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Building upon paradigms of language and languaging practices as "local" phenomena (Canagarajah, 2013; Pennycook, 2010, Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes, 2013), this paper narrates a teacher's experience in an undergraduate seminar in applied language studies as an exploration in transdisciplinarity-as-localization. Taught by the author in 2012-2013, the seminar was intended as an introduction to the politics of societal multilingualism as visible in the linguistic landscape of public texts. As such, it relied upon its own geographic and institutional locality, as well as the diverse conceptual moorings and methodologies of linguistic landscape research (e.g., Blommaert, 2013; Shohamy & Gorter, 2009; Trumper-Hecht, 2010) in order to lead students in interpreting the significance of East Asian languages in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, as the paper endeavors to show, the course's own curriculum--and with it, the locus of teacherly authority--was forced to de-localize as the implementation of curricular ideals in practice revealed heterogeneous and expansive orders of meaning.

BACKGROUND: National-scale linear regression-based modeling may mischaracterize localized patterns, including hyperlocal peaks and neighborhood- to regional-scale gradients. For studies focused on within-city differences, this mischaracterization poses a risk of exposure misclassification, affecting epidemiological and environmental justice conclusions. OBJECTIVE: Characterize the difference between intraurban pollution patterns predicted by national-scale land use regression modeling and observation-based estimates within a localized domain and examine the relationship between that difference and urban infrastructure and demographics. METHODS: We compare highly resolved (0.01 km2) observations of NO2 mixing ratio and ultrafine particle (UFP) count obtained via mobile monitoring with national model predictions in thirteen neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area. Grid cell-level divergence between modeled and observed concentrations is termed localized difference. We use a flexible machine learning modeling technique, Bayesian Additive Regression Trees, to investigate potentially nonlinear relationships between discrepancy between localized difference and known local emission sources as well as census block group racial/ethnic composition. RESULTS: We find that observed local pollution extremes are not represented by land use regression predictions and that observed UFP count significantly exceeds regression predictions. Machine learning models show significant nonlinear relationships among localized differences between predictions and observations and the density of several types of pollution-related infrastructure (roadways, commercial and industrial operations). In addition, localized difference was greater in areas with higher population density and a lower share of white non-Hispanic residents, indicating that exposure misclassification by national models differs among subpopulations. IMPACT: Comparing national-scale pollution predictions with hyperlocal observations in the San Francisco Bay Area, we find greater discrepancies near major roadways and food service locations and systematic underestimation of concentrations in neighborhoods with a lower share of non-Hispanic white residents. These findings carry implications for using national-scale models in intraurban epidemiological and environmental justice applications and establish the potential utility of supplementing large-scale estimates with publicly available urban infrastructure and pollution source information.

Political responses to the COVID-19 pandemic led to changes in city soundscapes around the globe. From March to October 2020, a consortium of 261 contributors from 35 countries brought together by the Silent Cities project built a unique soundscape recordings collection to report on local acoustic changes in urban areas. We present this collection here, along with metadata including observational descriptions of the local areas from the contributors, open-source environmental data, open-source confinement levels and calculation of acoustic descriptors. We performed a technical validation of the dataset using statistical models run on a subset of manually annotated soundscapes. Results confirmed the large-scale usability of ecoacoustic indices and automatic sound event recognition in the Silent Cities soundscape collection. We expect this dataset to be useful for research in the multidisciplinary field of environmental sciences.

One of Californias most pressing social and environmental challenges is the rapid expansion of the wildlands-urban interface (WUI). Multiple issues associated with WUI growth compared to more dense and compact urban form are of concern-including greatly increased fire risk, greenhouse gas emissions, and fragmentation of habitat. However, little is understood about the factors driving this growth in the first place and, specifically, its relationship to urban-regional housing dynamics. This paper connects work in urban social science, urban and regional planning, and natural sciences to highlight the potential role of housing crises in driving displacement from the urban core to relatively more affordable exurbs, and with this, WUI growth. We analyze this relationship in California, which leads the nation in lack of affordable housing, scale of WUI growth, and many associated WUI hazards, including wildfire. We offer three related arguments: first, that Californias affordable housing crisis, with its effect of driving migration to exurban areas, should be recognized as a significant urban form-related sustainability challenge; second, that to understand this challenge scholars must expand the spatial scale and analytic toolkit of both urban and WUI analysis through relational, mixed methods research; and third, that political and programmatic efforts to address Californias housing crisis should undergird efforts to address WUI growth and climate change. Ultimately, we argue that expanding access to affordable urban housing can produce a more sustainable and just urban form that mitigates WUI-related climate and environmental impacts and reduces the vulnerability of growing numbers of WUI residents living in harms way.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and respective shutdowns dramatically altered human activities, potentially changing human pressures on urban-dwelling animals. Here, we use such COVID-19-induced variation in human presence to evaluate, across multiple temporal scales, how urban birds from five countries changed their tolerance towards humans, measured as escape distance. We collected 6369 escape responses for 147 species and found that human numbers in parks at a given hour, day, week or year (before and during shutdowns) had a little effect on birds escape distances. All effects centered around zero, except for the actual human numbers during escape trial (hourly scale) that correlated negatively, albeit weakly, with escape distance. The results were similar across countries and most species. Our results highlight the resilience of birds to changes in human numbers on multiple temporal scales, the complexities of linking animal fear responses to human behavior, and the challenge of quantifying both simultaneously in situ.

First-ever measurements of particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10, and TSP) along with gaseous pollutants (CO, NO2, and SO2) were performed from June 2019 to April 2020 in Faisalabad, Metropolitan, Pakistan, to assess their seasonal variations; Summer 2019, Autumn 2019, Winter 2019-2020, and Spring 2020. Pollutant measurements were carried out at 30 locations with a 3-km grid distance from the Sitara Chemical Industry in District Faisalabad to Bhianwala, Sargodha Road, Tehsil Lalian, District Chiniot. ArcGIS 10.8 was used to interpolate pollutant concentrations using the inverse distance weightage method. PM2.5, PM10, and TSP concentrations were highest in summer, and lowest in autumn or winter. CO, NO2, and SO2 concentrations were highest in summer or spring and lowest in winter. Seasonal average NO2 and SO2 concentrations exceeded WHO annual air quality guide values. For all 4 seasons, some sites had better air quality than others. Even in these cleaner sites air quality index (AQI) was unhealthy for sensitive groups and the less good sites showed Very critical AQI (> 500). Dust-bound carbon and sulfur contents were higher in spring (64 mg g-1) and summer (1.17 mg g-1) and lower in autumn (55 mg g-1) and winter (1.08 mg g-1). Venous blood analysis of 20 individuals showed cadmium and lead concentrations higher than WHO permissible limits. Those individuals exposed to direct roadside pollution for longer periods because of their occupation tended to show higher Pb and Cd blood concentrations. It is concluded that air quality along the roadside is extremely poor and potentially damaging to the health of exposed workers.

