presidential system have shaped nationalist parties' discourses about refugees in the country. In particular, we explore how pre-electoral alliances and a strategic opening in the political space have motivated nationalist parties to amplify, ambiguate, or silence their otherwise conservative and nativist refugee discourses. Additionally, we maintain that urbanization has influenced the discursive strategies of nationalist party elites toward immigrants and refugees, giving rise to contradictory forms of nationalism in urban areas, including both far-right and liberal nationalisms. Overall, this study offers valuable insights into the complex interactions between refugee politics, electoral dynamics, nationalism, and urbanization in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suburbanization and suburban sprawl are natural processes in a certain period of development of the city and its hinterland. According to studies devoted to suburban sprawl, this sprawl has many negative impacts on the environment. But if suburban sprawl creates compact and mutually separated suburban settlements based on the original villages, suburban localities with a high population density and suburban localities on poor land, then these impacts are relatively small, acceptable in the period of suburbanization development. This paper focuses on (1) the acceptability of the location of suburban localities in terms of the required compactness of suburban settlements, (2) the acceptability of population density in suburban localities in relation to the population density in city neighbourhoods with detached single-family houses and (3) the acceptability of agricultural land occupations for suburban localities in terms of the lowest land quality in these occupations. The analyzes were carried out in suburban settlements around Prague and the regional city of České Budějovice. Acceptable locations of suburban localities prevail there, but population densities are usually lower in suburban localities than in mentioned city neighbourhoods. Unfortunately, the most valuable agricultural land is located in the immediate vicinity of settlements, where suburban localities are developing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geography of economic opportunity and residential segregation are important factors driving racial disparities in employment outcomes. We present here the changing landscape of opportunity in large metropolitan areas in the United States to describe how the spatial structure of opportunity is evolving. Using decomposable inequality indices, we break down the spatial inequality of opportunity into two components: inequality within subareas (inner cities, inner suburbs, and outer suburbs) and inequality between subareas. According to our findings, economic opportunity is primarily driven by inequality within subareas. The situation is particularly evident in metropolitan areas where suburban employment is growing concurrently with the suburbanization of Black and Hispanic populations. Our findings suggest that the geography of metropolitan opportunity in the U.S. is changing in ways that will alter our traditional understanding of the relationship between race, space, and economic opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a collection of papers that explore the concept of Olympic urbanism, which refers to the close relationship between city planning and the Olympic Games. The papers discuss various cities that have hosted the Olympics and cover topics such as the impact of the Games on urban form and planning culture, the sustainability and legacy of the Games, and the role of security in Olympic city planning. The papers emphasize the need for historical awareness when analyzing the Olympic experience of a city and highlight the complex and unpredictable nature of urban planning for the Games. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines the growth of the Olympic Games against that of former host cities to understand whether this mega-event may have 'outgrown' its hosts. The increasing hosting requirements and governments' expansive use of mega-events as tools for urban development would suggest that the 'Olympic city' – a term we use for describing the size of the Olympics as hosted in different cities over the decades – has grown at a faster rate than former host cities. The analysis contrasts historical indicators that capture the evolving size of planning for the event based on four dimensions – sport, spectators, marketing and costs – as well as the urban dimension of hosting experiences (venues and infrastructure) with city trajectories based on demographic and economic indicators. This is done through a longitudinal analysis of former Olympic host cities from the 1960s and 1970s and from which continuous longitudinal data are available: Tokyo, Munich, and Montreal. The findings indicate that the Olympic city has grown more strongly than these former host cities, although not uniformly across trajectories. This gives evidence for the need to review the size of mega-event impacts if they ought to continue to generate interest in hosting them in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs an Olympic urbanism perspective on the transformation of Beijing's planning and development. For Beijing, holding the Olympic Games was not just about staging the city – and the nation – to the world as commonly understood. It was also about transforming the city through megaprojectification – the use of megaprojects like the Olympic Games to boost urban growth. The 2008 Summer Olympics played a critical role in growing Beijing in terms of the economy, population, fixed assets investment, infrastructure provision, and real estate development. Rapid but ill-planned growth within a decade exacerbated many pre-existing problems of the megacity. In the post-Olympic years, big city syndrome became Beijing's calling card: pollution, congestion, unliveability, and unsustainability. Since then, a post-growth discourse has been emerging, reimagining the capital's future in the context of balanced, coordinated development of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. These include the construction of a new city Xiong'an to decentralize Beijing. This post-growth discourse that influenced the 2022 Winter Olympics was a contrast to the growth discourse that had underpinned the 2008 Summer Olympics. Beijing presents an unusual case of holding two Olympics within a short timeframe but under two contrasting urbanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to investigate how natural resources rents impact environmental sustainability measured by CO2 emissions and PM2.5 air pollution in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) economies from 1995 to 2019. To enhance robust policy implications, natural resources are decomposed into disaggregated (coal, gas, oil, forest, and mineral rents) and aggregated (total natural resources rents) indicators. Besides, the intervening roles of affluence, urbanization, and green policies vectoring green technological innovation, green finance, green energy, and waste management within the theoretical underpinning of STIRPAT model are considered. The empirical verification is anchored on second-generation estimators entailing Common Correlated Effects Mean Group, Augmented Mean Group, and Panel Quantile Regression. Similarly, Fully Modified OLS is employed to gauge the country-specific effects amidst varying