Search

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.

This study estimates the relationships between street network characteristics and transport-sector CO2 emissions across every urban area in the world and investigates whether they are the same across development levels and urban design paradigms. The prior literature has estimated relationships between street network design and transport emissions – including greenhouse gases implicated in climate change – primarily through case studies focusing on certain world regions or relatively small samples of cities, complicating generalizability and applicability for evidence-informed practice. Our worldwide study finds that straighter, more-connected, and less-overbuilt street networks are associated with lower transport emissions, all else equal. Importantly, these relationships vary across development levels and design paradigms – yet most prior literature reports findings from urban areas that are outliers by global standards. Planners need a better empirical base for evidence-informed practice in under-studied regions, particularly the rapidly urbanizing Global South.

One of California's 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 California's 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 California's 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 harm's way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the epidemiology and microbiological landscape in patients (≤21 yrs) diagnosed with endophthalmitis across a multi-tier ophthalmology network in India. This cross-sectional hospital-based study included 1,041 patients (≤21 yrs) diagnosed with endophthalmitis, between April 2012 and May 2022. The data were collected using an electronic medical record system. Bacteria (24%) was the most common etiology followed by fungus (2%). The majority of the patients were male (66%) with a mean age of 8.37 ± 5.99 years. The most common age group was middle childhood (6-11 years) with 365 (35.06%) patients. The patients were more commonly from the lower socio-economic status (60.81%) and urban geography (49%). The common cause of endophthalmitis was trauma (59.33%) and amongst the 279 culture positive eyes, the predominant bacteria isolated was Streptococcus pneumoniae followed by Bacillus species and fungus included predominantly Aspergillus and Candida species. The most common surgical intervention performed was intraocular antibiotics (74%) followed by pars plana vitrectomy (52%). The most common etiology of endophthalmitis in children is bacterial and traumatic in nature and presented from the lower socio-economic status. A half of the eyes warranted a vitreo-retinal surgical intervention. A cross-sectional study on the microbiological landscape in pediatric endophthalmitis showed that the most common cause of endophthalmitis was trauma and the predominant bacteria isolated was Streptococcus spp. and Bacillus spp. Additionally, majority of the patients were from the lower socio-economic status and urban geography and the most common surgical intervention performed was injection of intraocular antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the social construction of place through a close analysis of the language used in online reviews to describe migrant-owned or -serving restaurants and their neighborhoods in Charlotte, NC. Through analysis of more than 2,000 online reviews of 16 restaurants across multiple platforms, we found that online restaurant reviews are key sites in which discourse about particular social groups and spaces is brought forth. In particular, through racialized narratives that rely on descriptions of lack, depictions of danger, and stereotypes, urban imaginaries are constructed that enable remaking Latin American neighborhoods. We further argue that reproducing such urban imaginaries serves to devalue migrant neighborhoods through presenting them as places that do not match modern city aspirations. This paper contributes to literature in food studies, urban geography, and rhetoric by examining the ways that digital food grammars pave the way for remaking migrant neighborhoods in emerging migrant gateway cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intermediate cities have started competing for capital, thus becoming privileged sites for economic growth and policy formulation in agricultural, industrial, and service production areas. However, this process, driven by speculative urban development, exacerbates problems such as socio-spatial segregation, leading to an unequal production of urban space. Under this logic, the city of Montería is not the exception since, in recent decades, it has experienced unprecedented urban growth primarily driven by the private real estate market. Therefore, this research aims to study the urban transformations of the city of Monteria from 2006 to 2021 to determine, based on documentary information, spatial analysis techniques, and related cartography, which attributes of “neoliberal urbanism” are manifest and reproduced throughout the city and their consequences. The results show that current urban policies and planning instruments promote and transfer the responsibility of modelling growth towards new expansion zones to the private sector, generating profound transformations on the territory and exacerbating socio-spatial segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1991, Bangalore has seen spectacular redevelopment through the political hegemony of real estate, IT and parastatals in local urban governance. The global city literature has demonstrated how gentrification and real estate redevelopment have been at the heart of such neoliberal urban transformation. Yet, the literature's roots in notions of ‘post‐industrial’ cities obscure a view of how industry remains a key part of contemporary global cities. The persistence of the Peenya Industrial Area, one of South Asia's largest industrial areas today, reflects the negotiated, partial, contested and uneven character of the neoliberal urban project. Peenya demonstrates how obdurate inherited urban industrial geographies continue to shape the dynamics of world city‐making. Established in the heyday of Bangalore's postcolonial public sector industrialization, Peenya employs over 180,000 workers in 8,236 manufacturing firms, even today. How does such vast industrial space persist within the core of a global city? I draw on interviews and qualitative field research to argue that Peenya's resilience is rooted in the complexity of private land aggregation and state‐sponsored industrial relocation within an interwoven geography of tiny, legally fluid land holdings with variegated tenure