Legacy effects describe the persistent, long-term impacts on an ecosystem following the removal of an abiotic or biotic feature. Redlining, a policy that codified racial segregation and disinvestment in minoritized neighborhoods, has produced legacy effects with profound impacts on urban ecosystem structure and health. These legacies have detrimentally impacted public health outcomes, socioeconomic stability, and environmental health. However, the collateral impacts of redlining on wildlife communities are uncertain. Here, we investigated whether faunal biodiversity was associated with redlining. We used home-owner loan corporation (HOLC) maps [grades A (i.e., "best" and "greenlined"), B, C, and D (i.e., "hazardous" and "redlined")] across four cities in California and contributory science data (iNaturalist) to estimate alpha and beta diversity across six clades (mammals, birds, insects, arachnids, reptiles, and amphibians) as a function of HOLC grade. We found that in greenlined neighborhoods, unique species were detected with less sampling effort, with redlined neighborhoods needing over 8,000 observations to detect the same number of unique species. Historically redlined neighborhoods had lower native and nonnative species richness compared to greenlined neighborhoods across each city, with disparities remaining at the clade level. Further, community composition (i.e., beta diversity) consistently differed among HOLC grades for all cities, including large differences in species assemblage observed between green and redlined neighborhoods. Our work spotlights the lasting effects of social injustices on the community ecology of cities, emphasizing that urban conservation and management efforts must incorporate an antiracist, justice-informed lens to improve biodiversity in urban environments.

Increasing evidence suggests that urbanization is associated with higher mutation rates, which can affect the health and evolution of organisms that inhabit cities. Elevated pollution levels in urban areas can induce DNA damage, leading to de novo mutations. Studies on mutations induced by urban pollution are most prevalent in humans and microorganisms, whereas studies of non-human eukaryotes are rare, even though increased mutation rates have the potential to affect organisms and their populations in contemporary time. Our Perspective explores how higher mutation rates in urban environments could impact the fitness, ecology and evolution of populations. Most mutations will be neutral or deleterious, and higher mutation rates associated with elevated pollution in urban populations can increase the risk of cancer in humans and potentially other species. We highlight the potential for urban-driven increased deleterious mutational loads in some organisms, which could lead to a decline in population growth of a wide diversity of organisms. Although beneficial mutations are expected to be rare, we argue that higher mutation rates in urban areas could influence adaptive evolution, especially in organisms with short generation times. Finally, we explore avenues for future research to better understand the effects of urban-induced mutations on the fitness, ecology and evolution of city-dwelling organisms.

While there is increasing recognition that social processes in cities like gentrification have ecological consequences, we lack nuanced understanding of the ways gentrification affects urban biodiversity. We analyzed a large camera trap dataset of mammals (>500 g) to evaluate how gentrification impacts species richness and community composition across 23 US cities. After controlling for the negative effect of impervious cover, gentrified parts of cities had the highest mammal species richness. Change in community composition was associated with gentrification in a few cities, which were mostly located along the West Coast. At the species level, roughly half (11 of 21 mammals) had higher occupancy in gentrified parts of a city, especially when impervious cover was low. Our results indicate that the impacts of gentrification extend to nonhuman animals, which provides further evidence that some aspects of nature in cities, such as wildlife, are chronically inaccessible to marginalized human populations.

Cities represent a significant and growing portion of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Quantifying urban emissions and trends over time is needed to evaluate the efficacy of policy targeting emission reductions as well as to understand more fundamental questions about the urban biosphere. A number of approaches have been proposed to measure, report, and verify (MRV) changes in urban CO2 emissions. Here we show that a modest capital cost, spatially dense network of sensors, the Berkeley Environmental Air Quality and CO2 Network (BEACO2N), in combination with Bayesian inversions, result in a synthesis of measured CO2 concentrations and meteorology to yield an improved estimate of CO2 emissions and provide a cost-effective and accurate assessment of CO2 emissions trends over time. We describe nearly 5 years of continuous CO2 observations (2018-2022) in a midsized urban region (the San Francisco Bay Area). These observed concentrations constrain a Bayesian inversion that indicates the interannual trend in urban CO2 emissions in the region has been a modest decrease at a rate of 1.8 ± 0.3%/year. We interpret this decrease as primarily due to passenger vehicle electrification, reducing on-road emissions at a rate of 2.6 ± 0.7%/year.

There are more incidents of violence in summer and on hot days, a trend likely to be exacerbated by climate change. Urban areas experience additional temperature modulation due to the urban form, however, to date, no studies have considered the effect of the urban heat island (UHI) or green space with respect to the temperature-violence relationship. This study modelled the relationship between the number of daily violent crime incidents that occurred inside or outside between July 2013 and June 2018, and the average surface UHI or percentage greencover (including grasses, shrubs and trees) within each local government area in Greater Sydney, Australia. Panelised negative binomial time series regression models indicated that the violent crime rate was associated with higher surface UHI for crimes committed outside (p = 0.006) but not inside (p = 0.072). Greater percentage of all vegetation was associated with significantly lower rates of violent crime committed outside (p = 0.011) but was not associated with violent crimes committed inside (p = 0.430). More socio-economic disadvantage was associated with higher rates of violent crime committed inside (p = 0.002) but not outside (p = 0.145). Greater temperature was non-linearly associated with higher rates of violent crime committed both inside and outside (p