robustness analyses. The fallouts from the analyses reveal that natural resources rents inhibit the attainments of environmental sustainability in BRICS economies by positively driving CO2 emissions and PM2.5 air pollution. Conversely, green policies are observed to substantially drive environmental sustainability by mitigating both pollutants whereas affluence and urbanization escalate them. The distributional effects from Panel Quantile Regression and Fully Modified OLS corroborate the main findings divergently. Additionally, two channels of causality, including unidirectional and bidirectional nexuses, are apparent from the estimated models. Policy measures are suggested based on the empirical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets out to extend the core ideas of social reproduction theory (SRT), an increasingly influential strand of scholarship within and beyond critical geopolitical economy. It suggests that while SRT productively addresses longstanding debates within Marxist feminism, it has yet to adequately theorize the shifting spatialities of reproductive work and the relationship between social reproduction and the state. To address this relative weakness, this article stages a dialogue between SRT and the emergent neo-Lefebvrian literature on state space and the multiscalar geographies of capitalist urbanization. The primary claim at stake in this context is that reproductive work is periodically and systematically reorganized and re-spatialized in relation to the broader crisis dynamics of capital, and the reweaving of the urban fabric; and, moreover, that this process of reorganization and re-spatialization is profoundly mediated, managed, and canalized by state spatial practices. To concretize this theorization, this article closes with a brief historical reading of US imperial expansion and urbanization between roughly 1898 and 1925. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines early twentieth-century Japanese writer Kajii Motojirō's short story 'Remon' ('The Lemon,' 1925) and explores the intersection of Kajii's descriptions and an emerging urbanscape in Kyoto. Turn-of-the-century Kyoto undertook a massive scale of urbanization, remaking itself as a resurgent imperial capital. Instead of taking note of transformations of the scenery or the frenzies of new experiences, 'Remon' illustrates the narrator's movement unintelligibly suspended in Kyoto's back alleys. The repeated juxtaposing of different forms of representational media in the narrative also creates intermedial confusion, intensifying the sense of perceptual uncertainty. The article contends that reading the descriptions of ambiguous in-betweenness in the text reveals Kajii's writerly engagement with the urbanization of Kyoto and leads us to a reevaluation of Kajii's investment in literary modernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning researchers often engage in international comparative research oriented to improving domestic planning practices. However, policy transfer is seldom sucsessful because the identified 'best practices' are insufficiently applicable or transferable. To address this, we employed a reflexive action-oriented methodology valorise the results of an ESPON project on sustainable urbanisation in two specific contexts: Lithuania's national strategic plan and Croatia's post-earthquake reconstruction. In collaboration with stakeholders, we assessed the local context and then used the European knowledge as a means for reflection. The results are encouraging, suggesting that this method could improve the impact of planning research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study assessed the effectiveness of infiltration-based Low Impact Development (LID) techniques and augmented infiltration LIDs (such as recharge shaft) in a coastal urban catchment in India using a semi-coupled approach between numerical models VS2DI and Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). Site specific VS2DI modelling indicated that the infiltration LIDs resulted in more saturation excess runoff due to the soil's insufficient hydraulic conductivity and increased lateral flow. Catchment-scale modeling indicated that LIDs significantly improved water retention (p ≪ 0.05), with a 35% reduction in total runoff volume. The recharge shafts were shown to be more efficient in reducing runoff volume and peak runoff, particularly for high runoff rates (more than 22 mm/hr). The study suggests that direct recharge to the aquifer through recharge shafts could be a suitable solution to manage runoff and meet the demand for domestic water supply during times of water scarcity in coastal urban catchments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pre-industrial societies subsistence agriculture played a crucial role in ensuring survival, not just for people born free, but also for those born into slavery. Within the legal framework of colonial structures, certain owners granted their enslaved individuals temporary usage rights to parcels of land upon their emancipation, and in rare cases, even bestowed permanent ownership. This article wants to study land ownership patterns of manumitted slaves in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka, when the island's coastal territories were subject to the influence of the Dutch East India Company. By examining Dutch-language last wills from the period 1702 to 1765 we analyze the patterns of land donations by former owners to their freed slaves. By establishing connections between these donations and the detailed land registers of suburban districts surrounding the cities of Colombo and Galle, our objective is to uncover the shortand long-term implications of land ownership for the manumitted individuals and their families. Furthermore, this article also reflects on the implications of negotiated registration practices of such land ownership with a colonial power for the manumitted slaves. What did the label 'manumitted' or 'free' slave entail in Sri Lanka's society, and how did registration in Dutch bureaucracy influence those labelling practices? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bay areas have experienced a rapid development in their city integration and tourism industry over the past decade. However, city integration has rarely been studied in the tourism literature along with its dimensions and impact on tourism development. Therefore, this study examines city integration and its effects on tourism development from the perspective of residents in the Greater Bay Area, China. Through a qualitative research method with 73 semi-structured interviews, this study identified five dimensions of the effects of city integration on tourism development were also determined, including resource, community, product, marketing and economic dimensions. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of the findings were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grid systems for local governance and administration in China, known as grid management or wanggehua guanli (网格化管理), have been implemented since the mid-2000s. Where existing research focuses on the embeddedness of grid technology in state-society relations, the spatial dynamics of urban grid administration and their significance in China's state structure receive less attention. This analysis adopts the idea of the spatial process for a dynamic approach to grid governance, from its incorporation in China's urban management efficiency drive to its implementation in city districts through local territorialization, to assess the urban grid system as an administrative area and inter-scaled spatial governing strategy. Implementation of the grid system establishes smaller governing areas while networking higherlevel jurisdictions, with the result of overcoming some of the authority fragmentation in the state structure. Grid governance contributes to increasing local state power in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanisation, housing affordability and an ageing population are key focus areas in major cities in Australia and worldwide. A lack of affordable housing is affecting a greater number of people, and particularly, a growing number of older populations. This paper draws inspiration from Power and Mee (Housing Studies, 35(3), 496, 2020) and asks: 'is this a housing system that cares?' The paper explores opportunities for care that emerge from practices of house-sharing and in particular house-sitting. Findings from semi-structured interviews with older house-sitters (aged 50 years and over) suggested house-sitting provides an affordable shelter for older people experiencing financial insecurity, thus has the potential to increase their capacity for care-related expenditure. Housing mobility, insecure tenure and a lack of a caring governance to manage the relationship between owners and sitters can however put older house-sitters in a vulnerable position, leading to negative impacts on their wellbeing. The research findings inform housing policy-makers and researchers about the growing practices of house-sitting among older people, and help grow and sustain a housing system that cares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This ethnographic data-driven article investigates the urban political economy of a new form of elite schooling, which is represented by the fee-charging international programs recently established by 'key' public high schools in metro China. Grounding the analysis in Harvey's work on urbanization and neoliberalism, the literature on China's development model, and Bourdieu's theory of capital conversion, this article reveals that the construction of an international program is deeply implicated in the school's social relationships with the state, real estate developers, and urban middle classes. While the program provides wealthy Chinese families with access to international higher education for accumulating desirable capitals at 'world-class' universities, the Chinese elite school generates its own capital. Through theorizing how the creation of the fee-charging international program draws together multiple forms of neoliberal profit-making and multi-scalar capital accumulation, this study adds novel conceptual and empirical insights to the emergent scholarship of elite and international education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban reforestation mitigates climate change by sequestering carbon, but quantifying carbon gains requires accurate aboveground biomass estimation. This study estimated carbon sequestration in a reforested urban landscape using PlanetScope, Sentinel-1A, Sentinel-2A, SRTM data, and field measurements. Non-parametric machine learning algorithms (k-nearest neighbor, support vector machines, extreme gradient boosting, random forests) with 39 predictor features generated aboveground biomass density maps. The extreme gradient boosting model performed best, predicting 4.1–286.5t ha-1 aboveground biomass, demonstrating its effectiveness for modeling reforested biomass with multi-source data. Findings highlight extreme gradient boosting’s promise for urban biomass estimation, the importance of multi-source data, and machine learning’s potential in addressing environmental challenges like climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the uneven distribution of territorial power and autonomy, cities in lower positions in China's urban hierarchical system are typically disadvantageous in obtaining vital and timely political and economic resources. Applying the theoretical discourse of spatial selectivity in state space production, this study focuses on the territorial dimension of spatial strategies and investigates how local spatial selectivity strategies have unfolded in Bengbu and Chuzhou, two third-tier cities in Anhui Province. The research finds that while lower-tier cities endeavor to use spatial selectivity and advocate new administrative and economic spaces by making connections to higher-tier cities, their spatial strategies overlook insufficient interconnections with their peers. Territorial status categorization, spatial relational adjustment, and administrative boundary realignment may have adverse effects when the mismatch between their targeted places and proposed functions occurs. Institutional reconfigurations through rescaled government and multi-level and cross-regional governance network are not common in lower-tier city's spatial strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how homeownership is associated with fertility intentions among migrant population in urban China. Using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, after controlling for a wide range of household demographical and socioeconomic characteristics and city fixed effects, we find that homeowners are on average 1.12 percentage points more likely to desire future children than renters. The estimated homeownership effect has on average a 7.8% increase in the desire for future children. This result is robust to a series of different model specifications. Moreover, we find that the homeownership effect on fertility intentions mainly occurs in households without children. Homeowners having full property ownership have a higher desire for future children than renters. On the contrary, those having joint ownership of property do not differ much from renters in terms of the desire for future children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are spatial differences in the correlation between urbanization (NL) and vegetation cover (NDVI), and the driving mechanism is not clear. This study aims to explore the spatial correlation between NL and NDVI in China and identify the influencing factors. The results showed that there was a north-south difference in the correlation, and this correlation was strongest in winter. Meteorological factors were the main influencing factors, Bivariate enhancement is observed for TEM-DEM at the national scale in winter, TEM-relative humidity (RH) in cold spot areas, and TEM-RH in hot spot areas in summer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maintenance of green areas within cities is essential for promoting urban biodiversity and species interactions. Here, we evaluated the interactions between hummingbirds and their visited plants over the course of a year in an urban park in Barreiras, western Bahia, Brazil. Each month, from October 2018 to September 2019, we recorded hummingbird species, the plants they visit, and their agonistic interactions. We recorded 748 legitimate visits by six hummingbirds to five plant species. Most plant species (60%) flowered continuously, and most visits were recorded in the rainy season when the network was also more specialized (H2' = 0.821). Chionomesa fimbriata was the only hummingbird recorded during all studied months. This species performed 70% of all visits recorded and was involved in most agonistic interactions (n = 68). The availability of resources affected the number of visits (p = 0.016). Tree species producing many flowers increased hummingbird diversity and concentrated most of the agonistic interactions. Plant species with continuous flowering represented a persistent supply of resources, favoring the residence of C. fimbriata within the study site. Despite the low diversity of resources, the richness of hummingbirds recorded attests to the importance of maintaining green spaces in cities to promote urban biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

