Search

City marketing strives to promote a specific city and its parts and emphasises its different characteristics, attractiveness, and competitive advantages. This concept is based on the idea of a high quality of life for its residents and attractive conditions for external target groups. The paper deals with city marketing in Brno, the second-largest city in the Czech Republic. The aim of this paper is to analyse the marketing activities of the city of Brno and to evaluate what image the city has in the eyes of its residents. We conducted a questionnaire survey among 552 residents. In addition to this quantitative approach, we also used qualitative methods, which consisted of interviews with experts from practice. Research has proved that the city is aware of the importance of marketing, but marketing activities have not yet been sufficiently developed. Brno is a city that is considered a good place to live, and the majority of respondents are actively interested in what is happening there. On the other hand, the city's marketing efforts are not visible enough to residents. The research confirms that cities in Central Europe should pay more attention to their marketing. The paper provides policy implications for the implementation of city marketing oriented to residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The launch of the selection process for National Development Zones(NDZs) marked a fundamental change in the construction of development zones, making it an essential position for local authorities to implement high-quality development. Based on the data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2018, this paper examines the impact and mechanism of selecting NDZs on urban green innovation through a double-difference spatial durbin model using the selection of NDZs as a "quasi-natural experiment". The study finds that the selection of NDZs can promote green innovation in cities and has a significant window-radiating effect. The heterogeneity test results show that the implementation of the selection policy for development zones in non-old industrial cities, large and medium-sized cities, cities with easy access to transportation, and cities with high market orientation are more likely to promote urban green innovation. At the same time, the higher the level of government governance and the better the level of economic development of the development zones, the more it helps to realize the effects of the selection policy. The results of the mechanism test show that the selection of NDZs has a positive impact on urban green innovation through environmental regulation effects, resource allocation effects, and policy amplification effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Edinburgh is a beautiful and interesting city to visit per se, its literature is an added value which plays a crucial role in marketing the capital city. The importance of literature in generating tourism has been highlighted by a number of studies. The opposite is true as well: tourism can also lead to literature. Edinburgh is probably one of the best examples in this respect. Many people go there to just visit the city but encounter literature in unexpected places. This paper is an autoethnographic account of a literary tour in Edinburgh. It looks at how this city makes use of its literary heritage and why it is a great model to follow. The author contends that while literary tourism is open to any book lover, still, some strategies are needed to promote literature and bring it to the attention of people in new and interesting ways. The success of Edinburgh as a literary city owes a lot to the interactive ways used by its authorities to showcase literature and keep people interested through direct and active engagement. The paper has been structured as a combination of experiential and analytic writing, with the former reflected through an evocative autoethnography and the latter as an analysis of that experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we take a city's budget, which represents the resources that need to be allocated, and test how many blockchain users need to join a voting process of how the city's resources should be allocated in order to best represent their preferences. This voting process can be tracked very well through the utilization of IoT and smart technology in a smart city. Therefore, we showed that the budget resource allocation of a smart city can be significantly optimized through the utilization of blockchain technology. We found that just a tiny fraction of 0.12% of the population of blockchain participants is needed to significantly represent the spending behavior of the total population. This has significant implications as it shows the strength and importance of a required blockchain in a smart city and its minimal energy consumption requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Criterio Libre is the property of Revista Criterio Libre and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper proposes a new model of urban security for city branding in Indonesia, which aims to address the gap in city branding indices lacking safety and security factors. The proposed model, the Urban Defense Index (UDI), measures a region's ability to manage risks and handle security threats in urban areas. The UDI is calculated based on three sub-indices: Threats-Disruptions-Obstacles-Challenges (TDOC), Posture, and Stability, which use objective and subjective measurements. A case study uses the proposed model to measure five Kalimantan cities' urban defense readiness levels. The study found that Stability, Posture, and TDOC are essential factors in determining the level of urban defense readiness in the cities. Future research can address the limitations of the UDI model proposed in this study and expand the UDI model to include other factors that affect urban security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of experiential tourism is for the consumer or visitor to experience the tourist destination and to actively interact with local people, cultures, and the place itself. In fact, it can be seen as a form of tourism that builds upon place identities, both tangible and intangible, by energetically introducing the visitor to the culture, history, nature, traditions, cuisine, and social life of a place. In doing so, the emotional, physical, or spiritual experience of the consumer becomes a dynamic source of place branding. The paper investigates the main features of experiential tourism in the Greek regions of Central Macedonia, and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, and discusses their interactions with place identity. Our methodology consists of a qualitative survey based on semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and a thematic analysis to trace the main features of the experiential product and enterprises that develop such products. The paper concludes that experiential tourism in Greece bears many of the features highlighted in the literature. Furthermore, our findings underline some new aspects, especially the links between the experiential product, small and well-qualified