Urbanization has altered land surface properties driving changes in micro-climates. Urban form influences peoples activities, environmental exposures, and health. Developing detailed and unified longitudinal measures of urban form is essential to quantify these relationships. Local Climate Zones [LCZ] are a culturally-neutral urban form classification scheme. To date, longitudinal LCZ maps at large scales (i.e., national, continental, or global) are not available. We developed an approach to map LCZs for the continental US from 1986 to 2020 at 100 m spatial resolution. We developed lightweight contextual random forest models using a hybrid model development pipeline that leveraged crowdsourced and expert labeling and cloud-enabled modeling - an approach that could be generalized to other countries and continents. Our model achieved good performance: 0.76 overall accuracy (0.55-0.96 class-wise F1 scores). To our knowledge, this is the first high-resolution, longitudinal LCZ map for the continental US. Our work may be useful for a variety of fields including earth system science, urban planning, and public health.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused over 68.7 million infections and 1.35 million deaths in South America. There are limited data on SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity and its determinants from Andean countries prior to mass vaccinations against COVID-19. OBJECTIVE: To estimate SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity and its determinants before vaccination in occupational groups of adults presumed to have different levels of exposure and associations with potential symptomatology. METHODS: We measured seropositivity of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies in a cross-sectional study of vaccine-naïve adults aged 18 years and older, recruited within three occupational risk groups (defined as low [LR], moderate [MR], and high [HR]) between January and September 2021 in two Andean cities in Ecuador. Associations with risk factors were estimated using logistic regression. RESULTS: In a sample of 882 adults, IgG seropositivity for the three different occupational risk groups was 39.9% (CI 95% 35.3-44.6), 74.6% (CI 95% 66.4-81.4), and 39.0% (CI 95% 34.0-44.4) for the HR, MR, and LR groups, respectively. History of an illness with loss of taste and/or smell was significantly associated with seropositivity in all occupational groups, with adjusted ORs of 14.31 (95%CI, 5.83-35.12; p

In response to biodiversity loss and biotic community homogenization in urbanized landscapes, there are increasing efforts to conserve and increase biodiversity within urban areas. Accordingly, around the world, previously extirpated species are (re)colonizing and otherwise infiltrating urban landscapes, while other species are disappearing from these landscapes. Tracking the occurrence of traditionally urban intolerant species and loss of traditionally urban tolerant species should be a management goal of urban areas, but we generally lack tools to study this phenomenon. To address this gap, we first used species occurrences from iNaturalist, a large collaborative dataset of species observations, to calculate an urban association index (UAI) for 967 native animal species that occur in the city of Los Angeles. On average, the occurrence of native species was negatively associated with our composite measure of urban intensity, with the exception of snails and slugs, which instead occur more frequently in areas of increased urban intensity. Next, we assessed 8,348 0.25 x 0.25 mile grids across the City of Los Angeles to determine the average grid-level UAI scores (i.e., a summary of the UAIs present in a grid cell, which we term Community Urban Tolerance Index or CUTI). We found that areas of higher urban intensity host more urban tolerant species, but also that taxonomic groups differ in their aggregate tolerance of urban areas, and that spatial patterns of tolerance vary between groups. The framework established here has been designed to be iteratively reevaluated by city managers of Los Angeles in order to track the progress of initiatives to preserve and encourage urban biodiversity, but can be rescaled to sample different regions within the city or different cities altogether to provide a valuable tool for city managers globally.

Street networks allow people and goods to move through cities, but they are vulnerable to disasters like floods, earthquakes, and terrorist attacks. Well-planned network design can make a city more resilient and robust to such disruptions, but we still know little about worldwide patterns of vulnerability, or worldwide empirical relationships between specific design characteristics and resilience. This study quantifies and measures the vulnerability of the street networks of every urban area in the world then models the relationships between vulnerability and street network design characteristics. To do so, we simulate over 2.4 billion trips across more than 8,000 urban areas in 178 countries, while also simulating network disruption events representing floods, earthquakes, and targeted attacks. We find that disrupting high-centrality nodes severely impacts network function. All else equal, networks with higher connectivity, fewer chokepoints, or less circuity are less vulnerable to disruption's impacts. This study thus contributes a new global understanding of network design and vulnerability to the literature. We argue that these design characteristics offer high leverage points for street network resilience and robustness that planners should emphasize when designing or retrofitting urban networks.

We investigate the dynamic characteristics of Covid-19 daily infection rates in Taiwan during its initial surge period, focusing on 79 districts within the seven largest cities. By employing computational techniques, we extract 18 features from each district-specific curve, transforming unstructured data into structured data. Our analysis reveals distinct patterns of asymmetric growth and decline among the curves. Utilizing theoretical information measurements such as conditional entropy and mutual information, we identify major factors of order-1 and order-2 that influence the peak value and curvature at the peak of the curves, crucial features characterizing the infection rates. Additionally, we examine the impact of geographic and socioeconomic factors on the curves by encoding each of the 79 districts with two binary characteristics: North-vs-South and Urban-vs-Suburban. Furthermore, leveraging this data-driven understanding at the district level, we explore the fine-scale behavioral effects on disease spread by examining the similarity among 96 age-group-specific curves within urban districts of Taipei and suburban districts of New Taipei City, which collectively represent a substantial portion of the nations population. Our findings highlight the implicit influence of human behaviors related to living, traveling, and working on the dynamics of Covid-19 transmission in Taiwan.