California’s deserts have been a frontier for Los Angeles for well over a century. Their exploitation by the “suburban metropolis” for resources, spatial fixes (externalities, such as undesirable land uses, waste and pollution, and unwanted residents), and investment of surplus capital has resulted in their dramatic growth and change. I argue that the most recent process of the deserts’ colonization is best understood as their suburbanization, a historical and contemporary process of exploitation and assimilation into the suburban metropolis. My goal is to analyze the process of suburbanization of the deserts, focusing both on their changing role as the frontier and spatial fix, and their shifting internal/local processes. I reviewed academic literature on U.S. and LA suburbs to understand the historical, social, and political contexts that produced desert suburbanization. I conducted primary and secondary source research, including interviews with desert residents, and descriptive statistical analysis of the desert suburbanization processes. I found that there are specific suburban processes and characteristics that have been exported to the deserts from LA, including balancing growth and quality of life, spatial and social segregation, and technocratic governance. I conclude that suburbanization of California’s deserts reproduces the same economic, political, social, and environmental inequalities plaguing LA and other U.S. cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates the connections between caste and gig economy, and how these connections play out in the political actions by youth in the erstwhile mill-neighbourhoods in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat. It asks, how do the gig-economy workers from the lower castes navigate in the highly caste segregated urban spaces of Ahmedabad? What drives them to join their own caste collectives while looking for gig work in the city? The article explains through ethnographic inquiries that while the recent emergence of the gig economy provides the young jobseekers from the lower castes an escape route from the caste-based occupations in the rural, their caste identities are strategically masked and highlighted in informing their choices, political aspirations and economic anxieties while navigating in the urban. The unpredictable and uncertain nature of the contractual work consolidates caste and kinship networks to get work and information about available work in the urban gig economy. This in turn facilitates a renewed political activism of the youth in the urban neighbourhoods that strengthens caste politics in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compulsory land acquisition has time and again resulted in disruption of local communities in multiple ways. However, this process has often been justified as an important transitional stage for rural populations to move towards urbanisation and development. This paper looks at the case of a village in district Faridabad (in the state of Haryana), where land was acquired for purposes of setting up an Industrial Model Township (IMT). It is argued that land dispossession, in the case of prosperous rural communities, has resulted in the loss of livelihood and location. While the transition from owners to rentiers has been particularly traumatic for the older generation, the younger generation face new dilemmas pertaining to their identity and livelihood choices. Assured rent has enhanced family incomes. This has reduced the need to engage with agriculture which youth from the dominant castes wished to relinquish even otherwise. However, the jobs that are available are not commensurate to the social status that the youth from the dominant castes aspire for. Apart from these aspirational asymmetries, monetisation of assets has unleashed consumerism, conspicuous consumption and an identity crisis for the youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanisation and demographic transition have significant implications for India, making it one of the largest urban agglomerations and youngest nations in the world. Each of these involves complex and multilayered changes, specially with neo-liberal transformations leaving their impact on youth lives, aspirations, and culture. While the 'urban' remains the site for realising youth aspirations, neo-liberal transformations of this space are such that youth face many barriers in realising their dreams for a secure future. This includes enhanced social exclusions of youth from marginalised social castes and from rural areas. Also, there is the domination of a globalised middle- class in cities that now aspire to be aesthetic world-class spaces. The assertive middle class also brings in cultures of conspicuous consumption from which the youth from marginalised social backgrounds are somewhat disconnected. In the midst of these transformations, the central question this volume seeks to explore is about the life experiences, aspirations, trajectories of social mobility and agency of youth in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1968, John Kain hypothesized that Black residential suburbanization had not accompanied suburbanizing jobs, leading to poor employment outcomes for young Black men. This paper reinvestigates spatial mismatch in the 2000s and 2010s, focusing on differences between urban and suburban White, Black, and Hispanic residents of the U.S. We find some evidence for spatial mismatch when pooling data across all years, and stronger evidence for mismatch among Black people than among Hispanic people. First, both urban Black and Hispanic people earn lower wages than equivalent suburbanites, all else equal. Second, urban Black people have a higher probability of un- and under-employment relative to their suburban counterparts. Third, Black and Hispanic people have longer commutes than equivalent Whites do, but suburban residence mitigates this effect. Yet we also find evidence that in recent years, spatial mismatch may not be as serious a problem as many people believe. For example, the wage premium for suburban people—White, Black, and Hispanic—has fallen. Further, urban Hispanic people are not more likely to be unemployed than equivalent suburbanites. Finally, urban and suburban Black and Hispanic people do not work in different types of occupations, so location is not associated with suburbanites of color holding more or less "desirable" jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urbanization of suburbs has a significant impact on ocular health, however, the effect of this phenomenon on the epidemiology of eye diseases in the sub-urbanization region of China remains unclear. In this context, the population-based Beichen Eye Study (BCES) was conducted in the Beichen District of Tianjin, China. This article aims to summarize the background, design scheme and operation process of the study. The Chinese Clinical Trial Registry number was