regimes as well as the challenge of re‐signifying space in a region with obdurate industrial imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on research on infrastructure‐led development and urbanisation in Nairobi to explore the new urban geographies of rentier capitalism in Africa. Under the banner of Kenya's Vision 2030 national development strategy, Nairobi's agrarian hinterlands have been transformed by major road building projects. These initiatives have catalysed a peri‐urban property boom characterised by the conversion of agricultural and ranching land into urban real estate and the verticalisation of road corridors. The paper identifies four processes of land transformation driving this real estate market expansion: commodification; speculation; autoconstruction; and assetisation. Adopting a multi‐scalar conjunctural approach, it argues that rentier capitalism in this context is spatialised through the dramatic extension of real estate frontiers along the route of peri‐urban road corridors. Development along these corridors assumes a “grey” character that defies conventional formal–informal distinctions, enabling the extraction of large rentier profits and encouraging the further proliferation of frontier spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws together elements of the academic literature on policy mobilities on the one hand, and on the 'digital turn' on the other. It argues that COVID‐19 accelerated the digitalization of everyday life asking we think through how those already existing informational infrastructures supporting the mobility of policies are continuing to evolve, as are the methods available for researching them. This has potential consequences for how cities practice policy comparison exchange, and learning and how these processes are studied. This paper sets out a three‐pronged schema to take seriously the intersection of policy mobilities and the digital. They are policy mobilities through the digital, policy mobilities produced by the digital and policy mobilities of the digital. It concludes by outlining fruitful areas for a future research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the effects of digital technologies on academic knowledge production in the field of urban research. It provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of technology-based urban research literature, delineates the knowledge structure, and investigates prevalent trends. The study employs bibliometric analysis to analyze bibliographical and textual data extracted from scientific documents, which allows for the discovery of the existing epistemological structure of the discipline or research domain. The research was conducted by conducting a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the literature available in the Web of Science Core Collection regarding how concepts such as big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) are discussed in academic papers in the field of urban studies. A total of 2055 academic papers that met the established criteria were identified and analyzed using bibliometric analysis software called Bibliometrix. The results of the research aid in examining the integration of technological advancements into urban research, and reveal the temporal, spatial, and disciplinary distribution of scientific articles, as well as their reflections on new research areas and both frequently studied and yet unexplored topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While smallholder food producers increasingly depend on goods and services provided by distant markets, they are still constrained by their local ecology, as their rural communities often lack many of the infrastructural advantages of urban centers. Navigating the costs and benefits of market and ecosystem services is, as a consequence, crucial to their livelihoods and overall well-being. Here, we explore one aspect of that market–ecology trade-off: its effect on the residential choice behavior of ranchers living in the arid Sierra de la Giganta Mountains along the eastern spine of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. We rely on two generalized linear models (GLMs), a binomial GLM of the locations of occupied and abandoned ranches and a Poisson GLM of population size at occupied ranches. Our proxies for market integration and ecosystem services are travel time estimates to surficial springs and distant cities. By using these travel time estimates, we enhance the ethnographic study of residential choice behavior in smallholder systems by drawing on key innovations from urban and economic geography. Our models show that ranch clusters are more likely to be abandoned the farther they are from surficial springs, and occupied ranch clusters have larger populations the closer they are to markets. This has important consequences for the ecological resilience of this ranching community, particularly in the context of climate-induced drought, which may lead to ranching strategies that are more locally resilient but less profitable on the market. At the same time, market integration may reshape the social structure of these communities, introducing new incentives that lead them to further integrate with and increasingly depend on those markets. All of these changes are exacerbated by demographic processes, in particular the explosive growth of the region's urban centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Takarazuka Revue is commonly differentiated from other Japanese theatres based on their gendered stage performances and distinct relations between the performers and their patrons. So far, little research has been conducted on Takarazuka’s fan culture beyond the prism of a theatre performance and performer/fan relationships, especially when it comes to issues such as locality, fan tourism, or fans’ consumer practices that are not limited to the activities of fan clubs. Looking at Takarazuka from the perspective of the imagined core of Takarazuka fan culture offers us a glimpse into the reasons for the unprecedented popularity of this establishment: the fantasy beyond the stage. Drawing on ethnographic data from fieldwork conducted in Takarazuka City and interview data with Takarazuka fans, this article examines Takarazuka fans’ perceptions of Takarazuka Revue’s birthplace, the core of Takarazuka City, and the landscape surrounding its home-theatre, the Takarazuka Grand Theatre. I explore how past memories, lived experiences, and personal encounters of individual fans transform an urban neighbourhood into a shared fantasy surpassing the theatre stage; an embodied space characterised by movement, liminality, and affect, which is hidden