Although the climate has admittedly always been hot and humid in cities like Karachi, increasingly hotter temperatures are exacerbating the impact of heat on informal, precariously employed outdoor workers such as street vendors, guards and rickshaw drivers, who must negotiate their right and access to shade at the everyday scale. Recalling Mike Davis' radical, political claim that shade is an inalienable human right, this paper proposes that few people working in the outdoor spaces of the South Asian city today understand or experience shade in these terms. Rather shade is something that must be claimed, alongside other rights and entitlements. Moreover, shade alone is insufficient as it cannot reduce the exposure of bodies to harmful ambient radiations and overall thermal discomfort. This paper makes three broad propositions for outlining a theory for the social study of shade in the South Asian city. By paying closer attention to the ways that outdoor workers negotiate shade in Karachi, this paper opens up for analysis a wider spectrum of claims-making activity in changing South Asian urban climates. It places workers' search for shade in the broader context of shade policing and urban management aimed at creating spatial as well as social order. Finally, this article emphasises key directions and questions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, economic activity has become increasingly concentrated in major global metropolises. Yet, the rise of working from home threatens this dominance of cities. Using multiple high-frequency datasets on spending, commuting, migration, and housing, we provide global evidence that remote work has dispersed economic activity away from city centers. We label this the "Donut Effect," which is much larger and more persistent in cities with high levels of remote work. Using detailed household microdata from the United States, we show that three-fifths of households that left city centers in big cities moved to the suburbs of the same city. This is likely explained by the rise of hybrid work, in which employees still commute to the office a few days a week. The enduring popularity of hybrid work into 2024 suggests that the Donut Effect will persist while also leaving broader metropolitan areas intact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalization of trade and increased human mobility have facilitated the introduction and spread of nonnative species, posing significant threats to biodiversity and human well-being. As centers of global trade and human populations, cities are foci for the introduction, establishment, and spread of nonnative species. We present a global synthesis of urban characteristics that drive biological invasions within and across cities, focusing on four axes: (a) connectivity, (b) physical properties, (c) culture and socioeconomics, and (d) biogeography and climate. Urban characteristics such as increased connectivity within and among cities, city size and age, and wealth emerged as important drivers of nonnative species diversity and spread, while the relative importance of biogeographic and climate drivers varied considerably. Elaborating how these characteristics shape biological invasions in cities is crucial for designing and implementing strategies to mitigate the impacts of invasions on ecological systems and human well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Climate hazards in the form of cyclones are projected to become more intense under the pressures of future climate change. These changes represent a growing hazard to low lying coastal cities like Beira, Mozambique. In 2019, Beira experienced the devastating impact of Cyclone Idai. One of the many impacts resulting from this Cyclone was disrupted drinking water access. This investigation explores the distribution of Cyclone Idai's impact on drinking water access via an environmental justice lens, exploring how preexisting water access characteristics may have predisposed households to the impacts of Cyclone Idai in Beria. Design/methodology/approach: Relying on household survey data collected in Beira, the investigation applied a decision tree algorithm to investigate how drinking water disruption was distributed across the household survey sample using these preexisting vulnerabilities. Findings: The investigation found that households that mainly relied upon piped water sources and experienced inconsistent access to water in the year prior to Cyclone Idai were more likely to experience disrupted drinking water access immediately after Cyclone Idai. The results indicate that residents in formal areas of Beira, largely reliant upon piped water supply, experienced higher rates of disrupted drinking water access following Cyclone Idai. Originality/value: These findings question a commonly held assumption that informal areas are more vulnerable to climate hazards, like cyclones, than formal areas of a city. The findings support the inclusion of informal settlements in the design of climate change adaptation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that management concepts tend to spread from corporate to public organizations. Branding is an example of such a concept, with suggestions that it can address not only economic but also social issues, often referred to as "inclusive branding." This ethnographic study explores how branding is received and spreads in a Swedish city, and analyzes efforts to use branding to tackle inequality and segregation. Our findings reveal that the initial focus on social problems was glossed over in favor of following corporate branding ideals, but also that city communicators expressed critique, confusion, and doubt regarding the relevance of branding to their work. Surprisingly, this did not slow down but rather energized the branding process. Through an interactionist analysis, we suggest that rather than addressing social problems, branding in cities may give rise to an Eigendynamik, signifying a self-energizing inner dynamic fueled by a tension between "frames," specifically between the branding frame and the civic frame of the city. This theorization lays the groundwork for contributions to the understanding of inclusive branding: it can start with good intentions to address civic issues but may get swept up in corporate branding concepts and activities that are ill equipped to deal with social issues. More generally, complementing established notions of translation and colonization, our study provides a novel understanding of how management concepts migrate from corporate to public organizations through what we call frame-induced Eigendynamik. Overall, we contribute by shedding light on the role of self-energizing processes as reasons why organizational members engage with management concepts even when they struggle to see their relevance to their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article asks why Tokyo’s crowded trains were largely absent from official discourses of viral risk in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic. While public transport environments were often framed as spaces of contagion in other countries, Japanese public health discourses instead tended to emphasize the viral safety of urban railway transport. Drawing on an analysis of media and expert discourse, auto-ethnographic fieldwork, and repeat interviews with commuters, this article examines the processes through which Tokyo’s urban railway network was extracted from discourses of viral risk. It identifies four factors that contributed to this: (1) dominant definitions of risk spaces in public health messaging, (2) trains’ integral role in the operation of socio-economic life, (3) elusiveness of public transport in the epidemiological data, and (4) a focus on “unruly” passenger conduct. This analysis of the selective treatment of viral risks is tied to a critical engagement with theoretical distinctions between “essential” and “existential” mobilities developed in prior anthropological scholarship on the pandemic. Exploring the discursive framing of pandemic mobility practices on one of the world’s most extensive urban railway networks, the article thus contributes to the anthropological study of mobilities and transport in Japan and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of GeSec: Revista de Gestao e Secretariado is the property of Sindicato das Secretarias e Secretarios do Estado de Sao Paulo (SINSESP) 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 article provides insights from a 1-year-long collaboration of four cities, a university of applied sciences and the regional authorities of South-Holland (Netherlands) on how to increase awareness of European (funding, knowledge-sharing, influencing) opportunities for local and regional administrations. Increased Europeanisation can bring significant opportunities for cities and regions, while a lack of awareness amongst directors and decision-makers in local and regional authorities can hinder the ability of these organisations to capitalise on these European opportunities. On the basis of the community of practice a toolbox with 13 practical lessons was developed, and this article provides practical strategies for unlocking the European potential of cities and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the broader context of China's industrial structural transformation, the spillover effects of environmental regulations on urban industrial structure upgrading have gained increasing attention. This study uses panel data from 260 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2020, applying the entropy weight method and the ratio method to quantitatively analyze the levels of environmental regulation and industrial structure upgrading. The findings are as follows: (1) Temporal Analysis: Both formal and informal environmental regulations exhibit an upward trend, reflecting growing societal concern for environmental protection and strengthened government policies. Although informal environmental regulations have grown rapidly, their scores remain lower than those of formal regulations, suggesting a gap between public environmental awareness and government action. Industrial structure upgrading shows an overall upward trend, with more significant progress after 2012, likely due to the introduction of more stringent environmental protection policies. (2) Spatial Analysis: Formal environmental regulations initially declined before increasing, likely influenced by regional economic development variations and differences in policy enforcement. The overall level of informal environmental regulations has risen, particularly in medium- and low-level cities, reflecting regional disparities in environmental awareness. The spatial evolution of industrial structure upgrading aligns with these temporal trends, showcasing regional policy coordination and the complementarity of industrial structures across regions. (3) Spatial Spillover Effects of Environmental Regulations: Environmental regulations exert significant positive spatial effects on industrial structure upgrading, indicating that regulations in one region positively influence both local and neighboring areas. The presence of spatial spillover effects highlights the crucial role of environmental regulations in promoting industrial structure upgrading. Both the direct and indirect effects of formal and informal environmental regulations are significant, although the positive spatial spillover diminishes with distance, likely due to higher information transmission and collaboration costs. Marginal Contributions to Existing Literature: First, this study addresses a research gap regarding the impact of urban environmental regulations on industrial structure upgrading, offering new theoretical and practical insights for sustainable urban development and industrial optimization. Second, it broadens the research perspective by examining the roles of both formal and informal environmental regulations. Lastly, it challenges traditional linear assumptions by exploring the nonlinear relationship between environmental regulations and industrial structure upgrading using bivariate spatial correlation. Based on these findings, it is recommended that cities enhance the intensity and effectiveness of environmental regulations, support medium- and low-level cities in their development transitions, and promote industrial structure upgrading through increased inter-city cooperation and mutual assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the new governance, so the adoption of a collaborative public policy style, in the specific environment of the city of Madrid. In the context of the dialectical relationship between the social fabric of neighborhoods and local public administrations, the article investigates the elements that enhance, discourage or nullify this collaboration, paying special attention to the relevance of neighborhood meeting spaces in the urban environment. The theoretical development focuses on the consideration of the territory and the new governance as well as the articulation of the community fabric and its challenges in the city of Madrid. From the applied point of view, the article takes as a point of reference the qualitative empirical work carried out in three different neighborhoods of the city of Madrid, as a way for analyzing the implementation of this form of public management. The results show the different impact of the action of local governments according to the political intentionality of the public administrations in power at any given time, the socioeconomic characteristics of the territories and the sociodemographic profiles of their inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex and multidimensional effect of climate change, coupled with low socioeconomic development, in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) makes the region vulnerable to the changing climate and threatens its inhabitants' survival, livelihood, and health. Subnational actions have been widely acclaimed as effective in combatting climate change. Local governments in SSA have been developing and implementing climate action plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this article, we qualitatively assessed climate change mitigation technical pathways at the city level by studying four major African megacities' climate plans and actions. The cities studied are Accra, Ghana; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Lagos, Nigeria; and Nairobi, Kenya. This study provides insight into the novel and innovative policy design and instrumentation options to sustainably address climate change mitigation in SSA. With the past literature focusing on climate adaptation for the Global South, this study shows leading context-specific efforts in climate change mitigation that simultaneously address local sustainable development needs. Our assessment identified the prioritized technical pathways for climate change mitigation in the selected cities, as well as innovative techniques and areas for improvement. Given that it also identifies emerging best practices, this study's findings can be helpful to local governments and practitioners pursuing local deep decarbonization and international organizations supporting these programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Athenaeum: Polskie Studia Politologiczne is the property of Faculty of Political Science & Security Studies Nicolaus Copernicus University 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.)