ChiCTR2000032280. In total, 8218 participants were randomly selected by a multi-stage sampling method. After their qualification was confirmed, participants were mainly invited to a centralized clinic via telephone interviews after promotion of the study in the community. Examinations included a standardized interview, anthropometric assessment, autorefraction, ocular biometry, visual acuity, anterior and posterior segment examinations, dry eye disease (DED), intra-ocular pressure, visual field testing, gonioscopy, and imaging of anterior segment, posterior segment, fundus, and optic disc. A peripheral venous blood sample was also collected for biochemical testing. For observational purposes, a community-based type II diabetes mellitus management mode was created and assessed for its effect in preventing the progression of diabetic retinopathy (DR). Of the 8,218 residents, 7,271 were eligible for inclusion, and 5,840 (80.32%) subjects were enrolled in the BCES. Most of the participants were female (64.38%) with a median age of 63 years, and 98.23% representing Han Chinese descent. Conclusions: This study provides insights into the epidemiological characteristics of major ocular diseases and their moderators in a suburbanized region of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land Value Capture (LVC) in the Global South has long been a subject of long-standing debate, primarily driven by the need to address uneven urbanization and finance public investments. Despite its significance, current literature focuses on case analyses limited to local implementation contingencies. This paper aims to critically examine LVC as an epistemic object and question its approach within urban studies. Our hypothesis posits that LVC has remained confined to the empirical dimension of case studies, replicated for years, demanding a higher level of theorization that could reveal the colonizing intentions encrusted in the policy learning flows from the Global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a periodized overview of informal urbanization in Vienna in the twentieth century. It offers a new perspective on the evolution of planning discourse and the phenomenon's handling by planning authorities. The variegated manifestations of 'Informal Vienna' triggered an ongoing dispute on how orderly city development could be re-established after 1945. Our approach combines quantitative and qualitative aspects and illuminates not only the shifting significance of informal urbanization over several decades – especially in their lengthy formalization process – but also highlights the co-evolution of formal planning and the Viennese informal 'grand project'. In a comparative historical analysis based on the evaluation of the balances of formal and informal production of space, previous narratives of Red Vienna's dominant role in answering the 'housing question' in the interwar period (and beyond) are challenged. The frictions it created with the instruments and categories of formal planning, we argue, are crucial to understanding the consequences of informal development in Vienna. Furthermore, we present a typological approach on the grades of informality which allows for a reconstruction of the formalization processes in time. This 'graduation of informality' contributes to the ongoing attempts to classify various manifestations of informal urban development in the global South and North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the changes in Dodoma between 2014 and 2021 using Landsat and night-time light (NTL) data. The results indicate that the built-up areas have grown by 47.1 km² between 2014 and 2021. The change point detection results of NTL time series data show that at one period (location 43) of the time series, the probability of a change is very high (> 0.70). This location corresponds to the year 2017. The Bayesian structural time series model results show that the relocation to Dodoma increased NTL by a statistically significant 81% (p < 0.001) from 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limiting CO2 emissions is crucial for sustainable development, environmental protection, and climate change mitigation, ensuring a more resilient and cleaner future. Prioritizing sustainable urbanization renewable energy, and energy efficiency is vital for achieving this prosperous and sustainable future. As a result, we adopt the Fourier testing approach for stationary, cointegration, estimator, and causality, to scrutinize the role of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and urbanization on CO2 emissions in Finland over the period between 1990 and 2020, controlling economic growth and trade openness. The empirical analysis of the Fourier ARDL estimator establishes that energy efficiency measures such as gas and oil efficiency exhibit an adverse effect on CO2 emissions, so energy efficiency mitigates CO2 emissions. Similarly, the study also found that urbanization and renewable energy reduce CO2 emissions. Conversely, economic growth and trade openness induce CO2 emissions. Additionally, the Fourier-Toda-Yamamoto method provides robust evidence regarding the long-term implications of the examined factors. Based on this result, the study emphasizes that implementing a regulatory framework to enhance energy efficiency, promote renewable energy adoption, and support sustainable urban development will be an essential strategy in the global effort to attain the net-zero emissions target, which offers valuable insights to other countries seeking to transition towards cleaner and more sustainable energy sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effect of economic integration on the environment in a sample of 36 African countries from 1990 to 2018. We employ the fixed-effect D&K estimator and the mediation analysis to examine direct and indirect effects, respectively. The findings reveal that economic integration improves the environment only when its negative indirect effects are neutralized. Precisely, economic integration has a direct negative effect on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and an indirect positive effect through urbanization, renewable energy consumption, financial development, and industrialization. The net effect is positive, and therefore, economic integration undermines the environmental quality in Africa. This result is robust when economic integration is split into trade and financial integration. The main implication of this study is that integration policies in Africa should also target greening the financial sector, sustainable urban planning, energy efficiency in the industrial sector, and renewable energy use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modification of ecosystems as a consequence of urbanisation alters natural habitat structures and soundscapes, creating constraints for vocal communication in animals. Birds are able to adjust their vocalisation to the prevailing acoustic features of their habitat. As such, their sounds have been shown to reflect the level of anthropogenic disturbances across landscapes. While the effect of a single anthropogenic disturbance like ambient noise on birds' vocal communication is widely investigated, the combined effects of various disturbances remain less explored. We tested single and combined effects of anthropogenic noise and urban physical structures on the vocalisations of two African passerines, the Common Bulbul Pycnonotus barbatus and Northern