behind the idea of the “Takarazuka space”. I argue that Takarazuka fans’ awareness of the ubiquitous Takarazuka space on both communal and personal levels signifies a multi-layered fantasy which exceeds the expectations of theatregoing practices, and provides us insight into the way local theatres within urban landscapes have the potential to shape individual fan identities and promote the creation of fan networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban chicken‐keeping is on the rise in London, in private gardens, community gardens, allotments, schools, and urban farm projects. In welcoming chickens into the city, urban spaces are being transformed: coops are being built, runs constructed, chicken‐friendly flora introduced, and space landscaped to accommodate both chickens and humans. Underneath the design of these multispecies urban spaces, there is a desire to bring the good life into the city, through a return to nature. Chicken‐keeping is being lauded by urban keepers and commentators alike as a response to urban crises over food provenance and quality, environmental ethics, and a growing unease with industrial agriculture. However, after chickens arrive in these urban spaces, it becomes quickly apparent that the design of the urban barnyard imposed by the human is rarely practical for, or enjoyed by, chickens: perfectly laid lawns are torn up, plants are demolished, and vegetable patches are gorged on, and chickens are at the mercy of local foxes. When chickens enter these urban barnyards, they demand humans pay attention to their desires, behaviours, and territoriality by overflowing and expanding their assigned space. As such, designing the urban barnyard is an ongoing spatio‐temporal iterative process between chickens, humans, and other non‐human actors in the more‐than‐human city. In this paper, using the case of the urban chicken, I argue that more‐than‐human (urban) geographies can find generative collaborations with design thinking in theorising human–environmental relationalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased interest in urban food security across Southern Africa is a welcome development, particularly given the considerable challenges faced by slum dwellers in accessing food. In Malawi, high urbanization rates, coupled with stagnant economic growth, have stimulated the expansion of slums and highlighted increasing poverty. While other researchers have noted the importance of geographic variance within countries of SSA, there still exists the need to elucidate geographic variance of urban food security within cities. Based on data from Kauma and Mgona settlements, this article argues for the incorporation of situation geography. We discovered that their respective geographies governed both levels of food insecurity and livelihood strategies. Peri-urban Kauma residents accessed multiple livelihood opportunities including satellite urban farming and ganyu (piecework), both of which were more inaccessible for residents of inner city, industrial Mgona. Kauma residents spread risk by employing different strategies, which translated to lower levels of food insecurity. This finding reaffirms the need for geographical, context-based strategies for alleviating urban food insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how early Cold War anti-communism transformed labor processes at the Port of Manila. In 1950 the threat of communism at the city's port gained the attention of the highest reaches of the US State Department. Shifting diplomatic discourses and a changing Cold War map imbued new meaning into trade union racketeering and Filipino dockworkers who were, it was dubiously argued, on the verge of joining the country's communists. Through archival analysis of diplomatic dispatches, intelligence reports, and newspaper sources, this article examines a series of spectacular events and covert political diplomacy. In particular it explains how an American Jesuit priest in Manila earned the trust of the State Department and played an outsized role in remaking pier-side labor politics. As concern grew in Washington, American diplomats covertly intervened to back the priest. In detailing how the piers staged global geopolitics, the article also situates these affairs in local political contexts to argue for a more nuanced understanding of anti-communism in Southeast Asia. Filipino trade union leaders and government officials colluded with but also subverted and remade American discourses and diplomacy to their own political and economic advantage. • Traces the shifting geographies of anti-communism in Manila during the early Cold War. • Examines the role of American government officials in reshaping Filipino trade union politics. • Contributes to studies of Manila's historical geographies and labor histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper's main argument is that housing financialisation can be understood as a set of intertwined digital/material processes, and that resisting housing financialisation requires activism that recognises and capitalises on this dynamic. Drawing from Desiree Fields' (2017a) work on urban struggles with financialisation, this conceptual argument is unpacked through a case study of post-crash Dublin, an urban space reshaped by housing financialisation and struggles resisting it. Housing has been a key subject of contention in post-crash Dublin and activists' digital/material struggles illustrate how digital technologies and platforms can be and are appropriated to resist housing financialisation. The paper traces the intertwining of housing financialisation, resistance, and the digital in post-crash Dublin and argues that future research on platform real estate, urbanism, and automated landlord practices must take seriously the ambivalent opportunities, agency, and counter narratives that housing activists create through their digital/material practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the challenges surrounding the conceptualization and definition of spatial justice within our increasingly data‐driven society, this article commences an inquiry into the convergence of space, justice, and data within human geography literature and related disciplines, focusing notably on the urban field. The paper outlines theories concerning social justice‐based rights to the city, especially emphasizing the significance of existing literature that bridges such theories with recent scholarship on data justice. It supplements these discussions by deriving a theoretical framework for digital spatial justice rooted in other space‐based theories, exploring the more‐than‐human realms of non‐human entities, affect, and