We discuss the use of social media communication for place promotion and place branding of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). As places resting on the advantages of co-location for entrepreneurial activity, EEs offer a novel testbed for the co-creation of a place image in the virtual space of social media. By exploring almost 370,000 tweets from Twitter across 20 European EEs, we observe virtual spaces of EEs being broadly used to share positive messages about the place. However, no EE stands out with a unique image evoking symbolic associations with the place in target audiences. The results suggest the presence of place promotion more than place branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change‐induced heat stress has significant effects on human health, and is influenced by a wide variety of factors. Most assessments of future heat‐related risks however are based on coarse resolution projections of heat hazards and overlook the contribution of relevant factors other than climate change to the negative impacts on health. Research highlights sociodemographic disparities related to heat stress vulnerability, especially among older adults, women and individuals with low socioeconomic status, leading to higher morbidity and mortality rates. There is thus an urgent need for detailed, local information on demographic characteristics underlying vulnerability with refined spatial resolution. This study aims to address the research gaps by presenting a new population projection exercise at high‐resolution based on the Bayesian modeling framework for the case study of Madrid, using demographic data under the scenarios compatible with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. We examine the spatial and temporal distribution of population subgroups at the intra‐urban level within Madrid. Our findings reveal a concentration of vulnerable populations, as measured by their age, sex and educational attainment level in some of the city's most disadvantaged neighborhoods. These vulnerable clusters are projected to widen in the future unless a sustainable trajectory is realized, driving vulnerability dynamics toward a more uniform and resilient change. These results can guide local adaptation efforts and support climate justice initiatives to protect vulnerable communities in urban environments. Plain Language Summary: Heat stress is a major risk factor for human health, especially in cities where more people are exposed to increasingly higher temperatures in summer. Cities are usually hotter than their surrounding rural areas due to the predominance of dark, impervious surfaces which absorb more heat. Assessing heat risks for public health requires measurements of the hazard, such as a prolonged period with high temperatures, the population exposed to the hazard and characteristics of populations that make them more vulnerable to heat related diseases or even death. Various approaches and tools for risk assessment have been developed, but most of them focus on the hazard and exposure components. In this paper, we measure and project vulnerability to heat stress in alternative scenarios, using different population characteristics, such as age, sex and education. Our results show that there are compelling differences between areas within the city of Madrid and that areas that are vulnerable today will become even more vulnerable unless we follow a path of sustainable development. Detailed assessments of the spatial distribution of vulnerability within a city are relevant for developing adaptation solutions that target vulnerable populations and are thus more effective in reducing heat‐related risks. Key Points: Population projections by age, sex and education at small‐area levels allow for high‐resolution heat vulnerability modelingVulnerability to heat stress can vary widely between different areas in a city, and even within a single neighborhoodAreas that are vulnerable today are projected to become even more vulnerable in all Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios except for that assuming a sustainable development narrative [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daqing in China is well-known as a, if not the, "Chinese oil city". However, the reasons behind its importance for the People's Republic of China and the origins of its current spatial organization remain unclear. "How was such growth achieved against the backdrop of the so-called de-urbanization processes? What was occurring at the local level? What happened to the people of my parents' generation?" Hou Li, a leading Chinese urban scholar, addresses these questions in her latest book, Building for Oil, explaining how the lowering of urban construction standards to the level of rural ones, the focus of investments on production, and the reliance on individual commitment led to China's unprecedented growth. Despite the absence (or the concealment) of a critical opinion on the part of the author on the events and decisions described, this contribution is of particular importance to understand the path leading to contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities and towns are critical geographies of refuge for a globally unprecedented number of forcibly displaced people. Yet urban processes also expose these groups and the local urban poor to recurrent displacements. While such experiences are shared, studies often treat these populations as distinct. Drawing on Yiftachel's notion of displaceability, this paper systematically reviews and synthesizes a global literature on diversely displaced people's placemaking in urban public space. Observing a significant analytical gap regarding cities of the so-called global South, the paper identifies a heuristic, and key analytical dimensions shaping divergent access and uses of public space by variously displaced populations. These concern: temporal patterns; powerful meta-narratives of people and place; and complex multi-scalar and multi-actor configurations of regulatory regimes governing public space. Simultaneously, acquisition and deployment of urban knowledge and a practice of (in)visibility enable differentially displaced populations' everyday claims to public space for wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban ecosystems, and the services they provide, are a key focus of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically SDG 11, which emphasizes making cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Green infrastructure (GI) is crucial in enhancing citizens' quality of life and achieving this goal and it can be defined as a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas designed to deliver a range of ecosystem services (ESs). These infrastructures improve ecosystem functioning, protect biodiversity, promote health, support sustainable land and water management, and boost the local green economy. This paper explores the scientific literature on GI and their ESs in cities using bibliometric science. By combining the keywords "Green Infrastructures", "Ecosystem Services", and "Cities" with VOSviewer software (1.6.20 version), we analyzed trends over time. Results show growing attention to these topics, emphasizing human well-being, urban resilience, and sustainability. The study also highlights that focusing exclusively on either "Green Infrastructure in Cities" or "Ecosystem Services in Cities" leads to fragmented insights. A more integrated examination of these three domains offers a holistic view and underscores the importance of considering ecosystem disservices. The study further identifies key research directions, including the need for a comprehensive evaluation of diverse GI types, especially those that are under-researched, such as green roofs, sports areas, and wetlands, and the underexplored role of cultural ecosystem services. Additionally, future research should consider both the benefits and disservices of GI to support better urban planning decisions. Finally, integrating biophysical, social, and economic values of ESs is critical for providing more holistic insights and enhancing sustainable urban development. The novelty of this paper lies in its integrated, holistic approach to examining GI and ESs in urban areas, with a focus on ecosystem disservices, insufficient attention to specific GI types, and the role of cultural ecosystem services—each contributing to the creation of more resilient and sustainable cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public value and city governance are fundamental notions in contemporary settings, but, currently conceived, they are not fit for the challenges presented by the proposed new epoch of geological time—the Anthropocene. Walking through the locked-down streets or calle of Venice, we face the sudden emptiness that starkly reveals the impact of human activity on the city and its waterways. Reflecting on the walk, our starting point is to problematize how a city organizes and manages public value and what actually constitutes public value. In this, we develop a new definition, "New Public Value for the Anthropocene Epoch" (NPVA), which expands the notion of public value through the questions: "who" is it valuable to do things for, beyond humans and economic actors, building on a relational epistemology to incorporate the planet and its biosphere; and "what" is valuable to do, in order to ensure the inclusion of social, environmental, and cultural values alongside economic values. We conclude by arguing that NPVA is organized across scales in a manner that embeds global attentiveness toward local ecosystems solutions to drive the global response to the environmental crisis we all face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban public lighting is an important ingredient for the social and economic development of cities and the safety and security of their citizens. Existing studies support the need for artificial light in cities to enable around the clock activities and enterprise. Although artificial light is a public service commodity, procuring and maintaining lighting in cities is challenging due to funding shortfalls and a lack of technical expertise. The objective of this paper is to identify ways through which public private partnerships can be used to procure and maintain