Grey-headed Sparrow Passer griseus. We predicted that (i) both species would increase the minimum frequency of their vocalisation to avoid masking by ambient noise, (ii) both species would decrease their maximum frequency to evade distortion by physical structures, (iii) the two urban components would have a significant combined effect on the vocalisations, and (iv) the change in minimum or maximum frequency will lead to a corresponding change in the vocalisation bandwidth. For the Common Bulbul, the minimum frequency increased significantly as the ambient noise level increased, but the maximum frequency did not change in response to urban physical structures. For the Northern Grey-headed Sparrow, the minimum frequency did not show a response to ambient noise, but the maximum frequency decreased significantly as physical structures and ambient noise increased. We did not find any evidence for a combined effect of urban physical structures and ambient noise on the vocal adjustment of either species. A change in either the minimum or maximum frequency resulted in a corresponding change in the vocalisation bandwidth of each species. Our findings highlight how the same vocalisation traits of different songbird species can be affected differently by novel selective pressures in acoustic communication that arise in urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a holistic approach to address the challenges associated with deploying laboratory-derived hydraulic models in real operational conditions within Urban Water Systems (UWS). The underlying methods and tools are tested and validated using real-world data from the conveyance system serving the city of Athens, Greece. Initially, a novel data repair mechanism is developed, to rectify inconsistencies in time series. Subsequently, algorithmic techniques are applied to identify the most suitable datasets for calibration purposes. Furthermore, a grey-box procedure is developed to adjust key hydraulic modelling parameters, following a modular calibration procedure and aligning them with the specific characteristics of the UWS under study. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for effectively adapting and implementing laboratory-derived hydraulic models in real-world UWS scenarios, enabling better decision-making and management strategies for complex hydro-systems under challenging operational conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian graphic narratives of the post-millennial era have increasingly addressed pressing social issues such as casteism, environmental degradation, and urbanisation among others. Comics about caste typically showcase the remarkable lives of anti-caste icons in the form of graphic biographies, such as Bhimayana: Incidents in the Life of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Vyam et al. 2011) and A Gardener in the Wasteland: Jotiba Phule's Fight for Liberty (Natarajan 2011). Published in 2022, Samarth's Suit continues a post-millennial trend by depicting safai karamcharis (transl. sanitation workers in India), who have been historically forced to engage in manual scavenging, as salaried employees in a futuristic setting with protective suits while also confronting the persisting social issue of casteism. In particular, Suit expands the conversation about caste and comics by boldly depicting the inhumane treatment and illegal practice of manual scavenging (which is rampant in Mumbai) and its entanglements with casteism. In this context, Samarth in an email interview shares his views on caste and comics in India, emphasising the need for greater representation and discussion of marginalised communities, and highlighting the importance of shedding light on issues like manual scavenging, which continue to affect Dalits and other oppressed groups in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa's urbanization rate has quadrupled from 14% in 1950 to about 44% in 2022. A variety of urban growth models have been used to measure and monitor urbanization, its drivers and implications for urban planning and sustainability. This paper reviews the performance of various Cellular Automata (CA)-based urban growth models and their implications for the urbanization processes in Africa. To this end, we employ a systematic review approach to identify the final 18 articles published in Web of Science-indexed journals until 2022. Our review found that the CA-based urban growth model has been successfully used in Africa to track the impacts of urban growth, assess different city growth scenarios and compare the performance of various CA-integrated models. Yet, most of the reviewed CA-based studies have focused on more urbanized regions of the continent. The result also reveals that integrating the CA model with other statistical methods improves its broader application and practicality than a conventional CA model. Our findings give planners, policymakers, and other urban stakeholders a more in-depth understanding of the challenges of unplanned urbanization and the need for meaningful participation from urban stakeholders in city growth and sustainable land use management that balances urban growth and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban co-production, through which citizens contribute with the public institutions to the planning or governance of the city, is a growing practice throughout Europe. However, apart from the more widespread and spontaneous 'co-city' model, only a few countries have adopted state policies of urban co-production. A comparative inquiry of the European spatial governance and planning systems (SGPSs) highlights at least three possible types of correlation between systems and urban co-production. Urban co-production as a state policy appears to take shape only in countries with SGPSs characterized by a greater capacity for public control over spatial development. Moreover, only SGPSs that allocate land rights on a case-by-case basis seem able to ensure that co-production operates within (and not outside) the system itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic cooking is changing the world over. Kitchen technologies and the smartphone transform the way we cook and whom we cook with. Coupled with urbanisation and the shrinking of households, cooking seems to be an increasingly solitary practice. At the same time, these processes did not change who cooks; across the globe it is mostly women who prepare the daily meal for their families. Yet, rather than treating domestic cooking solely as a gender relations issue, this article presents ethnographic research with low-income domestic cooks in Marrakech, Morocco, to argue that unequal generational relations are also important drivers of change in family life. Paradoxically, rather than cook alone or simplify meals, kitchen appliances and social media were employed to continue preparing elaborate family meals. Through a thick description of the preparation of a spread called amlou and of pizza, this article explores why domestic cooking remains centralto idealised notions of womanhood and family life in Marrakech and beyond. It introduces the concept of culinary connectivity to understand how new technologies were employed ininter-generational negotiations of cooking knowledge and power. Moreover, while the crafting of culinary connectivity enables young generations of low-income womento emancipate themselves from age-based power in the home, these practices also enmesh them in new relations