information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes an argument for a geography of girlhood, located at the intersection of historical geographies of globalisation and empire on the one hand, and feminist interventions in the geography of childhood and youth on the other. A focus on girlhood, I argue, opens up a debate on the discipline's own implication in a debate on climate science, moral hierarchies of civilisation and reproductive health at which intersection the category of 'girl' was materialised in the 19th century. This focus extends and historicises the argument made by scholars like Nicola Ansel that geographies of childhood speak not only to intimate scales of experience ‐ such as the home and neighbourhood—but instead suggest the ways in which everyday life is implicated in the scale of the global and the geopolitical. Drawing on an inter‐disciplinary scholarship, the paper argues that debates on gender and maturity—converging on the figure of the 'girl'—shaped raced and classed imaginaries of progress in the 19th and 20th centuries. Through this, the paper demonstrates that 'girlhood' is at the heart of historical geographies of urban planning, social care, and health, as well as indexing the continuities in the transition from a colonial discourse of civilisation to a mid‐20th century concern with development. Finally, the paper asks how to write about girls through an archive that is almost obsessively fixated on them as subjects of education and reform, even whilst they rarely appear in it as speaking subjects. I argue that both an emergent focus on non‐textual objects as sources, as well as the use of ephemeral material—including notes, creative writing exercises from the classroom, school diaries etc.—alongside the official archive might open the scholarship up to a multi‐scalar analysis of girlhood as imbricated in larger global and national discursive and material practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equity in the built environment refers to the extent to which the built environment meets the needs of different groups through planning, design, construction, operation, management, and regulation. Though much studied in recent years, some needs and groups have received a greater research focus than others, and significant inequities continue to exist. Following PRISMA guidelines, we systematically reviewed the distributional and recognitional aspects of inequities experienced by vulnerable groups regarding their needs while using/occupying different types of built environments. We find that more studies focus on inequities regarding residential buildings, transportation facilities, and public open spaces, whereas comparatively few studies examine water and energy infrastructure, commercial buildings, educational buildings, and healthcare facilities. More studies focus on well-being, mobility, and access needs than shelter and safety needs. Inequities experienced by minorities, people with low socioeconomic status, people with health concerns, and vulnerable age groups receive more attention than the inequities experienced by people with gender/sexual-orientation vulnerability or displaced groups. The literature exhibits a relatively narrow focus on some subgroups, such as refugees, people experiencing homelessness, people with cognitive differences, people with visual or hearing impairments, children, and women. We argue that these findings demarcate high-impact future research directions to address vulnerable groups’ needs worldwide and suggest measures to alleviate inequities in the built environment.

Abstract Hyper-Places and Urban Fabrics: The Role of Shopping Centers in the Lombardy Territorial Context Moving from a reflection related to urban transformations that have occurred over the years the paper reflects on the generation of new urban spaces – which are configured as strong attractors, connectors, and diffusers – capable of encompassing various individual practices as well as the functions of a society as a whole. Assuming this framework, the contribution focuses on the role of shopping centers – with particular attention to the role assumed by Oriocenter in Lombardy (Italy) – as hyper-places. In fact, since the early 1990s, such structures have undergone profound changes, developing both through an increase in size and through a diversification of commercial attractors, promoting renewed flow trajectories and leading to increasing territorial complexity.

The geography of urban innovation in the United States has often been portrayed as dominated by a few large cities. However, emerging perspectives challenge this notion by highlighting the significance of secondary cities for innovation processes. Unfortunately, prevailing narratives and empirical evidence focus on technological invention only, measured by patents. This study aims to reevaluate the geography of urban innovation by considering various phases of the innovation process and incorporating a broader range of innovation types. In addition to conventional patent metrics, this research suggests incorporating trademarks and design rights as complementary data. The findings reveal that large cities still exhibit prominence when examining absolute counts of innovation. Instead, analysing intensities allows the identification of secondary cities that specialise in various innovation activities beyond technological invention only. Overall, the findings provide compelling evidence that urban innovation in the United States is not limited to a few large cities nor is it solely driven by technological invention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research article analyses Polish underground publishing during the late Cold War using the NOW-a publishing house as an example. The innovation of my approach lies in an attempt to bring closer Western and Eastern studies on various aspects of resistance. The subject of Polish resistance has already been studied, but more can be done with reference to the concept of everyday resistance. Protest sites are examined in this article in relation to the question of how urban and rural geography can play a role in bringing a movement together. The contribution revives Charles Tilly's concepts to study Polish resistance and to see historical developments from a social movement perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the impact of counter-mapping on university students' perception and knowledge of their cities, focusing on cultural diversity, urban dynamics, and social challenges. Using a quasi-experimental design with pretests and posttests in the province of Alicante, Spain, changes in the understanding