enterprises, and a place's tangible and intangible identities, which make experiential tourism an opportunity for locales and their branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of the image of destinations on the wage income of resident households, and the corresponding income inequality, from a novel perspective. This work uses China's excellent tourism city image program, which is an urban planning policy implemented by the central government across cities to enhance the image of the city destination in the minds of tourists, and then promote tourist motivation and local tourism development to assess the effect on household wage income and its distribution. Results show that the program significantly increases household wage income by increasing employment opportunities, promoting business and population agglomeration, and improving urban infrastructure. Additionally, the image of the city destination promotion causes an increase in income inequality among households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 10 years, ride-hailing companies (such as Uber and Grab) have proliferated in cities around the world. While generally beneficial from an economic viewpoint, having a plurality of operators that serve a given demand for point-to-point trips might induce traffic inefficiencies due to the lack of coordination between operators when serving trips. In fact, the efficiency of vehicle fleet management depends, among other things, density of the demand in the city, and in this sense having multiple operators in the market can be seen as a disadvantage. There is thus a tension between having a plurality of operators in the market, and the overall traffic efficiency. To this date, there is no systematic analysis of this trade-off, which is fundamental to design the best future urban mobility landscape. In this paper, we present the first systematic, data-driven characterization of the cost of non-coordination in urban on-demand mobility markets by proposing a simple, yet realistic, model. This model uses trip density and average traffic speed in a city as its input, and provides an accurate estimate of the additional number of vehicles that should circulate due to the lack of coordination between operators—the cost of non-coordination. We plot such cost across different cities—Singapore, New York (limited to the borough of Manhattan in this work), San Francisco, Vienna and Curitiba—and show that due to non-coordination, each additional operator in the market can increase the total number of circulating vehicles by up to 67%. Our findings could support city policy makers to make data supported decisions when regulating urban on-demand mobility markets in their cities. At the same time, our results outline the need of a more proactive government participation and the need for new, innovative solutions that would enable a better coordination of on-demand mobility operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a case study of place-based sustainability education on the use of plastic bags in a wet market in Hong Kong. We organised two field trips and engaged 20 students in conducting both quantitative and qualitative research in the wet market to examine single-use plastic consumption. Our research has found that at least 1 million plastic bag is consumed on a daily basis in all the wet markets in the city of Hong Kong. Qualitatively, we found that some of the vendors may use plastic bags as a sale strategy and to engage with customers in conversations. In contrast to the conventional schooling that promote sustainability or plastic reduction in a very abstract sense, the place-based education we attempted aims to critically rethink the concept and knowledge of sustainability in ways that also empathize with the local tradition, and remain critical of modern corporate branding, and modernization discourse. The paper ends with a discussion on reflecting plastic use in traditional wet markets in contrast with chained supermarket shifting to more plastic pre-packages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of TEME: Casopis za Društvene Nauke is the property of TEME: Casopis za Drustvene Nauke and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In general accounts of black soap production, it is traced to West Africa. And prominent across, Ghana, Benin Republic, Cote de Ivoire and Nigeria. However, this paper examines the nature of entrepreneurship associated with black soap production and trade in Ibadan of the twentieth century. The work analyses how women dominated the industry and its interface between the village and Ibadan city markets. The work locates the characteristics of innovation and market development imaged by women to earn livelihoods in black soap trade in Ibadan city and village. The paper uses the Asuwada sociation theory to explain the entrepreneurial resilience of women in Olode village. The work uses the historical approach to examine the city-village interface. Oral interviews were conducted with women involved in production and trade since the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the result of a case study on the foreign students from Warsaw (winter semester 2015-2016), their view on the city and their behavior as tourists. In this case study we applied a questionnaire and analyzed the resulting data in SPSS in order to understand why the students chose Warsaw, if they were involved in tourist activities and if the tourist market from the city and beyond can satisfy their needs. This paper may be useful for policymakers in cities with large numbers of foreign students since it highlights the needs and relation of foreign students regarding tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: Brand alliance strategy is a popular strategy for multinational enterprises entering foreign markets, especially when domestic firms in the host market have a relatively weaker brand image. However, Volvo Construction Equipment's failure to acquire a domestic firm in China (Shandong Lingong Construction Machinery Company Limited [SDLG]) challenges existing management theory. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand the reasons behind the failure of a leading international brand's acquisition of a local brand in a fast-growing developing country. Design/methodology/approach: This paper conducted a case study to illustrate how Volvo failed to benefit from the dual-brand strategy by analyzing its brand architecture strategy, the industry specificity of its heavy equipment, issues around its complex dealership and the implementation of optimal distinctiveness for the Volvo brand after acquiring SDLG. Findings: Although Volvo's dual-brand strategy with SDLG was theoretically valid, in practice, the strategy made the two brands very distinct in their business-to-business (B2B) consumers' perception and dealers' operation. Given a wrong estimation of Chinese demand in its premium market, Volvo, which targeted only the Chinese premium market, failed to benefit from its brand alliance with SDLG in the Chinese market. Originality/value: The analysis of Volvo's acquisition of SDLG enriches the current theory of international business and brand management. In particular, the results provide new insights into how leading international brands can avoid potential failure in a fast-growing market. Moreover, this paper highlights the difference of branding strategy in the B2B and business-to-consumer markets, which carries value to business executives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, tourism activities depend not only on what is visible but on a synergistic effort to attract visitors. If they don't make repairs immediately, their interest will slowly dwindle. This situation has become a high enigma and attracted us to identify the relationship between visitors' bonding, city branding, technology adaptation, innovation and creativity, and market segmentation. It described the explanation with the support of 1,278 informants, where we interviewed them while visiting six popular destinations in Samarinda. Using a convenience sampling procedure, we processed the survey data through multiple regression and IBM-SPSS software, which analyzed two structures (direct path and mediation path). The terms that are significant or not significant are p <0.05 for direct effects, and special moderating effects are p <0.01. Exploration showed official outputs, including a positive-significant relationship from visitors bonding to technology adaptation, innovation and creativity to city branding and market segmentation, innovation and creativity to city branding through market segmentation. Unexpectedly, city branding has a positive but not significant effect on visitors' bonding, technology adaptation and innovation and creativity. The results are negative but significant, and technology adaptation has a negative-not significant effect on market segmentation. The novelty of this paper has implications for strength, opinion, and decomposition that need a discussion on the future agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principal scope of this paper is to construct the chain-of-marketing that regards the implementation of a place marketing strategy, in particular regional tourism and development policy. For a few decades place marketing has been mostly a marketing viewpoint for urban areas in the context of tourism in cities or metropols. Smaller rural areas and country-sides have not got so much attention and place marketing is not much used as a strategic tool to improve development in such areas. Place marketing is usually seen as a tourism improvement for tourists, but actually the target audience is much wider. The starting point of the paper was the assumption that the quality of place marketing in these rural areas is not good and strategically elaborated. By comparing three different case studies, Tartu Rural Development Association (Example 1), 4P area in Central-Estonia (Example 2) and Attractions in Municipality of Konguta (Example 3), worst and best practices have been identified, and an answer to the question whether there exists such a thing as ideally sized and structured geographical area that deals with place marketing on the regional level has been sought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper studies the impact of the implementation of smart city policy (SCP) on the development of low-carbon economy (LCE) in China. For this purpose, we developed a nonconvex meta-frontier data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to measure LCE and used the differences-in-difference (DID) analysis method in the econometric model to empirically analyze the impact of SCP on LCE, using the dataset of 230 cities from 2005 to 2018. The results show that the implementation of SCP can significantly improve the LCE of cities, and the dynamic effect test presents that the promotion of smart cities to low-carbon economy increases with time. In addition, SCP promotes the development of LCE by optimizing government functions and improving the efficiency of governance and the degree of implementation openness. But there is heterogeneity between different cities as follows: the implementation of SCP has a more significant effect on the promotion of LCE in central and western regions in China and large-scale cities and cities without strict environmental protection planning. Finally, the robustness test verifies the reliability of the experimental data again and puts forward conclusions and policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Croatian Journal of Ethnology & Folklore Research / Narodna Umjetnost is the property of Institute of Ethnology & Folklore Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As a subset of increasing EV growth and micro-mobility technology trends, micro-electric vehicles (micro-EVs) have the potential to address many transport system issues. Little research quantifies micro-EV potential, increasing investment risks. This paper builds an index to explore city propensity for micro-EV market success by incorporating differentiation, implementation, commercialisation, consumer and manufacturer requirements, and economic stability and viability aspects. The results highlight that micro-EV market success could most likely be influenced by the lock-in of the city's transport system. Despite inherent difficulties due to lock-in, our index suggests that there could be windows of opportunity for micro-EVs to be successful. Although both cities show a propensity for market success, Shanghai scores higher than London, highlighting that these opportunities may exist particularly in developing countries as they experience less lock-in and have more consumer incentives. Implementing micro-EVs in cities with higher propensity could have the domino effect of motivating change in other locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation system and its Urban Transportation Infrastructure (UTI) influence an area´s economic health and quality of life because they provide the background in order the people to perform their everyday activities. Nevertheless, transportation activity generates certain negative externalities like congestion, road accidents, poor air quality that affect the people physically, emotionally and socially. These externalities become severe via the urbanization-metropolisation phenomenon that increase the distances for territorial displacement, generating major mobility demand and car usage. Consequently, an approach to urban planning is required, which would prioritize sustainable mobility. This paper's objective is to help the implementation of Integral Mobility Plans by focusing on the case of Mexico City. This can be achieved through the application of structural analysis method in two steps: first, we facilitate the identification of the interlinks among the essential urban structure's components for sustainable mobility. Second, we evaluate the effectiveness of the public policies-strategies that form part of Mexico City's Integral Mobility Plan and organize them in order of importance. The results show which UTI elements should be considered primarily for sustainable mobility and which public policies-strategies should be prioritized in order to implement the aforementioned plan effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian Studies is the property of Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Colombia is now projecting a new, positive image to the world after overcoming a past characterised by politically inspired guerrilla warfare and violent conflict with narco-trafficking cartels which had ravaged the country for decades. Even before the country's transformation, other intermediate place institutions - cities and regions - had already taken significant steps towards territorial change and marketing. This paper outlines the processes involved in urban and social transformation in the city of Medellín and in the marketing of the coffee region, as illustrative cases of city re-branding and regional branding, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Municipal markets emerged with the purpose of reorganizing the commerce of food products, significantly marking important changes in the space of the city and in the life of the population. In this sense, this paper aimed to discuss the changes that have taken place in the city of Taubaté, located in the Metropolitan Region of Vale do Paraíba and Litoral Norte (RMVPL), SP, and its relationship with the local municipal market, as well as to reflect on the importance of this place in the process of construction of the city, through the analysis of the historical context of the growth of the city. For the development of this research, a time frame was adopted, between the years 1800 to 1950, in a geohistorical perspective. in order to reflect on the relationship of this place with this growth. Therefore, a qualitative approach and exploratory research was carried out, analyzing the implantation, permanence, and architectural transformations, as well as the spatial organization that permeate the market in the different phases of the development of the municipality. Municipal Markets have always presented themselves as a connection between the countryside and the city, and between cities, as they are characterized as trade centers resulting from the intersection of trade routes and helped in the cohesive construction of the cities' cultural identity. The Taubaté market followed the city's growth process, at times connected to the process, at others, distancing itself from the dynamics of the city. However, it was a regional reference, which contributed to the growth of the city, not only because the commerce that took place there, boosted its expansion, but also because it was an access route to the Vale do Paraíba region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Explanation of the essence and features of the "city placement" strategy, while observing the changes in "classic" forms of marketing communications used by cities and regions, including main pros and implementation procedures. Methodology: This paper is conceptual and relies on diagnosis and analysis of "city placement" strategy implementation in a chosen Polish city as well as on the author's professional experiences. Analysis of scarce existing marketing literature, including the notion of "product placement," allowed us to present model structures, variations, and rules that explain the role and pros of the "city placement" strategy in the promotion mix of places. Conclusions: This paper comprises not only a set of notions and models structuring the "city placement" phenomenon but also many operational concepts related to the implementation of this strategy, which makes this paper a valuable point in the discussion on innovative changes in the "promotion mix" of cities and regions. Originality: "city placement" is a novelty in promotion strategies of cities and regions. In the existing literature on place marketing, there are no in-depth conceptual works explaining the role, features, and forms of "city placement." This paper is a new approach suggested by the author and is an attempt to explain the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Resource-Exhausted City Promotion (RECP) program is a significant initiative by the Chinese government aimed at fostering transformation. The RECP program constitutes a vital avenue for advancing low-carbon transformation, though its influence on microenterprises' carbon emissions and underlying mechanisms remains unexplored. We use China's industrial enterprise database from 2003 to 2014 and organize data concerning resourceexhausted cities in China. Employing the staggered Difference-in-Differences (staggered DID) method, the research investigates the impact of the RECP program on enterprise carbon emission intensity. Results show that the impact of the RECP program on enterprise carbon emission intensity is significantly negative. This effect is more significant for enterprises in areas with lower environmental protection pressure, those situated in mining cities, larger enterprises, and those exhibiting higher carbon emission intensity. Furthermore, we identify the influencing channels from the above effect as the screening effect and the tourism development level. The screening effect resulting from the exit of enterprises in highly polluting industries can exacerbate the negative impact of the RECP program on the enterprise carbon emission intensity. Meanwhile, enhancing the level of tourism in the region is a key strategy for the RECP program to further reduce the enterprise carbon emission intensity. This effect emerges as a crucial approach for reducing enterprise carbon emission intensity within the RECP program framework. The results of this study contribute to driving the implementation of such program for government and enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have emerged from initiatives introduced by farmers and civil society to ensure the organic quality of products by directly involving producers, consumers, and other stakeholders in the guarantee process. While actor participation in PGS provides the foundation for these systems, it also presents challenges, yet little empirical research on this has been undertaken. This study used a framework to analyze four dimensions of participation in PGS: who, how, what kind, and why? The Italian case study of Campi Aperti was qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed by means of: (1) research of internet documents, (2) semi-structured interviews with seven key members and one expert, and (3) an online survey of PGS members (N = 614 members, survey respondents: n = 16 producers and 45 co-producers). Participation took the form of two main activities: management of the guarantee process and organization of farmers’ markets. Discussions are held and decisions made at assemblies and market meetings. The growing number of producers joining the PGS has added to organizational tasks, and hence increased costs. Participants stated that the reasons for joining the Campi Aperti PGS and the benefits of being a member were to gain access to city markets and to send a political message. Building trust between members was an additional benefit cited. Time constraints emerged as the main drawback preventing participation by members, with producers taking on more roles and investing more