cost-effective and energy-efficient urban streetlighting and introduces a novel approach to generate a sustainable revenue stream to fund the enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization has accelerated dramatically across the world over the past decades. Urban influence on surface temperatures is now being considered as a correction term in climatological datasets. Although prior research has investigated urban influences on precipitation for specific cities or selected thunderstorm cases, a comprehensive examination of urban precipitation anomalies on a global scale remains limited. This research is a global analysis of urban precipitation anomalies for over one thousand cities worldwide. We find that more than 60% of the global cities and their downwind regions are receiving more precipitation than the surrounding rural areas. Moreover, the magnitude of these urban wet islands has nearly doubled in the past 20 y. Urban precipitation anomalies exhibit variations across different continents and climates, with cities in Africa, for example, exhibiting the largest urban annual and extreme precipitation anomalies. Cities are more prone to substantial urban precipitation anomalies under warm and humid climates compared to cold and dry climates. Cities with larger populations, pronounced urban heat island effects, and higher aerosol loads also show noticeable precipitation enhancements. This research maps global urban rainfall hotspots, establishing a foundation for the consideration of urban rainfall corrections in climatology datasets. This advancement holds promise for projecting extreme precipitation and fostering the development of more resilient cities in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization is defining global change, and megacities are fast becoming a hallmark of the Anthropocene. Humanity's pursuit toward sustainability is reliant on the successful management of these massive urban centers and their progression into sustainable and resilient settlements. Indicators and indices are applied assessment and surveillance tools used to measure, monitor, and gauge the sustainable development and urban resilience of megacities. Unknown is how indicator-based evaluations of sustainable development and urban resilience of the world's largest 43 cities compare. In response, this review paper used the PRISMA reporting protocol, governed by 33 established and 10 emerging megacities, to compare and contrast evaluations of sustainable development and urban resilience. Results reveal that applied assessments of sustainable development of megacities appeared earlier in time and were more abundant than those of urban resilience. Geographically, China dominated other nations in affiliations to scientific research for both sustainable development and urban resilience of megacities. Among the 100 most recurrent terms, three distinct key term clusters formed for sustainable development; seven budding key term clusters formed for urban resilience suggesting breadth in contrast to sustainable development depth. The most cited assessments of sustainable development emphasize topics of energy, methodological approaches, and statistical modeling. The most cited assessments of urban resilience emphasize topics of flooding, transit networks, and disaster risk resilience. Megacities research is dominated by few countries, suggesting a need for inclusion and international partnerships. Lastly, as the world's people become increasingly urbanized, sustainable development and urban resilience of megacities will serve as a key barometer for humanity's progress toward sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsidence refers to the gradual lowering or sudden sinking of the ground surface and is known to impact human lives in terms of damages to the infrastructures, utility lines, and buildings as well as changes in the surficial drainage systems and groundwater conditions. The impacts of land subsidence will be greater in the future, considering the sea level rise, population growth, intensification of coastal erosion and extreme events, as well as increase in flood risk or freshwater salinization, mostly in coastal cities. The main aim of this work is to provide an open-source, peer-reviewed, and comprehensive database identifying the main and secondary causes of land subsidence in 143 coastal cities. We highlight the potential impacts of subsidence that are still unknown in some at-risk cities and non-existence of mitigation measures. The database additionally shows that mitigation measures, specifically those addressing subsidence due to groundwater extraction, have proven successful in the past. The proposed database aims to increase the knowledge on the subsidence phenomenon and also global awareness of land subsidence issues among researchers, the scientific community, stakeholders, and policymakers in terms of urban planning and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Mercantile Register data to analyse the location decisions of firms in Catalan municipalities (between 2010 and 2019). Using count data panel estimations, we focus on local sustainability characteristics. The identification of the location patterns and the effects of local environmental policies on firms belonging to different sustainability industries constitute a contribution to the empirical location literature. Our results help in understanding entry processes at the local level and how both citizens' environmental values and local environmental policies shape these. We show that (i) firms locate differently depending on their sustainability profile and (ii) local environmental policies have stronger effects on the location decisions of sustainability‐oriented firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microbes have consistently coexisted with humans and have profoundly influenced their daily practices. Accompanied by the new materialists' rethinking of the ontology and epistemology of nonhuman matter, and based on the 'Object Oriented Ontology' proposed by Harman, this paper attempt to reinterpret the dynamic relationship between viruses, human bodies, and cities in the process of movement. By reinterpreting the communication patterns between human bodies and viruses, as well as the topological networks between human bodies and cities, this study aimed to reveal the biosocial attributes of cities from the perspective of transcending anthropocentrism. "The findings indicate that (1) symptoms and attitudes towards viruses are embodied communication processes between the human body and the virus and that the outcome of embodied communication is influenced by temporal and spatial dimensions. This finding contributes to the reshaping of the humanity-virus relationship, prompting humanity to value the agency of viruses and to confront how viruses coexist and cohabit in the human body and urban spaces; (2) The mobilities of viruses cross boundaries and scales between a human body and cities. By focusing on the mobilities of viruses between extended bodies to explore the interactions between bodies and cities, this study reveals the mobilities and biosocial properties of the city; that is, the city is viewed as a topological biosocial network that transcends boundaries. Using the mask as an example, this study reveals how the extended body affects and alters material connections-that is, how social, policy, and cultural meanings are embedded in the construction and reconstruction of urban topological networks -and how the network of relationships attached to the body creates connections to better cope with the impacts of viral mobilities. Overall, based on the concepts of embodied communication' and an extended body, the results of this study provide new perspectives on micro-mobilities in human geography, enriching the dynamics of the relationship between cities and bodies. First, it re-examines the dichotomy between health and disease as a dynamic relational process by understanding the relationship between humans and viruses from a geographic perspective so that health study pays attention to the dynamics of other elements in the relational network. Second, the findings also expand the connotation and application of the concept of the 'extended body,' enriching the understanding of the dynamic relationship between the body and the city, and revealing the interactions between macro-socio-cultural politics and micro-body behavioral practices in the context of viral pandemics. Viewing the relational nature and attributes of the city through the prism of microbial mobility, draws our attention towards how a city is formed through connections between human and nonhuman matter and exhibits that this relational space is constantly fluid. This turn of thinking, which reflects the connotations and extents of space in a network-nested manner, has inspired geographers to pay attention to the complex network of relationships between people and spaces, where humans, microbes, and cities are seen as a collection of complex relationships. Therefore, the object of urban governance is not limited to humanity but should also be concerned with other nonhuman matters, and the relationships generated between people and nonhuman matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, bee biodiversity has dropped sharply due to land use change, including urbanization. To contrast this, recent research has pointed to cities as a hotspot for bees. Because of this ambiguity, a scoping review has been conducted to examine the urban characteristics that impact bees and how bees are impacted. A total of 276 articles were analyzed against landscape and local habitat characteristics. The key findings include first that natural areas are more valuable for bees since biodiversity levels are higher. Second, urban areas generally score better than agricultural and rural areas. Third, plant biodiversity positively influences bee biodiversity. Fourth, the urban environment strongly affects some bee traits and the proportion of native bees. For making cities bee friendly and bee inclusive, we recommend to maintain natural areas, connect natural areas to urban ecosystems, encourage floral abundance and diversity and increasing the size of urban green areas overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Urban citizenship' connotes to statuses and practices centred around the relationship between a locality and (all) individuals present or residing within its territory. This alternative imagination of citizenship (as opposed to formal nation-state citizenship) is based on a presumption of belonging for persons present/resident in the locality (ius domicii) and includes those typically excluded by the nation-state, in a radical vision of equality and non-discrimination. But domestic legal competences of local governments vary significantly across jurisdictions. This article, based on field research in Turkey and Switzerland, explores what role such domestic competences, or the regulation of local governments, plays in facilitating, encouraging, discouraging or obstructing local governments' engagement with radically inclusive urban citizenship practices. First operationalising the concept of 'regulation' and establishing Turkey and Switzerland as low- and high-regulation country contexts respectively, this article identifies four ways in which regulation shapes urban citizenship practices of local governments: (a) by shaping local governments' perception on their own autonomy; (b) by influencing whether local governments engage in legally foreseen or extra-legal practices; (c) by informing whether and how much local governments categorise different groups of rights-holders and; (d) by affecting which scales these urban citizenship practices are exercised in (upwards, downwards, horizontal). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Aim: The aim of the research conducted during the fair on 30.03-5.04.2023 was to identify the factors for the development of the bleisure trend in cities based on the preferences of the participants of the 29th edition of the KRAKDENT® International Dental Fair The research mainly concerned the "bleisure" trend, which in business tourism concerns the combination of business and leisure, i.e., business duties and leisure. Design/methodology/approach: The research was not commercial and was carried out as part of the cooperation of the Targi w Krakowie Ltd. with the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow. The research was conducted based on primary data-a questionnaire collected between 30 March and 1 April 2023 during the 29th edition of the KRAKDENT® International Dental Fair held at the International Exhibition and Congress Centre EXPO Kraków. The research was conducted among exhibitors and visitors, although the primary respondents were exhibitors. Results: The research indicates expectations and contemporary trends in traveling among business tourists participating in the fair. The research verified the main research hypothesis as follows: The primary determinant of the development of the "bleisure" trend in cities is the discounts offered in the area of city attractions and infrastructure. Research limitations/implications: The difficulty obtaining questionnaires from visitors to the fair was a significant limitation. In the future, it would be essential to continue this type of research among participants at trade fairs or other business events. Practical implications: The research aimed to learn about the preferences of both exhibitors and visitors to prepare a better or tailored offer for them for subsequent editions of the event. Social implications: The research subject has significant social implications, as bleisure tourism is an essential factor affecting human well-being and health. Bleisure tourism is of great social importance for people's mental comfort. Originality/value: In the Polish literature on the subject, this type of research has not been carried out so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a research on gaming and reality carried out by the Laboratório de Poéticas Fronteiriças, a research group rolled on the CNPq's directory and certified by the UEMG (Brazil). Growing number of phone programs that provide ride-share services, transportation, or product delivery, primarily food, remind us of old games that use similar mechanisms. Our aim is to analyze the games series Crazy Taxi and Grand Theft Auto, their narrative and aesthetic elements as well as similarities to the Uber app in order to better understand ways the gamification of such types of apps can allow a re-signification of the city spaces, its users as players and of its socio-economic impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods are highly destructive natural disasters. Climate change and urbanization greatly impact their severity and frequency. Understanding flood causes in urban areas is essential due to significant economic and social impacts. Hydrological data and satellite imagery are critical for assessing and managing flood effects. This study uses satellite images, climate anomalies, reservoir data, and cyclonic activity to examine the 2015 and 2023 floods in Chennai, Kanchipuram, and Thiruvallur districts, Tamil Nadu. Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellite data were used to delineate flood extents, and this information was integrated with reservoir data to understand the hydrological dynamics of floods. The classification and regression tree (CART) model delineates flood zones in Chennai, Kanchipuram, and Thiruvallur during the flood years. The study region is highly susceptible to climatic events such as monsoons and cyclones, leading to recurrent flooding. The region's reservoirs discharged floodwaters exceeding 35,000 cubic meters per second in 2015 and 15,000 cubic meters per second in 2023. Further, the study examines the roles of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which reached its peak values of 0.33 and 3.96 (positive IOD), and El Niño in causing floods here. The complex network of waterways and large reservoirs poses challenges for flood management. This research offers valuable insights for improving the region's flood preparedness, response strategies, and overall disaster management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Extreme heat events caused by climate change continue to increase in frequency, duration, and intensity. People living in cities in particular are exposed to heat as a result of the urban heat island effect. Although negative effects can be mitigated by heat health action plans (HHAPs), it remains unknown how many German cities have implemented such plans or other measures to reduce the health risks from heat. Therefore, this study surveyed the status of planned or published HHAPs and measures in German cities. Subject and methods: Approximately 10% of German cities with the greatest population density were sampled for the study (n = 70 cities). A frequency analysis of city concepts and city webpages was conducted to determine whether cities have already introduced concepts for climate adaptation, climate protection or an HHAP, and which measures are planned in detail. Results: Fifty-one cities have implemented measures to protect health from heat events. Forty-one cities integrated such measures into concepts, and only one city formulated an HHAP. Large cities in particular published measures. Long-term measures proved most common, for example, improved building envelope insulation and urban greening. Other than advice on individual behavior, hardly any acute heat health measures are being taken. Conclusion: Public health authorities can play an active role in communicating the health risks of heat and implementing HHAPs. To this end, the health risks of climate change need to be addressed consistently by all policy fields in Germany. There is also a need for further research in the evaluation of measures and HHAPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the greenhouse gas (GHG) protocol for cities, GHGs are responsible for an estimated 75 per cent of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. This represents a key opportunity to tackle climate change. With the year 2023 and, in particular, the month of July delivering record-breaking temperatures, this demonstrates a clear need to accelerate decarbonisation and, in this context, to reduce the carbon footprint of cities. Further, acting on urban development addresses a number of key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs). Many cities, however, are struggling to break away from a reliance on carbon and some are economically dependent on it. This paper seeks to investigate, through an energy justice lens, some first considerations of how to secure just and sustainable urban regeneration. It posits that energy justice, and its five core principles, is a useful analytical tool for considering the justice and development concerns related to the transition to a low-carbon world. The cities examined in brief in this comparative study are Bordeaux in France, Venice in Italy, Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and Bangkok in Thailand. The research posits that despite different trajectories, cities can play a leading role in ensuring justice and sustainability in our low-carbon world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes a novel approach to dialogue with local stakeholders to maximise the shared value that can be generated by infrastructure investments for the benefit of urban communities. The approach proposes a method for deliberately activating synergies between infrastructure and complementary initiatives through the active engagement of public and private stakeholders. In many cases today, infrastructure is designed, financed and implemented as functionally unitary engineering works that meet a specific need, leaving synergies with complementary initiatives to be activated spontaneously. Moreover, the dialogue with local stakeholders is limited and reductive, aiming mainly at the exchange of some project information and consensus building, thus missing the opportunity to identify and mobilise those ideas, capabilities and resources that are always present within a community. In the proposed approach, infrastructure is the catalyst for a long-term vision and stakeholder engagement is the tool for identifying the synergistic initiatives that can be implemented with the participation of public and private actors to maximise value creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]