of urban geography, everyday life, and cultural diversity were analyzed among 54 Geography Didactics students. Likert scale surveys and open-ended questions were employed, complemented by statistical and qualitative analyses, to measure knowledge and perceptions before and after the counter-mapping project. The results indicate that although quantitative correlations did not show statistically significant significance, qualitative analysis revealed significant and profound learning. Participants uncovered the hidden layers of their urban environments and gained a better understanding of the complexities and challenges of their cities. The project promoted the development of critical skills such as analytical thinking, active research, and effective communication, proving to be a valuable pedagogical tool that surpasses the limitations of traditional teaching methods and encourages active and committed citizenship. This inclusive and multidimensional approach enriches the diversity of experiences and knowledge, significantly contributing to the teaching of urban subjects, community engagement, and social responsibility and laying the groundwork for the proper tourist, cultural, social, or urban planning of city spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of urban residents in the Global South are turning to rooftop gardening, whether through soil or hydroponics, to cultivate their own vegetables, fruit, and herbs. In Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, rooftop gardening serves as an important alternative to traditional wet markets and more recently established supermarkets. In this paper, we examine the motivations, practices, and constraints of Hanoi's rooftop gardeners, along with the level of government support or disapproval for rooftop gardening. Our study is grounded in critical urban geography and urban political ecology and specific debates regarding informal life politics. Our findings reveal that Hanoi's rooftop gardeners feel confronted by a critical food safety crisis, emphasising their need to access safe, fresh, and affordable produce through rooftop gardening. Simultaneously, they express scepticism about the capacity and willingness of formal political institutions at both the municipal and national levels to address and resolve these concerns. We explore whether Hanoi's urban rooftop gardeners can be considered to be engaging in a form of everyday life politics and examine the dynamics emerging in this regard. We conclude by offering potential policy recommendations for Global South cities to support urban gardening communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Celem artykułu jest usystematyzowanie zagadnień dotyczących badań nad nierównościami w przestrzeni miast – przede wszystkim na podstawie prac naukowców z Polski oraz z krajów Europy Zachodniej i Stanów Zjednoczonych, gdzie badania o tej tematyce mają dłuższą tradycję. Nierówności społeczne powszechnie uważa się za jedno z najważniejszych wyzwań współczesności. Wysoki poziom nierówności społecznych, wyraźny zwłaszcza w obszarach zurbanizowanych, negatywnie rzutuje na jakość życia ich mieszkańców. W artykule opisano współczesne definicje pojęcia nierówności społecznych oraz przedstawiono pojęcia bliskoznaczne. Wyjaśniono wpływ nierówności społecznych na codzienne życie mieszkańców miast. Omówiono także historię badań nad nierównościami oraz najczęściej stosowane podejścia badawcze. W ostatniej części przedstawiono aktualne kierunki badań i perspektywy rozwoju badań o tej tematyce w przyszłości. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution explores the weaknesses, breakdowns, and possibilities of religious infrastructure in the Sinza ward, a multiconfessional residential suburb in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We focus on instances of infrastructural disruption connected to the grassroots activities of charismatic Christian churches and, to a lesser extent, Islamic piety movements. Through interviews, focus groups, fieldwork, and quantitative data, this study shows how the activities of grassroots faith groups exercising their right to the city in an infrastructurally fraught environment may exacerbate urban planning fault lines. This may result in hazards such as noise pollution, traffic congestion, and issues of structural safety and decorum. Religious sites and related assemblages may thus turn into 'architectures of disruption' generating uneven geographies of urban wellbeing. We posit that, despite these problems, religiously connoted urban assemblages are here to stay, and infrastructural thinking may productively be applied to this new normal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban geographers have been pursuing divergent theoretical projects. Some have pushed urban theory to become ageographical, the goal being to search out and explain of a globally omnipotent urbanization process. Others have moved in a different direction, seeking to detail how singular constellations of processes produce only particular urban places. This theoretical divergence has led some to question whether middle-range urban theories continue to have purchase today. This paper seeks to contribute to this attempt to rekindle an interest in middle-range urban theory by examining the relevance of Karl Popper's situational analysis to how we understand contemporary urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The job‐housing relationship is a well‐documented topic in urban and economic geography literature, but the disparities in job‐housing relationships across workers' sociodemographic statuses have yet to be fully explored. This study utilizes a Baidu trajectory dataset and spatial analysis tools to examine job‐housing relationships in Zhuhai, China, taking into account disparities in workers' socioeconomic status and job types. Origin–destination analysis indicates that job‐housing relationships for commercial and public service sectors are balanced in the urban core, whereas, for the secondary sector, the relationship is more balanced in the suburban area compared to the central urban area. Network analysis further reveals the presence of self‐contained communities for the secondary sector in peripheral areas. We find that high‐income workers in the secondary sector experience longer commuting distances, in contrast to their counterparts in the commercial and public service sectors. These insights underscore the significance of considering workers' skills in urban and economic planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Diversitas Journal is the property of Diversitas 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.)