time in the PGS than co-producers. However, co-producers provided evidence of other ways in which they participated in the PGS, in particular by making purchases and socializing at the markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The co-agglomeration of the digital economy industry and manufacturing is significant for addressing issues such as being "large but not strong" and "comprehensive but not refined" in China's manufacturing sector. This study uses 269 cities in China from 2006 to 2022 as the research sample, innovatively employing data from digital economy enterprises and manufacturing enterprises to measure industrial co-agglomeration, and comprehensively analyzes the mechanism of how the inflow of digital talents influences the co-agglomeration of the digital economy industry and manufacturing. The findings are as follows: (1) From 2006 to 2022, the inflow of digital talents and the level of co-agglomeration between the digital economy industry and manufacturing in Chinese cities have consistently risen, generally moving towards higher inflow and higher levels of co-agglomeration. However, the inflow of digital talent in the central and western regions is relatively low, with most cities still facing difficulties due to inadequate policy support and resource investment. Industrial co-agglomeration exhibits characteristics of "core–periphery", "multi-core agglomeration", and "gradient diffusion" coexisting. (2) The flow of digital talents can significantly promote the co-agglomeration of the digital economy industry and manufacturing, and this conclusion remains valid after robustness testing. The flow of digital talents drives the co-agglomeration of the digital economy industry and manufacturing by enhancing the level of digital technology innovation, promoting the spillover and flow of digital knowledge, increasing the entrepreneurial activity of urban digital economy enterprises, and upgrading industrial structures. Furthermore, digital economy policies play a regulatory role in this process. (3) The promotion effect of digital talent inflow is more pronounced in low- and mid-end manufacturing, high-grade cities, well-developed digital infrastructure, and non-resource-based cities. By contrast, this effect is relatively weaker in high-end manufacturing and low-grade cities. In cities with weak digital infrastructure and resource-based cities, this effect is not significant. (4) The inflow of digital talents and the co-agglomeration of digital economy industry and manufacturing have a significant promotion effect on cities with similar economic development levels and adjacent geographical locations, demonstrating a positive diffusion effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detailed demographics play an important role in the development of smart cities. However, especially in developing countries, the maintenance and management of this data is incomplete, which hinders the promotion of smart cities. The objective of this study is to develop a method to create detailed building distribution maps from satellite images, which will serve as a basis for developing detailed demographic data to support the promotion of smart cities around the world. The target area is several areas of Tokyo where validation data is available. We first developed a method for extracting buildings from satellite images and then estimating the building use to determine the buildings where residents are distributed. Both methods use deep learning. As a result, it was possible to extract buildings with an extraction rate (the number of buildings in the automatically extracted building data divided by the number of buildings in the data for verification) of up to 60.3% for the entire target area. In addition, in the estimation of building use, our method was able to classify detached and non-detached buildings with an average accuracy of 78.7% for the entire target area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2019 marks the 350th anniversary of the death of the famous seventeenth-century painter Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt was born in 1606 in the city of Leiden, located in the Netherlands. Here he grew up, was educated and set up his early practice before moving to Amsterdam at age 31. He is the son of a miller's family, which lived and worked in the city at the dawn of the Dutch Golden Age – a period in which Leiden transformed from a medieval city to an early modern metropolis. Although the historical city fabric of Leiden is well preserved, the birthplace of the famous painter, unfortunately, has been demolished. Also, the surroundings are unrecognizable today. For this reason, the tourism and marketing department of the city asked Erfgoed Leiden, the regional heritage department, to make a 3D virtual reconstruction of Rembrandt's birthplace and its surrounding. It resulted in a multi-disciplinary collaboration between archivists, building archaeologist, and a 3D artist. This paper reflects this cooperation from historical research over aspects of the 3D modeling pipeline to the final products of the reconstruction. Following a reliability matrix, the data were categorized for their reliability after careful evaluation of their accuracy depending on the source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Direito da Cidade is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, bureaucratic and market-based tools such as certifications have become common tools for addressing complex, gendered and power-related issues such as discrimination, gender equality and, in this case, safety. Drawing on a discursive understanding of policy and politics, this paper examines how safety in public space is being addressed and given meaning in nine Swedish cities, working with a safety certification entitled 'the Purple Flag'. Our analysis shows that in the work with Purple Flag, safety is represented as a technical problem, requiring a standardised method, and as a tool for growth, focusing on the commercial potential of safety for the city. These representations position the safety worker as mainly administrative and competitive, while the recipients of safety become visitors and consumers. Purple Flag also gears local safety measures towards urban business areas, rather than towards places with high levels of crime or unsafety, and primarily target those disturbing the order of the market in the city centre as problematic. Our conclusion is that the method of certification creates major difficulties for politicising safety and instead enables an "economisation of the political", producing safety for the urban market rather than for urban citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to identify unique elements of the brands of Polish cities and to identify similarities and differences between them. The work attempts to answer the following research questions: Which elements significantly differentiate the brands of studied cities in online reviews? and Which of the studied cities are the most similar in terms of brand elements and which differ in this regard. The data for analysis was obtained from TripAdvisor. Reviews