of dependence on money and the market. By making cooking central to understanding the (re)production of everyday family life in the context of poverty, this article contributes to cross-cultural studies of food and to regional debates about the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various types of protected areas (PAs) are important for biodiversity conservation and essential for the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. Rapid urban expansion affects the effectiveness of PAs in many ways. However, we still lack a clear understanding of the spatial relationship between urban expansion and different types of PAs in China during the last 30 years. Here, we analyzed the spatiotemporal changes in such relationship based on the boundaries of 2622 terrestrial PAs, as well as local Moran's and the Kruskal-Wallis H test during the period of 1992–2020 at the national, regional and provincial scales. The results showed that the number of PA threaten by urban expansion at the national scale fluctuated over time (10 to 80), while the median of the nearest distances between PAs and urban built-up areas decreased from 80.4 km to 2.6 km. At the regional scale, the PAs in east China were more affected by urban expansion than the ones in west China, with higher number of threatened PAs and closer distance between PAs and urban built-up areas. More importantly, non-national PAs were more severely affected by urban expansion than national PAs, and the proportion of threatened non-national PAs is 92.5% in 2020. Thus, future planning and management should place more attention to the non-national PAs that are severely affected by urban expansion. We investigate spatial relation between urban expansion and 2622 protected areas in China. Rapid urban expansion in recent years has posed a serious threat to PAs. Non-national PAs are more severely threatened than the national PAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractPrior scholarship has documented and tried to explain growing inequalities in individual wealth holdings—especially between homeowners and renters—but has not considered the role of residential position in the rural-urban hierarchy. We estimate fixed-effect models of one’s rank in national net, housing and financial wealth distributions during the 2010–2018 period, based on Norwegian register data on prime-age individuals. We find dramatic geographic differences in trajectories of wealth accumulation that are strongly conditioned by tenure. Residing longer in a more urbanized area—especially in the central Oslo region—results in a substantially higher net wealth position only for homeowners. This result is driven overwhelmingly by their greatly superior gains in housing wealth over the period. By contrast, the net wealth and financial wealth positions for those who always rent are virtually indistinguishable across the hierarchy, regardless of duration of residence. Our evidence suggests that the positive correlation between earnings and rent levels across the rural-urban hierarchy yields this result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the interplay of race, gender, and class in early twentieth-century Argentina when major forces such as immigration, urbanisation, and modernisation reshaped women's work both in the factory and the home. My analysis focuses on Mil fórmulas de cocina "La Negra", a cookbook published between 1917 and 1940 by the meatpacking plant Compañía Sansinena de Carnes Congeladas, which features photographs from the factory and its workers in between the recipes. First, I refer to the history of the meatpacking plant and its modernisation campaign. I compare the case of "La Negra" to other stereotypes of Blackness in branding in order to explore the relationship between the company's industrial project and the figure of the Afro-Argentine woman. Second, I examine the cookbook's texts and images by tracing a parallel between the meatpacking plant's female workers and the middle-class homemakers who buy and read these cookbooks. In so doing, I argue that La Negra's cookbooks were a crucial instrument in reinforcing an ideology of domesticity that linked national progress to whiteness and middle-class identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The region of Southeast Asia is home to some of the most congested cities. In Malaysia the densely populated area of Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding Klang Valley face the congestion and pollution problems common to cities across Southeast Asia. This study uses the bottom-up approach of concept mapping to explore potential solutions to the transportation problems associated with rapid urbanisation. A sample of young adult Malaysian participants brainstormed ideas and generated 91 proposals for action, which they grouped into the six clusters of Legislation, Infrastructure, Public Transport, Culture & Practices, Education, and Policies. Each proposal was rated for Importance, Feasibility, and Improvement to Traffic Congestion. The study yielded a series of priorities for action by policy-makers including extending existing transport routes to close the 'last mile gap', providing safe facilities for non-motorised forms of transport, fair enforcement of existing regulations, and appointing properly qualified professionals to improve infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernization is the process of transformation and development from traditional agricultural society to modern industrial society and information society. A necessary path and inevitable choice for human society in its development to an advanced stage, modernization represents the direction of progress and driving force of development for human civilization. At once a reflection and critique, a dialectical sublation, and an overall transcendence of traditional society, modernization is led by an advanced class that embodies the contemporary spirit. For its promotion, modernization relies principally on the three levers of science and technology, capital, and the market, and as its goal, it posits the realization of industrialization, urbanization, and informatization. Led by the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese path to modernization is socialist in its essence, and possesses not only the common properties of modernization, but also Chinese characteristics based on China's particular national conditions. Specifically, this path embodies the people-centered concept of modernization, is committed to achieving all-round human development and social progress, surpasses the object-centered model of Western modernization guided by the logic of capital, and provides a new choice and development direction for humanity in achieving modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the system of dependencies and contradictions between the Forbidden City as an object of cultural heritage and the transformation of the historic environment. The research methodology is based on a comparative study of literary sources and quantitative and qualitative data analysis using the example of the study of the Forbidden City. Based on the analysis of existing concepts, a model for managing the changing historical environment within the framework of the sustainable development of the Forbidden City has been developed. According to the study, the Forbidden City today is between two complex processes related to preserving and transforming the historic environment. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of museums and collections of cultural relics in the urban historical environment of Beijing, which directly contributes to the growth of tourist activity. This model should be based on the interaction of innovative digitalisation tools, intelligent solutions in urban planning, a rational approach and cultural tourism. In practice, this will allow for the maintenance of a more reasonable population density and the rational location of industrial and economic facilities and preserve the traditional aesthetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past half-century, a series of reforms in China have brought about economic prosperity and rapid urban development. Urban legends in contemporary China constitute an essential part of folk culture, reflecting the distinctive features of Chinese urbanization and its subsequent problems. This article aims to explore some of the most representative popular urban legends, including the 'Legends of the Campus and Shopping Mall', 'The Vanishing Hitchhiker', and the 'Legends of Phoenix Men', in relation to social development in the period of rural–urban transformation. The article argues that Chinese contemporary urban legends provide an alternative narrative of cultural transition and fragmentation, stretching from the rural traditions to modern urbanization. They express Chinese people's wishes, hopes, and desires for a better world, yet at the same time they also reveal their fears, anxieties, and concerns about the rapid pace of social change and the subsequent problems it brings, such as higher crime rates, political corruption, a deeper class divide, and a shaken cultural foundation. It is hoped that this article will provide a fresh insight into studies of folk culture and urban legends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization, and the accompanying artificial light at night (ALAN), can disrupt the activity of animals. Such disruptions at the base of a food web can ripple through the ecosystem. Most studies of ALAN are performed in the laboratory. Thus, we lack basic information about the circadian responses of animals under natural environmental conditions to fully evaluate the impact of ALAN. We studied the behaviour and activity of wild-caught, peri-urban single-striped grass mice (Lemniscomys rosalia) under a natural treatment and in a standard laboratory treatment, including dim light at night to mimic conditions that they could experience. The species exhibited predominantly crepuscular activity under all experimental treatments. It showed the highest level of activity under the natural treatment, whereas ALAN significantly suppressed its activity. Males were more active than females under all experimental treatments. The marked changes in activity under ALAN is of particular concern since global change in combination with urbanization can lead to a change in vegetation density and composition that will decrease the number of suitable microhabitats and expose small mammals to novel habitat changes. We suggest that the single-striped mice could become vulnerable because of urbanization, leading to impacts on its ecosystem broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsidy rolls of the 1540s and 1560s from the collection of Thomas Gregory, Coventry city clerk from 1528 to 1570, provide relative comparisons among Coventry's wards over time. The various wards remained fairly consistent in relative wealth during the sixteenth century, and despite more diverse markets in the latter part of the century textiles still remained important. The central wards were the wealthiest, and wealth decreased moving towards the suburbs. The outer wards and suburbs were not necessarily poor, they just held few of the wealthiest merchants. The suburban wards of Spon and Gosford benefited from the growth of cap making. The incredibly wealthy wool and cloth merchants disappear by the mid-sixteenth century, but there is clear retention of the class of moderately wealthy gentry and merchants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Survey of London offers readers past and present an unrivalled insight into the history of early modern London. However, it is of hitherto unrecognised significance that the Survey draws on a pronounced horse culture and participates in the seventeenth-century revival of chivalric literature as a way of engaging with topographical change in the City. Drawing on early modern nostalgia studies, this article is the first to explore how the depiction of Smithfield's horsemen evokes chivalric nostalgia. With the help of the memory studies concepts of synchronic and diachronic historical consciousness, I show how this chivalric nostalgia functions as a literary device that by harnessing the traditions of chivalric romance offers a way of challenging the impact of urbanisation on readerly memory. This approach reveals the importance of Smithfield's horsemen in London's rich civic history and that nostalgia is a strategy rather than a limiting force in the Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban regeneration has emerged as a policy response to disadvantage which characterises social housing estates across Australian cities. This paper explores the regeneration of the Ivanhoe social housing estate, focusing on forced tenant relocations. We argue that the State Housing Authority (SHA) utilised existing care networks to facilitate relocation. We investigate how The Salvation Army (TSA), a local service provider on the estate since 2001, were used to enable relocation. Adopting a conceptual framework centred on the idea of 'care', we reveal three interconnected themes. First, we argue that presence of TSA on the estate is a form of local service provision based on a foundation of long-term 'caring with' tenants to build community and address disadvantage. Second, these long-term 'caring with' relationships transitioned into a form of 'caring for' within the context estate regeneration and forced tenant relocation. Third, the efforts by TSA to care for tenants were mobilised by the SHA to expediate relocation, enabling regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban non-core region land exploitation and population immigration toward urban non-core areas, two fundamentals of urbanization in China, challenge the environment; however, the pollution effect remains unclear. Using prefecture-level data in China between 2003 and 2020, our study investigates the pollution effect of population-land spatial coupling in the urban non-core region. The empirical results demonstrate that excessive urban non-core region land expansion alone negatively impacts the environment. Meanwhile, outward spatial population distribution in a town, primarily measured by the relative proportion of the urban non-core region population size, directly aggravates environmental pollution on the one hand and indirectly improves the environment by alleviating the adverse effect of land-led urbanization. These findings remain robust under various regional heterogeneity analyses and still stand regardless of the investigated pollutants. The practical implications suggest that breaking through the population-land spatial coupling when the urban core region is small is advisable; meanwhile, efforts in maintaining the coupling, especially for areas with sizeable peripheral land exploitation, should be held. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]