At the interface of Chinese diaspora studies, migration studies, and urban studies, this introduction argues for a shift towards city-based migration studies. The city is understood here not as a self-contained social cosmos, but as a globally and socially embedded urban level that opens up a more flexible perspective on the unfolding of migration processes at the micro, meso, and macro levels. It begins with a brief overview of recent trends in Chinese diaspora studies, global migration and urbanisation trends, and debates in critical geography on multi-scale urban theories. Then, it raises the question of the empirical feasibility of such an approach and argues for conceptualising migrants' agency as a starting point for migration research, rather than pursuing a policy-driven, normative approach. Finally, it presents the five empirical contributions to this Special Issue. They are based on fieldwork in Paris, Berlin, Manchester (UK), Mexico City, Lagos, Gaborone, and Windhoek. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Many urban-dwelling older Nigerians are multidimensionally deprived and are unable to meet their daily financial, nutritional, and healthcare needs. This has implications for their health outcomes, yet it has been under-researched. This study assessed the multidimensional deprivation index (MDI) of urban-dwelling older Nigerians and the associated factors. Methods: The study analysed a weighted sample of 5,225 older persons aged ≥ 60 years from Nigeria's Demographic and Health Survey, 2018. MDI was estimated, and associations were examined using a multilevel multinomial logistic regression model. Results: Nationally, 75% of the older persons were multidimensionally deprived, with 27% severely deprived. Women (36%) were more severely deprived than men (20%). Those in the Northern regions (38%-40%) were the most deprived. Higher MD risk was associated with female gender and older ages ≥ 70-79 years. Conversely, lower risk was associated with households headed by family and residence in educated communities. Community variation accounts for 10.4% and 35.9% of the MD and severe MD risks, respectively. Conclusion: This study suggests socioeconomic interventions that address gender disparities and target highly deprived regions, with consideration for individual and community characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Streetscapes are among the urban geographies shaped by people's belonging in place and movements through the spaces-between. Such geographies give expression to powerful ideas about rights to the city. Witness international PARK(ing) Day, during which people playfully reclaim on-street parking areas by displacing vehicles and creating parklets. Yet, parklets have been criticised when their installation results in long-term loss of parking spaces. The purpose of this paper is to analyse such contestation in a case that involved a university undergoing significant transformations. As part of its place-making strategy, the university sought to create a parklet on a municipal streetside in a central business district near new purpose-built student accommodation. In short order, the idea was protested by particular stakeholders in the city, and the university later withdrew the municipal development application. As drawn out in our analysis of news reports and comments, the significance of the case is that the parklet was a casualty of deep divisions about who has rights to the city and about the functions of universities. Such divisions also exist in cities around the world and arguably undermine small actions to support decarbonising futures and caring infrastructures that attend urgently needed larger social and environmental gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the importance of small and medium-sized cities (PMVs) in Canada, highlighting their unique realities and contributions to regional development. The authors discuss challenges faced by PMVs, such as resource allocation towards larger cities, and emphasize the need to understand their specificities. The article includes empirical research and addresses theoretical and empirical questions related to the conceptualization, planning, development, governance, and sociability of PMVs. The document is a summary of a special section that covers various topics including sustainable development, revitalization, democracy, school closures, equitable housing access, and food systems, aiming to contribute to a better understanding of urban phenomena in Canada and encouraging further research and public debate. [Extracted from the article]

Racial landscape (RL) is an innovative methodology for studying racial geography that offers several advantages over current approaches. This article aims to highlight two key features of RL that have the potential to significantly impact the discipline. First, the RL approach introduces a fundamentally different method for assessing segregation compared to existing methods. The RL method allows us to calculate segregation for any arbitrary area without the need for subdivisions, diversity measures, reference regions, or reliance on census geography. Importantly, by using data from fifty-one Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) across the United States, we demonstrate that the RL's segregation metric produces comparable rankings of segregation among MSAs when compared to existing segregation indexes. Thus, although the RL expands the scope of problems where segregation can be quantified, it remains compatible with current segregation assessment practices. Second, we use data from the core parts of four selected MSAs in 1990 and 2020 to showcase how high-resolution RL-based racial maps can be employed for spatially explicit visual analyses of racial change. We discuss the potential impact of RL on the field, particularly in relation to segregation assessment and the evaluation of spatially explicit models of racial dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicular air pollution has created an ongoing air quality and public health crisis. Despite growing knowledge of racial injustice in exposure levels, less is known about the relationship between the production of and exposure to such pollution. This study assesses pollution burden by testing whether local populations' vehicular air pollution exposure is proportional to how much they drive. Through a Los Angeles, California case study we examine how this relates to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status---and how these relationships vary across the region. We find that, all else equal, tracts whose residents drive less are exposed to more air pollution, as are tracts with a less-White population. Commuters from majority-White tracts disproportionately drive through non-White tracts, compared to the inverse. Decades of racially-motivated freeway infrastructure planning and residential segregation shape today's disparities in who produces vehicular air pollution and who is exposed to it, but opportunities exist for urban planning and transport policy to mitigate this injustice.