about areas of tourist concentration – old markets or old towns – from five Polish cities: Poznań, Wrocław, Kraków, Gdańsk and Warsaw were analysed (N = 5125). The research shows that Gdańsk and Warsaw as well as Poznań and Wrocław have the most similar brand elements. The Kraków brand is the more unique in relation to other cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how a Polish television drama series Father Matthew is used for promoting the town of Sandomierz and its vicinity. It aims to identify the tourism values presented in the film production and to describe promotional activities related to film tourism based on the results of surveys. The empirical part presents the results of surveys conducted in 2022 investigating the respondents' interest in film and its effect on travelling for tourism. It was established which cultural and natural values were used to promote the town by exhibiting them in the TV drama series. Reference was made to the quantity and nature of information directly regarding the plot of Father Matthew published by national and regional media in Poland. It was demonstrated that the indicated film production is the main form of the town's promotion -- used for building a complete tourism product. It enhances the town's attractiveness and recognisability and increases the use of its tourism facilities -- thus stimulating the development of film tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Białystok is the capital of a province in north-eastern Poland. In the past the city featured ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, and Jews coexisted here in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Jewish communities shaped the city's religious landscape and local identity significantly since the second half of the 19th century and until World War II when they constituted half of the city's population. This was the biggest minority group among Polish cities. The post-Jewish landscape became invisible and silent by now. It was the result of the Nazi policy of extermination, and the anti-Semitic policy of the communist Polish authorities, as well as the attitude of Polish society towards the Jewish minority until the late 1960s. From among almost 60 synagogues and prayer houses which operated before the war, only three have survived, but they have not been in use for religious service for a long time. Białystok has also been inhabited by the so-called Polish Tatars. The Muslim community, which for centuries consisted mainly of Polish Tatars, is increasingly visible in the city, which is also the seat of Muslim Religious Union, the largest Muslim union in Poland. There is also the Białystok Centre of Islam and a house of prayer. Today's religious landscape of the city is mostly formed by both Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. As a result of the city's demographic and spatial development, the number of churches has grown significantly as compared to the inter-war period. The strongest and the most visible qualitative changes were observed after World War II. Multiculturalism is still important asset of the city. This paper presents the transformation of the cultural and religious landscape of Bialystok in the context of the impact of the politics and ideology from the 19th century to the present. It also highlights the importance of multiculturalism in the city landscape for the promotion and development of tourism and city branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Constantly eaten foods (such as fruits, vegetables, cereal, etc.) that contain excessive concentrations of heavy metals pose a major risk to human health and deplete the food supply. The amounts of heavy metals in different date varietiies were measured after they were collected from three wholesale markets in the major cities of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Medina. In order to look at the health risks associated with heavy metal consumption after intake of dates, the Average Daily Intake (ADI), Hazard Quotient (HQ), and Hazard Index (HI) were also calculated. Results: Copper (Cu), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Iron (Fe), Lead (Pb), Manganese (Mn), Nickel (Ni), and Zinc (Zn) levels were evaluated. Several analyses of date fruit exhibited levels of Pb and Cd in different date varieties that beyond the Maximum Permissible Limit (MPL). In the majority of the samples, ADI was below the upper authorized tolerated daily consumption. The likelihood of a health risk from the regular eating of the investigated date fruits is revealed by the hazardous indexes of samples taken from New Market and Badamtali that surpassed unit value as a result of excessive air pollution brought on by greater industrial and vehicle traffic. According to the study, the majority of the analyzed heavy metals were identified in date samples and those from later samples at levels that were less harmful than the maximum acceptable threshold (MAL). Conclusions: Some samples included higher levels of Pb and Cd. As a result, eating dates that contain more metal has a higher chance of harming your health. Additionally, it has been recommended that regular testing for heavy metals in date fruits may be useful in preventing health risks associated with eating fruits that are contaminated with heavy metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities have been created to meet human needs, but creating sustainable societies has become a major challenge in light of the planners' broad interest in creating smart cities or giving exclusive priority to the environmental dimension of sustainability. This is one of the goals related to sustainable development (SDGs) and therefore, the human perspective of urbanism is considered a future challenge in achieving (SDGs). The research aims to bridge the gap in previous studies and highlight the integration of human needs in plans for urban human cities. It also aims to create a conceptual framework that leads to a new theory of urban needs by bridging the knowledge gap in previous studies by considering modern numerical analysis tools, Thus, a bibliometric analysis based on the Biblioshiny and VOSviewer tools within the scope of human needs and urban cities promotion was accomplished. Next selecting evaluation criteria for human needs through a comparative critique of the most important theories of human needs. Then deducting the new theory of urban needs and linking it to the elements of urban composition. Results have reached a new framework that clarifies the human needs that need to be achieved and links them to the urban components to create an integrated urbanization that fulfills the desires of the population. This research serves as a reference for reevaluating urban directions and modern theories that aim to develop future cities. It also helps evaluate cities, envision future human needs, and achieve future prosperity for cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the rapid growth throughout the UK in adopting the concept of town centre management (TCM) over the last few decades, TCM has made a dramatic shift from its original ‘janitorial’ (managerial) function to a more strategic role in the regeneration of public space as well as the rebranding of town centres. Much of the recent research literature has highlighted TCM's effectiveness when judged against the intentions as those of recent regeneration programmes. Place marketing, retail and leisure development, surveillance measures and evening and night-time economies are all activities that involve TCM partnerships and initiatives. Consumption-based economic revitalisation and physical upgrading alone, however, are not sufficient for identifying the potential contribution of TCM within broader urban regeneration agendas. This paper examines the capacity of TCM to contribute towards the social as well as the economic and physical enhancement of local places and communities - that is, beyond its generally acknowledged commercial and business objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city of Beijing has increasingly been re-integrated with the world since the 1980s, thereby entering into closer, but more complex relationships with the global system. To understand the implications for urban planning, it is important to appreciate that Beijing is handling these global-local relationships amid delicate 'local' relationships with the Chinese state, in ways that are obviously different from those of the West. The objective of this paper is to throw light on how new global and local forces have infl uenced planning in Beijing, fi rst by understanding the nature of urban government in Beijing and then by examining master plans for the city. From a Foucauldian perspective, it tries to describe state practices, including urban planning, of the Chinese governmentality. It focuses on the effectiveness of government during this new era, taking into account non-state practices, including those adopted from the outside world. It argues that the state needs to invent new toolkits and conceive urban problems differently to cope with these new forces. The paper illustrates this argument by investigating the formulation of the two master plans for Beijing, the 1954 and 2005 Plans, and documents how the latter has been updated to incorporate these new global and local forces. It concludes that there is no uni-directional interaction between global and local. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper represents an insight of the public administration process to adapt to innovation. The particularities consist in the fact that, at least in Romania and other CEE countries, this process is rooted not only in the objective reality, but also this process has to include the adaptation of the (centralized) "state" to the market conditions. Somehow, it may be a contradiction between state/central/local administration and the market. Traditionally (or conservatively), the public administration is known as an exponent of the state, a state that must address equally, equitably and objectively the whole community and to ensure the right conditions for its correct functioning. The latter concept -- market -- is the opposite of the state, it implies competition, preferences, some kind of democratic (as opposite to central) participation at the city life. The nowadays realities put public and private face to face, forcing them to find a way to co-exist and co-create for the benefit of the whole community. The two sectors have all the conditions to collaborate, considering the scale of the flows, including the flows of innovation and knowledge that characterize our society today. The research is focused on the "status" of innovation in Romania, in general, and in public administration, in particular. In spite of its evolution from the centralized state to the EU democratic state, the innovation in public administration is perceived more as a restructuration or reorganization process required by the European Union. The underestimate of the innovation in the public administration is explained by the generally reduced interest paid to innovation both in the private as well as public sector, as revealed by the secondary data analyze we conducted within the documentation for this paper. The in-depth interviews are trying to explain how the local administration practically works, considering the innovation process. The results should be understood and further discussed from the larger perspective of new development trends, models and performance of cities all worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of the article is to develop a methodology of city ranking based on the criterion of a city's brand image among its inhabitants. Research Design & Methods: The article discusses the utilization of the multi-criteria decision-making method (MCDM) to create a ranking of European capitals. It explores the significance of the decision-making approach in establishing a linear order among 28 capital cities within the European Union. The study employs the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) for evaluation purposes. By leveraging publicly accessible indicators that gauge the perception of various aspects of a city's brand by its residents, this method facilitates the generation of a comprehensive ranking. Findings: The top five positions in the ranking are occupied by the following cities: Brussels, Sofia, Berlin, London and Stockholm. Ljubljana, Prague and Helsinki were ranked lowest. Implications & Recommendations: The ranking built for the purpose of this article, has managerial implications. It can serve as a valuable re-source for territorial managers, communication experts, urban planners, and decision-makers involved in the cities' enhancement and promotion. By utilizing this ranking, they can gain insights into the level of attractive-ness and competitiveness of different cities. Furthermore, it enables them to establish measurable strategic objectives for the development of their respective cities. This information empowers these stakeholders to make informed decisions, implement improvements, and enhance the overall value of their cities. Contribution & Value Added: The article employed ideal solution-based multi-criteria decision-making techniques to evaluate the brand image of cities as perceived by their inhabitants. We selected seven criteria to build the ranking showing the diversity in terms of residents' satisfaction with living in the city in the following areas: environment and recreation, refinement and diversity, municipal facilities, public services, employment opportunities, cost-effectiveness, and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of land relocation, poverty alleviation resettlement (PAR) is considered an effective approach to improve the man–land relationship and development issues. However, current studies pay little attention to PAR and its spillover effects within developed regions. Furthermore, the complete mechanism chain has received little research concentration. Thus, employing a qualitative survey, this study aims to investigate the overall mechanisms of developed regions' PAR in the context of land relocation. The study will deal with the following questions: Why does PAR occur in developed regions? How does