Urban research often focuses on aggregate characteristics of macroeconomic performances or in-depth case studies of everyday urban phenomena. However, this dichotomy risks alienating two perspectives that can constructively illuminate spatial developments together. This article extends the “political economy of everyday life” approach, borrowed from political economy, to connect the local and everyday to global structures. The aim is to make this perspective sensitive to geographic differences and develop a “spatial political economy of everyday life.” To operationalise this approach, I discuss the multi-scale analysis employed in a comparative project on austerity and urban youth in Ireland that sought to ground everyday consequences in a structural context. This project combined three methods: (a) a theoretical analysis of the global structures of the 2008 financial crisis, (b) a policy analysis of the impact of Irish austerity policies on youth, and (c) a comparative qualitative analysis of the everyday consequences of crisis and austerity on youth from disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Cork and Dublin. This embedded comparative approach identified how the global financial crisis shaped national policies and how geographic differences shaped everyday spatial and personal consequences. This embedded comparative approach conceptualises cities as places where the structural and everyday constitute each other. It illuminates how this mutual interaction creates spatial particularities and common trends. In doing so, an embedded comparative approach contributes to developing a “spatial political economy of everyday life.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the precarity of urban society, illustrating both opportunities and challenges. Teleworking rates increased dramatically during the pandemic and may be sustained over the long term. For transportation planners, these changes belie the broader questions of how the geography of work and commuting will change based on pandemic-induced shifts in teleworking and what this will mean for society and policymaking. This study focuses on these questions by using survey data (n = 2580) gathered in the autumn of 2021 to explore the geography of current and prospective telework. The study focuses on the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the mega-region in Southern Ontario, representing a fifth of Canadians. Survey data document telework practices before and during the pandemic, including prospective future telework practices. Inferential models are used to develop working-from-home scenarios which are allocated spatially based on respondents' locations of work and residence. Findings indicate that telework appears to be poised to increase most relative to pre-pandemic levels around downtown Toronto based on locations of work, but increases in teleworking are more dispersed based on employees' locations of residence. Contrary to expectations by many, teleworking is not significantly linked to home–work disconnect – suggesting that telework is poised to weaken the commute–housing trade-off embedded in bid rent theory. Together, these results portend a poor outlook for downtown urban agglomeration economies but also more nuanced impacts than simply inducing sprawl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across Latin America, there continues to be strong resistance to the claim that racism plays a role in the production of urban space. Deemed antipatriotic, this issue remains widely unaddressed in urban planning and geography. Based on qualitative research in Bogotá and secondary literature on other Latin American cities, this article explores the afterlife of mestizaje (racial mixture) as a racial–colonial project from the viewpoint of its materialisation in the city and society–space relations. In particular, it illustrates how racism in the city is transfigured as 'always something else' (e.g., culture, class, regionalism, displacement) through a variety of normative, discursive and operational devices. Thus, the article confronts the need to divest from the racial hegemony of mestizaje in urban planning and geography, suggesting that it is hindering the path towards more equitable urban futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Progress Report reviews recent literature that rethinks the spatiality of the university. First, it discusses the growing body of work that identifies the agency of universities in producing and shaping urban space, including their role in contributing to social injustice in cities. Second, it reviews understandings of universities as sites of relational knowledge production, linking this to the proliferation of studies of student (im)mobility. Third, it considers how the university works to spatially sort and place bodies – students, staff and non-humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to analyse the status of urban system in Bethlehem governorate, through setting the hierarchical ratings for different urban populations in it. And showing the adequacy of this rating by applying certain quantitive measurements including the grade and volume of these populations, their urban density, the law of primate city by Jefferson, and the volumetric grade according to Zipf's rule of grade and volume. Also showing the volumetric urban contrast between them, and the volume of the urban domination for the main city in the governorate according to the laws and the followed modules in the studies of urban planning and geography. The results of the study show that there is an applicability of Zipf's rule of the grade and volume on each of the urban system of Bethlehem and Ubaidiya, but it did not apply on Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Doha and Al-Khader, which came significantly close in population volume, and that the city of Bethlehem does not have an absolute urban domination, but rather has a larger urban weight than the other cities, and that the urban balance is good in the Bethlehem governorate, and it is possible to achieve an optimal balance if it is well planned in the next few years. The study suggested directing investments towards less fortunate areas in order to limit the dominance of the main cities in Bethlehem governorate, and the necessity to rely on planning and statistical methods for quantitative measures and indicators of urban balance in the future in the urban planning for the governorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the robust dialogue in animal geographies by adding a focus on mobilities. Trans-paw-tation establishes a framework for understanding animal mobilities by drawing on a range of epistemological and methodological approaches, all of which aim to better understand animals and their role in the world. It goes on to propose three approaches to trans-paw-tation and the theoretical possibilities of thinking across animal geographies and mobilities: first, by reflecting on the movement of animals and animals' movements in both the historic and contemporary city; second by examining animal policies and the ways in which animals are included and excluded from urban mobilities; and third, by considering the metaphorical and symbolic associations between animals and mobilities. These deliberations are based in South African cities where both animal and transport geographies have been exploited as a mechanism for discrimination and control, and in the postapartheid context, offer opportunities for social and spatial integration. In so doing, this paper moves beyond anthropocentric approaches to mobilities by bringing animal geographies into conversation with African and urban studies and by offering a methodological contribution towards understanding trans-paw-tation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Durham, North Carolina configures itself as a place for weight loss through its dieting industry and its identity as the "Diet Capital of the World." Building from archival data from the 1930s through the 1980s, I trace the historical development of Durham's diet industry. Following work in crip studies this article theorizes weight loss as a "cure" that works to remove fatness from individual bodies and remove fat people from the future. Engaging with work in urban geography and critical geographies of fatness, this article analyzes how anti-fatness and place co-produce each other across scales in the city. The Rice Houses and Durham's broader dieting landscape illustrate how places are created for spatial and temporal disciplining of fat bodies. Attending to these sites, this article understands how anti-fat cure constructs places to discipline fat people's bodies and create futures without fatness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International and national policies are being used to prioritise increases in urban forest coverage and diversity, support equitable access to urban greenspaces, and advance sound environmental governance outcomes. Yet, the relationship between people's feelings about urban trees and public policy remains under‐examined. Drawing on a unique dataset from an email‐a‐tree initiative, the objectives of this study were to identify how concern and connection for urban trees is expressed and determine how insights from the initiative might inform urban forest governance. We examined emails sent to trees using a mixed‐methods approach that included qualitative coding, VADER sentiment analysis, and statistical and spatial analyses. We identified and considered three themes based on emails sent by members of the public and municipal tree inventory data. Those themes were location, age and loss, and type. In accord with other studies, overall sentiment for urban trees was positive and underscored people's strong connections with trees, often based on routine and repeated engagements. However, people noticed and were concerned about a limited range of trees and tree types in urban settings. Based in Melbourne, Australia, our case study shows how examining feelings for trees helps residents and researchers understand urban tree relationships and gauge how those designing public engagement programs might learn from such an initiative to create meaningful opportunities for active participation in governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Right‐wing populism has become increasingly embedded in contemporary political systems. It poses challenges not only for societies but also for geographical analysis. This review article develops a fresh perspective through examining how right‐wing populists are engaging with urban infrastructure. Examining the literature on populism and urban infrastructure we outline 'infrastructural populism', a general heuristic to understand an emerging agenda of right‐wing politics. Four political fields are identified: (i) urban infrastructure as a field of morals to frame the 'people' and the 'elite', (ii) urban infrastructure as a field of ideological struggle, (iii) urban infrastructure as a field of national statecraft and (iv) urban infrastructure as a field of everyday practices and politics. The review throws new light on right‐wing populism by showing how central infrastructure is becoming to its contemporary articulations, and how the inherently elusive and extensive qualities of populism result in often contradictory political agendas that are both aligned with and articulated against existing politics of urban infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike for other forms of qualitative data, examples of how fieldnotes are analysed are rarely provided in the literature. Using fieldnotes from my ethnographic study of the production of public space on London's South Bank as a starting point, this paper considers why this might be the case. In particular, the paper argues that for fieldnote‐based research, analysis is a feature of note‐taking, rather than a discrete phase of activity conducted using our fieldnotes once they have been collected. In this vein, the paper encourages researchers to be aware of the analytical in their fieldnotes, and to be open to the ways that analysis inside the notebook can help us identify salient objects of enquiry in our work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyze industrialization as a vector of urban growth in Blumenau. Based on a discussion of the social, economic and political context in which this industrial development took place, with the objective of the spatial reflexes of this process throughout the 20th century. Using a space-time approach, the methodological procedures involved the use of historical cartography to indicate the main axes of expansion of the urban network over four decades. The use of mixed methods made it possible to integrate quantitative and qualitative data, making it possible to indicate the percentages of expansion of the urban network and its main motivating factors. In this way, the results indicate a direct relationship between the location of the main industries and the houses, many of which are located on the steep slopes around them, configuring risk areas. This is a latent issue, revealing challenges for building a resilient city, capable of facing the climate change scenario of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of heterotopia, introduced by French philosopher Michel Foucault, refers to a spatial situation in which different, opposing, and incompatible forms can live together in the same space. With its cosmopolitan structure, Istanbul provides a rich study ground regarding heterotopic spaces. This study discusses the heterotopia spaces of Istanbul through different examples. The Fener-Balat district was chosen as the space of different ethnic and religious groups; Siirt Kadınlar Pazarı as the spatial reflection of internal migration; Fatih Çarşamba District as the space of conservative groups; Istiklal Street and Taksim Square as the center of cosmopolitanism, demonstrations, and protests; Moda and Yeldeğirmeni as a place of escapism; and finally, Karacaahmet Cemetery, the oldest and largest cemetery in Istanbul, as the space of the dead. The heterotopia spaces in the study were defined on the basis of the researchers’ 20 years of experience in Istanbul and field research conducted in different parts of the city. After defining the spaces, the participant-observer technique was used in these areas. The comments made on the digital media Google Reviews and Tripadvisor were analyzed to increase the study’s reliability. In the study, it was understood that the comments made in the digital media primarily reflected the heterotopic characteristics of the identified places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]