the resettlement approach to poverty alleviation (i.e., paths)? What are the effects of resettlement on poverty alleviation, including its own effects and spillover effects? Through answering these questions, this study will highlight PAR in developed regions and investigate the spillovers from social, economic and ecological perspectives. Particularly, a comprehensive mechanism analysis framework for PAR will be presented to motivate future studies. Results indicate that PAR is generally caused by ecological poverty alleviation, geological disaster prevention and county town urbanisation promotion and that emigration and resettlement are the paths to PAR. In addition, the direct outcome is the overall rise in the number of resettlers over time, and the spillovers show the sustainable collaboration of economic, social and ecological dimensions. These findings will influence future land reform and housing initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamification, storytelling and questing are the latest discoveries of marketing that are used for customers’ attraction. The implementation of new methods for promoting the city of Częstochowa is a vital aspect in tourism development. The objective of the paper is to present the assumptions underlying questing and to indicate the opportunities it provides in the case of city promotion. The paper is supplemented with the examples of using this form of promotion in Poland. In the study, the methods of observation and questioning are used. 108 respondents were interviewed. The results show that most people have not come across the concept of questing (68.2%) and only 17.9 % have ever taken part in quest. Despite that, the majority perceive the questing positively. It has been proved that, in the case of Częstochowa, the city dominated by the Monastery of Jasna Góra, questing can be the way to present many other interesting historic, cultural and natural sites. The results of the paper can be used in further research and analysis.

Background: Canned fish products are widely consumed in Egypt, particularly for protein-rich meals that are quick to prepare and low in calories. Canned fish products are contaminated with toxic metals from the fish itself or from canning materials during processing. Aim: To determine the residual levels of cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), aluminum (Al), and Tin (Sn) in some canned fish products obtained from retail shops in Mansoura, Egypt. Furthermore, noncarcinogenic health risks evaluation for the Egyptian population due to hazardous metal oral intake. Methods: One hundred canned fish products (20 each of herring, mackerel, salmon, sardine, and tuna) were collected from May to September 2023, and canned fish products were obtained from Mansoura city markets in Egypt. Samples were digested in a solution composed of 60% nitric acid and 40% perchloric acid, and then an atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used for the detection of selected toxic metals. Results: It was found that the residual level of hazardous metals exceeded the acceptability level established in the European Union for Pb, Cd, and Hg by 20%, 10%, and 10%, 15%, 5%, and 20%, 35%, 30%, and 45%, 25%, 25%, and 40%, in examined herring, mackerel, sardine, and tuna, respectively. In contrast, all salmon samples were accepted for Pb and Hg, and only 5% were not accepted due to a higher Cd level than the maximum permissible limit. The average estimated daily intake of (EDI) is below the tolerable daily intakes (TDIs) for all metals. Comparatively, the EDI of Hg was 0.265 μg/kg body weight (B.W) exceeded TDIs 0.228 μg/kg B.W. The hazard index for canned tuna and sardines is more than one. Conclusion: Canned fish products are contaminated with a variety of toxic metals, especially sardine and tuna. Therefore, it is advised to decrease the consumption rate of such fish products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place marketing concept is one of the most popular concepts used in the analysis and promotion of countries, regions, cities and towns. The intensification of competition for investment, tourism and human resources among European cities and towns has increased the importance of being unique. Most studies on place marketing focus on unique selling points and thus on brands of already extensively 'marketed' countries, national capitals and other large metropolitan areas, while the rural towns that need more marketing attention, given their need to overcome their lack of material and non-material resources, are often ignored. This is based on the idea of the promotion to target markets of the unique selling points of the town in question. This paper aims to discuss the extent to which the place marketing concept can be viewed as an essential tool in the effective promotion of 75 rural towns in the seven northernmost regions of Sweden. The paper outlines the reasons why rural towns in Northern Sweden should use place marketing. The article also highlights the basic features of the place marketing concept and its key elements for rural towns as well as describing the target audience for rural towns while identifying their specific needs and wants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Intersecoes: Revista de Estudios Interdisciplinares is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Through the study presented in this paper we wanted to point out some aspects that characterize the behavior of the administrators of tourist unities on the territory of Suceava County regarding the use of internet as an information and promotion instrument. The research objectives followed: the determination of the way in which the agents from the tourism sector regard the promotion activity; the determination of the way in which the companies from the tourism sector build their promotion strategy; the identification of the degree of the use of web environment within the promotion strategy; the determination of the degree in which the period of functionality and the setting category of the tourism structure influence the decision of using the web instruments in view of promotion; the identification of the degree in which the tourism agents are available to offer a technical support in order that an online application of tourism recommendation can be used from the inside of the tourism unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, tourism destinations are more and more determined to build a unique and competitive identity and image in consumers' minds. Even though the marketing of tourism destinations has been awarded an intended purpose, in practice there is a lack of steadiness, sometimes an unexplained deficiency of empirical academic research. In some countries, many without "a tradition in tourism", building a marketing strategy for travel destinations is based on artificial and without substance images/perceptions of real and potential tourists. The paper describes the role of marketing in the domain of tourism, emphasizing the importance of public relations in the promotion process of the region of Bucovina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]